One Bright Shining Moment - The Forgotten Summer of George McGovern

Nixon / McGovern is the first presidential race that I can remember. I was in the third grade, so of course I did not understand the issues. All I knew was that my parents supported Nixon and my college aged brother supported McGovern.

History classes in elementary and high school never got past WWII, so this film helped me fill a gap. One of the deleted scenes explains how the U.S. first got involved in Vietnam and perhaps should have been the opening of the film.

It is great that they were able to capture McGovern in his own words while he was still alive. There are wonderful insights by Dick Gregory, Gore Vidal, and Gloria Steinem. Some of the other "talking heads" added very little and should have been excluded or cut way down. Framing them in extreme close ups made for unpleasant viewing.

The rest of the film is both too much and too little. The film opens with footage of Bush II, Clinton, etc. in what may have looked current when the film was made, but now just seems dated. It also hits you over the head with the creator's political agenda. The film returns several times to political events of the 80's, 90's, etc that have nothing to do with McGovern. It's a pointless (and wildly speculative) "look what happened because McGovern wasn't elected" argument.

The narration is over the top severe, but blandly delivered by a woman who sounds like she is reading a script.

We know how brutal Vietnam was. After a while, the repeated footage of body parts and mutilated people seemed gratuitous. We get the point.

Meanwhile, news footage that would have brought the past to life is missing. We hear about a debate in which fellow Democrat Humphrey brutally attacked McGovern. Why not show it?

McGovern's wife is barely mentioned and we learn almost nothing about her. Ditto for his children. If he had any life outside of politics, we weren't shown it. His political career ended in 1972. What did this man do for the next 40 years?

The film assumes too much knowledge of people and events. Muskie, Wallace, Humphrey, and other names and faces flash by with little explanation of who they were. As a yearbook for McGovern campaign workers, this may not be needed, but for educational purposes, this should have been included.

This film could have used an independent editor. I recommend this film, but if you weren't following the events when they occurred, you may have to supplement it with outside reading.

In 1972 Richard Nixon delivered to George McGovern the second worst electoral drubbing in history, with McGovern winning only one state (Massachusetts) and one district (Washington, D.C.). Of course, winning D.C. wasn't really a victory, since D.C. would elect a tree if it ran on the Democratic ticket, and Republicans there are considered human oddities. This film examines the phenomena that was the McGovern campaign, including the fact that many traditional Democrats were probably glad when McGovern actually lost his race.

McGovern's team won the nomination largely because this was the first Presidential election in which 18 year olds could vote, and McGovern was their man. To hear his campaign staffers tell it, before McGovern the Democratic Party was made up of a conglomeration of blue-collar union workers and Southerners left over from Roosevelt's presidency. As the party transitioned to more liberal stances, it should be no surprise that these traditional Democrats would defect, since most felt they had nothing in common with the tree-hugging hippies that made up McGovern's most fervent supporters and the new Democratic Party. McGovern never compromised his beliefs, and in the face of well-predicted electoral disaster, ran the cleanest presidential campaign in modern history against one of the 20th century's dirtiest fighters.

To give some background, in 1972 the Vietnam War appeared to have no end in sight as far as military victory was concerned, and several thousand American soldiers died in that one year alone. Nixon's claim was that withdrawing prematurely could cause upheaval in all of Southeast Asia, resulting in the entire region becoming Communist, and then those Communists going after even more territory. McGovern saw only the senseless destruction of the war, and thus vowed to stop it his first day in office. If you see parallels between the Vietnam War and our current situation in Iraq and the same resulting political polarization, you're not alone. In the end, the American people just trusted Nixon more than McGovern to protect national security, and McGovern won 38 percent of the vote to Nixon's 60 percent. I'm not sure where the other 2 percent went. Great shades of 2004.

McGovern was a good human being, and I don't think this film stresses that enough. He was dignified and spoke with clarity and intelligence. Even in this documentary he projects unbending decency without a trace of bitterness. When people wonder what would happen if a candidate spoke his or her mind and never compromised for special interest groups, they might do well to look to George McGovern as a prototype.

However, McGovern's supporters are another matter as they make numerous inflammatory remarks that sometime border on the preposterous. My favorite pronouncement came from author Gore Vidal, who was discussing with incredulity the phenomenon of anyone who makes under $25,000 a year voting Republican: "I was brought up in the ruling class. They hate the people," he says. He then goes on to describe how, if the Bush family was given sodium pentothal and asked about their feelings for America's lower class, you would hear that they think the people and elections are just something that get in the way. How he comes by this knowledge I do not know. Another gentleman postulates that George Wallace might actually have been shot by one or more of Nixon's men as a larger part of the Watergate scandal.

Besides Gore Vidal, we have Warren Beatty, Gloria Steinem, and Gary Hart opining about the campaign. Together they paint a pretty good picture of the passion and sense of urgency of the anti-war movement as it existed in the early 70's. What is missing from the film are the opinions of the silent majority that supported the war and put Nixon back in office. To understand the 1972 election in its totality, it would have been helpful to hear from someone who believed Nixon behaved legitimately as commander-in-chief, apart from his actions in the Watergate scandal. Gloria Steinem sums up the McGovern campaign best. She says that whenever former McGovern campaign staffers reunite, they look back on 1972 and the work they did with great pride. She mentions, probably accurately, that Nixon's campaign staff really can't do that.

