crowd pleasers

 

U.S. Senator Ed Muskie from Maine; U.S. Senator George McGovern from South Dakota

1972

----------------- [excerpt from Fear And Loathing:  On The Campaign Trail '72, by Hunter S. Thompson] ----------------- 

        The main problem in any democracy is that crowd-pleasers are generally brainless swine who can go out on a stage & whup their supporters into an orgiastic frenzy--then go back to the office & sell every one of the poor bastards down the tube for a nickel apiece.  Probably the rarest form of life in American politics is the man who can turn on a crowd & still keep his head straight--assuming it was straight in the first place.

        Which harks back to McGovern's problem.  He is probably the most honest big-time politician in America; Robert Kennedy, several years before he was murdered, called George McGovern "the most decent man in the Senate."  Which is not quite the same thing as being the best candidate for President of the United States.  For that, McGovern would need at least one dark kinky streak of Mick Jagger in his soul. . . .

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