McCarthy, Eugene Joseph

▪ 2006

 American politician (b. March 29, 1916, Watkins, Minn.—d. Dec. 10, 2005, Washington, D.C.), left an indelible mark on U.S. history by prompting fellow Democrat Lyndon B. Johnson not to seek reelection to the U.S. presidency in 1968. A largely unheralded senator from Minnesota who had initially supported Johnson's conduct of the Vietnam War, McCarthy became outraged by the escalation of the U.S. war effort and by what he saw as Johnson's imperial presidency. Though other antiwar Democrats were more prominent, McCarthy became the first to challenge Johnson's likely candidacy openly. McCarthy energized young opponents of the war, particularly college students, whom he urged to cut their long hair (“Get Clean for Gene”) to campaign for him. When McCarthy won 42% of the Democratic vote in the New Hampshire primary, Johnson, who took 49% of the vote, was certain that he had lost popular support and ultimately declared that he would not run for reelection. McCarthy went on to win four more primaries, but his momentum was stolen by U.S. Sen. Robert F. Kennedy of New York, another antiwar candidate with a broader constituency. Kennedy's assassination led to a wide-open Democratic convention in Chicago, where Vice Pres. Hubert Humphrey, who had not run in any primary, beat out McCarthy for the nomination while antiwar protests raged outside the convention hall. McCarthy graduated (1935) from St. John's University, Collegeville, Minn., earned a master's degree in economics and sociology from the University of Minnesota, and taught in Minnesota high schools and colleges. He represented (1948–58) East St. Paul in the U.S. House of Representatives before serving as a U.S. senator for 12 years. McCarthy mounted increasingly quixotic and contrarian campaigns for the presidency in 1972, 1976, 1988, and 1992 and unsuccessfully sought to recapture his Senate seat in 1982.

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