Eugene McCarthy

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Eugene Joseph McCarthy (March 29, 1916 – December 10, 2005) was an American politician and poet from Minnesota.

He served in the United States House of Representatives from 1949 to 1959 and the United States Senate from 1959 to 1971.

McCarthy sought the Democratic nomination in the 1968 presidential election, challenging incumbent Lyndon B. Johnson on an anti-Vietnam War platform.

McCarthy sought the presidency five times, but never won. Born in Watkins, Minnesota, McCarthy became an economics professor after earning a graduate degree from the University of Minnesota.

He served as a codebreaker for the United States Department of War during World War II. McCarthy became a member of the Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party (the state affiliate of the Democratic Party) and won election to the House of Representatives in 1948.

He served until winning election to the Senate in 1958.

McCarthy was a prominent supporter of Adlai Stevenson II for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1960 and was himself a candidate for the Democratic vice presidential nomination in 1964.

He co-sponsored the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, though he later expressed regret about the impact of the bill and became a member of the Federation for American Immigration Reform. As the 1960s progressed, McCarthy emerged as a prominent opponent of President Johnson's handling of the Vietnam War.

After Robert Kennedy declined the request of a group of anti-war Democrats to challenge Johnson in the 1968 Democratic primaries, McCarthy entered the race on an anti-war platform.

Though he was initially given little chance of winning, the Tet Offensive galvanized opposition to the war and McCarthy finished in a strong second place in the New Hampshire primary.

After that primary election, Kennedy entered the race and Johnson announced that he would not seek re-election.

McCarthy and Kennedy each won several primaries before Kennedy was assassinated in June 1968.

The 1968 Democratic National Convention chose Vice President Hubert Humphrey, Johnson's preferred candidate, as its presidential nominee. McCarthy did not seek re-election in the 1970 Senate election.

He sought the Democratic presidential nomination in 1972 but fared poorly in the primaries.

He ran in several more races after that, but never won election to another office.

He ran as independent in the 1976 presidential election and won 0.9% of the popular vote.

He was a plaintiff in the landmark campaign finance case of Buckley v. Valeo and supported Ronald Reagan in the 1980 presidential election.

Early life

McCarthy was born in Watkins, Minnesota. He was the son of a deeply religious Catholic woman of German ancestry, Anna Baden McCarthy, and a strong-willed man of Irish descent, Michael John McCarthy Jr., a postmaster and cattle buyer.

McCarthy grew up in Watkins with his parents and three siblings. He attended St. Anthony's Catholic School in Watkins, and spent hours reading his aunt's Harvard Classics. He was influenced by the monks at nearby St. John's Abbey and University in Collegeville, Minnesota, and attended school there, at Saint John's Preparatory School, from which he graduated in 1932. He also went to college at Saint John's University, graduating in 1935. McCarthy earned his master's degree from the University of Minnesota in 1939. He taught in public schools in Minnesota and North Dakota from 1935 to 1940, when he became a professor of economics and education at St. John's, working there from 1940 to 1943.

While at St. John's, he coached the hockey team for one season.

In 1943, considering the contemplative life of a monk, he became a Benedictine novice at Saint John's Abbey. After nine months as a monk he left the monastery, causing a fellow novice to say, "It was like losing a 20-game winner". He enlisted in the Army, serving as a code breaker for the Military Intelligence Division of the War Department in Washington, D.C. in 1944. He was then an instructor in sociology and economics at the College of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota, from 1946 to 1949.

Personal life

McCarthy and his wife, Abigail Quigley McCarthy, had five children, Christopher Joseph (April 30, 1946 – April 30, 1946), Ellen Anne, Mary Abigail (April 29, 1949 – July 28, 1990), Michael Benet, and Margaret Alice.

In 1969, McCarthy separated from his wife after 24 years of marriage, but the two never divorced. The children stayed with their mother after the separation. According to McCarthy biographer Dominic Sandbrook, McCarthy was involved in a romantic relationship with CBS News correspondent Marya McLaughlin that lasted until McLaughlin's death in 1998.

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