Your post is still there for reference.
Your idea of how the DNC works (or worked) is historically uninformed, at least prior to the DLC takeover. It certainly is completely wrong w/r to the 1972 campaign. (Monied interests were always there, sure, but as a former card-carrying member of the AFL-CIO I don’t consider union money as tainted as some do.) The Clinton wing of the party has been in place for several decades, so it is a little hard to remember what things were like before that.
My friends and I desperately wanted McGovern to win in 1972, for selfish reasons; we didn’t want to go to Vietnam. However, those of us who were active in party politics at the time didn’t kid ourselves that McGovern had a chance, or really any coherent vision for the office. Even with the full backing of the party structure, which he certainly had, his election was always a longshot.
