Gene McCarthy dies at 89

Former Minnesota Democratic Senator Eugene McCarthy also died today. Of course he's best known for his 1968 presidential run; his near-win in the New Hamphshire primary that year was the impetus for President Lyndon B. Johnson's withdrawl from the presidential race.

Although his highest office was senator, he was a kind of philosopher-king, writing poetry and several books.

McCarthy's 1988 view of the Democratic Party was dead on-accurate. From AP:

The racial, social and political tensions within the Democratic Party in 1968 have continued to affect presidential politics ever since.

"It was a tragic year for the Democratic Party and for responsible politics, in a way," McCarthy said in a 1988 interview. "There were already forces at work that might have torn the party apart anyway — the growing women's movement, the growing demands for greater racial equality, an inability to incorporate all the demands of a new generation.

"But in 1968, the party became a kind of unrelated bloc of factions ... each refusing accommodation with another, each wanting control at the expense of all the others."

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