Glory Days: A Review of Bruce Miroff's The Liberals' Moment: The McGovern Insurgency and the Identity Crisis of the Democratic Party

Abstract

Bruce Miroff's The Liberals' Moment: The McGovern Insurgency and the Identity Crisis of the Democratic Party takes a fresh look at the failed 1972 presidential campaign of George McGovern. Unfortunately, Miroff spins the story of the 1972 campaign to make a political point for today. Focusing on what he calls the "politics of insurgency," Miroff fails to adequately capture the larger, fascinating institutional story of how a candidate and his supporters transformed a party and presidential politics. In addition, he makes an ideological argument about the nature of liberalism then and now that in its elitism represents everything that was wrong with the McGovern candidacy and McGovernism.