If you get the DVD, the extras include some interesting deleted scenes that result in about an extra half hour of background on the campaign. There is also an interview with the narrator of the movie, Amy Goodman, who attempts to tie McGovern's political philosophy with the current left-wing resistance to the Bush Administration. It's a pretty good documentary about how the anti-war movement went from campus to campaign, and I recommend it.

What you didn't know about Senator George McGovern and presidential candidate George McGovern is captured by director Stephen Vittoria in this documentary which should be required viewing by all who care about our country and our election process. But it's far more. It's the story of how a distinguished professor of history, with all the values and integrity that we would like to attribute to those who enter politics and determine much of our destiny, sacrifices a secure and magnificent life with his family, for that which might make our country safer, more respected, and less corrupt. He does this because he believes it can be done to save the lives of those young Americans dying needlessly in an unjustifiable war in Vietnam. And he does it so that he and his family and all Americans can have real hope for the future. That's what we wanted then, that's what we hoped for in our leaders then, and that's, oddly what we still want so desperately in this perilous world now. There are moments in the film that remind us of things you will recall or be fascinated to know because you didn't really know the truth then. Some of what you had thought, which you will see, was totally false. You'll not only learn of the frailty of our democracy due to television, election time, commercial spots but with 20-20 hindsite, you'll see how we, the American voters, were tricked. The comic, genius of political observation, Dick Gregory, and so many magificant observers of history in the film provide intelligent even humorous observations about our lives and our system of government. It really doesn't matter what side you're on. Considering where we find ourselves today, where our nation's young soldiers, men and women are fighting in Iraq, the film tells us, bluntly that we have not really learned, or grown, or done much about our historic blunders. It's shocking. In the time of George McGovern's presidential bid against President Nixon, who would later resign in disgrace (lest he be impeached and thrown out of office), we had a choice. We could correct the mistakes of how we go into war, in Vietnam under two administrations (Johnson and Nixon), in which lost us 60,000 Americans, and wounded so many more, or we could "stay the course," as we do today. This extraordinary look into our past is like a roadmap to the future. It demonstrates how the nature of American politics does not change nomatter how obvious the truth is, particularly delivered by a 500-1 shot as was McGovern. Senator McGovern, for over a decade, had opposed our involvement in the war in Vietnam and pledged, above all, that if elected he would bring our troops home and end the senseless deaths of our young and brave men and women, fighting soldiers. This film is a tribute to a man, a former fighter pilot (35 missions in WWII), a respected senator from South Dakota and candidate for the presidency. Smear tactics from Nixon's party's CREEP, that will shock you and amaze you, and even the strange occurrences related to the attempted assassination of George Wallace will make your jaw drop. But through it all Senator McGovern had hope and gave the working people hope, the poor and isolated people hope where none had existed since the days of President Kennedy, Robert Kennedy and Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. You'll see images and hear words of that time when it was marvelous to have someone with the courage. And you'll see the power of a political machine that constantly tried to crush him. I ask you to find this film. Order it online in DVD when it's out. Read the interview in VENICE MAGAZINE (written by Alex Simon and published by Nancy Bishop). This is so important to all of us if we are ever to have hope again about our nation and our leaders. And it's as appropriate now because we are again locked in a front page war that was so similar. Don't rob yourself of this great film about one great man who would have made a difference in this nation's course. There aren't many but it gives us a slim sense of hope that there might be someone to renew our hope again and make American all that we want it to be and make us safe.

This "crying over their whiskey" and "licking their wounds" endeavor is a profoundly bad exploration of what might have been. There is not a single thing wrong with Presidential also-ran George McGovern, according to this one-dimensional documentary. The movie asks us to believe that this decent guy (who does share many of my values) would really have turned out to be equal parts Joan of Arc, Sir Lancelot and Teddy Roosevelt had he reached the White House. But sharing my values doesn't mean you have any fight in you. Instead McGovern was just another Casper Milquetoast who couldn't get it done. Even 50 years later, McGovern is as dull as dishwater (he appears here); as earnest, decent and bland as a Dickens protagonist.

Hindsight is always terrific: all things that didn't happen, are 100 percent superior (in some minds) than the awful things that we've watched happen. Well we don't need to see what might have happened with his presidency. We already know what happens to the presidencies of lackluster, nice guys. Their worldview proves to be too simplistic for the challenges that are foisted on them, and they are easily played by the more cynical GOP. Just look at the line-up of weak, apologetic Dems who failed to reach the White House because they couldn't assert themselves (Humphrey, McCarthy, McGovern, Stevenson, Mondale, Dukakis, Gore, Kerry), or the Dems who did make it to the White House who proved to be extremely weak leaders (Carter, Obama).

Attempting to associate McGovern with Camelot, the imagery of the Kennedy years (see title) is just sad & grasping. Amy Goodman, champion of all things Left, loses some credibility for even associating with this. un-nuanced sob-story. hagiography

I participated in Vietnam Summer (1967), campaigned for Gene McCarthy, and was an ardent supporter of McGovern's presidential bid even after the Eagleton fiasco. I hoped that this movie would bring back the excitement and conflict of that era. Instead, it exaggerates McGovern's virtues and everyone else's faults. The narrator makes derogatory comments about everyone else, even those who arguably are not so different from McGovern (smart, well intentioned, often effective, and human). Most of the movie is interviews with participants, including McGovern himself, who still has all the traits that made him attractive 35 years ago, including honesty about his mistakes. But many of those interviewed had peripheral roles at best and have little to say that is insightful or interesting. The big exception is Dick Gregory, who is full of clever analogies and insights.