Now he has two in front of him. He raises the second glass and, looking toward Joe with the glasses, he hoists it, smiling, sipping. In the next 15 seconds or so, his political instincts take over. He's up, out of his chair and approaching Joe's table, thanking him and pumping his hand, which has emboldened some other veterans to walk over. Others keep their arms folded across their chests, watching him languidly.
Joe is Joe Weiland, and he asks, "You livin' back in town?"
South Dakota's George McGovern, a prairie populist who lost badly to Richard Nixon in 1972.
(D.A. Peterson)
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"About six months out of the year, Joe," McGovern says.
Keith Miller runs a hand through his crew cut. He is 62 and a retired postal worker. "I still remember the day of the presidential election," he says later, away from McGovern. "All these reporters out here on Main Street; never seen anything like it. It wasn't a good day for McGovern ... People here thought it was really funny that he got beat in South Dakota and lost so badly. I voted for him."
There's not so much as a sign in town saying that McGovern grew up here. Years ago, they named the little waiting lounge at the Mitchell airport after him, but when commercial flights shut down, the name came off the lounge. "Mitchell's never been in love with George," Miller says.
McGovern moves on from Joe Weiland's table to shake more hands for the next five minutes, finally retaking his seat, buoyed by the reaction. "I think," he says, "that I might be emerging as a more popular figure with time, and as people get farther away from the '70s and all the talk about 'McGovernism.'"
He despises the term. You don't hear the term "Mondaleism," he points out. He likes Fritz Mondale a great deal, he says, but "people never mention that Mondale lost 49 states, too, and received fewer electoral votes than I did."
While Dole and Mondale were seemingly content, in the wake of their losses, to exit the presidential stage for good, a stung and ambitious McGovern looked for another opportunity. As a first step toward political rehabilitation, he approached Hubert Humphrey, offering to back Humphrey for the 1976 Democratic presidential nomination and run as his vice president. A misty-eyed Humphrey declined, McGovern says, leaving him wondering to this day whether Humphrey, who in 1978 would die of bladder cancer, already knew of his illness.
In 1984, McGovern made a long-shot run against Mondale and his own '72 campaign manager, Gary Hart, for the Demo-cratic nomination. The early primaries knocked him out, but by 1991, as his former student volunteer Bill Clinton made preparations to run for the presidency, McGovern dreamed again about the possibility. Pondering it while boarding a shuttle flight one afternoon, he found himself seated, remarkably, across the aisle from Richard Nixon, who was accompanied by a Secret Service agent. Nixon asked the agent to move so that his vanquished rival could have the seat next to his. McGovern used the opportunity to ask what Nixon thought about the chances of a possible McGovern candidacy.
Nixon was polite about it. "George, do you have anything fundamentally different to say?" McGovern recalls Nixon asking. "Would anybody pay attention to you and take you seriously? If you can answer yes, then maybe you can give it another try. You didn't make it before, but who knows about this time . . ."
In the end, McGovern says, "I decided it wasn't in the cards for me." He pushes the drinks aside, having barely touched them. A shy bearded man finally has worked up the nerve to shuffle across the bar and say, "George, just wanted to shake your hand, howyadoin?" And as McGovern says, "Fine," a woman rushes him.
"I loved your book about Terry the daughter," the woman gushes, slurring these words, stumbling against him. She has been drinking for a while. "I lovvvvvvvved your book." She presses her head against his chest and nuzzles him there, closing her eyes, not moving.
"Well, thank you," he says calmly.
She is an alcoholic, she says. "Sometimes I don't drink, but sometimes I do."
"I know," he says, meaning that he understands. He talks to her for a few minutes, gently holding her hand, telling her it can be okay, that there are people out there for her.
"I'm not having a good day," she says, lifting her head off his chest.
"You'll be all right," he says.
"Okay."
"It'll be all right." And he holds her hand for a while.
HE FLIES TO WASHINGTON THE NEXT DAY for two events. He signs copies of his new book, The Essential America, at a party co-hosted by fellow South Dakotan Tom Daschle, who recently lost his Senate seat in a close race. Then he attends a roast in honor of his former campaign strategist Frank Mankiewicz.
McGovern knows there will be the requisite needling at the roast about the miseries of his '72 campaign. Columnist Ellen Goodman jokes that "Frank ran the McGovern campaign to retain his sense of humor . . ." The crowd chuckles and McGovern smiles.
Introduced after Ted Kennedy, McGovern receives the evening's only standing ovation besides Mankiewicz's. It is largely an older McGovern crowd, and the mood is suffused with 1972. McGovern loves it. Only one moment stings him. The roast's co-host Cokie Roberts, who has paid McGovern an effusive tribute, says that Mankiewicz was behind his candidate "a thousand percent."
At breakfast the next morning, the line is still on McGovern's mind. "I noticed she said that, the one thousand percent thing, and I know it's a roast, but -- " he murmurs and then stops himself, brushing his hand through the air. He says, resolutely, that he is looking forward. He has his library fundraising. He has a three-week course to teach as a guest lecturer at the University of San Francisco. He wants to call Dole, talk about their school lunch project and decide on their next joint initiative.
He is ever trying to remind himself about what counts most. That afternoon, clutching a towel, he travels to Rock Creek Cemetery, near his old home in Washington, and wipes dirt from a tombstone:
TERESA JANE MCGOVERN
"Terry"
June 10, 1949 -- December 13, 1994
Precious daughter of George and Eleanor McGovern
He spends half an hour there, cleaning around the grave. He drives to a movie theater in Bethesda, watching a film starring his friend Annette Bening, making a mental note to call her. There is nothing left for him to do in Washington for now. He eats and flies home. Eleanor and Ursa are waiting. After the holidays, they all leave for his lecturing gig in San Francisco, beginning the 1,700-mile drive west in the little blue Subaru. He skips watching George Bush's inauguration on television to do an event in Santa Cruz. It will be another place, he knows, where a generation of kids will have no idea who he is; another event where he'll remind others -- and himself -- that his life has mattered much, and to reinforce his place in history. It is the also-ran's opportunity and burden.
Michael Leahy is a Magazine staff writer. He will be fielding questions and comments about this article Tuesday at 1 p.m. at washingtonpost.com/liveonline.
