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1. What should I read on the lingering legacy of McGovern's '72 blowout? That loss was clearly a formative moment for Clinton/Sanders era Democrats. I suspect this might connect to the current generational divide within the Democratic Party re. Bernie.
2. As I experienced it, center-left and left folks had two choices in the 90s...either tack to the middle to avoid being McGovern (the Clinton/DNC route) or keep pressing for more progressive policies largely from outside the mainstream Dem party (Nader/Sanders/Greens).
3. Jessie Jackson's candidacies in the 80s (about wch I want to learn more) strike me as a transitional period. When he was unable to move the Democrats significantly leftward it created the conditions for either "pragmatic" centrism (Clinton) or principled rejection (Sanders).
4. When I see the differential support Bernie gets from older vs. younger Democrats, it makes me wonder if olds like myself are still fighting the old battles of the 90s, when McGovern's shellacking was a defining moment in the electoral history of the Democratic party.
5. To most folks under 45, McGovern is probably a non-entity more than a scary boogeyman or an object lesson. This very well might be a good thing. Yet as a historian, I also feel like there might be lessons from '72 that are worth heeding. Anyway...what should I read?
6. For those unfamiliar with the outcome of the 1972 election, you might be surprised by how well the now reviled Richard Nixon did. 
7. Painting McGovern as the candidate of "amnesty, abortion, and acid" worked pretty well for Nixon, who stole that framing from Hubert Humphrey, the moderate Dem who was one of McGovern's most formidable opponents in the primary.
