Thomas Eagleton; Missouri Senator Ran With McGovern - washingtonpost.com

Thomas Eagleton died yesterday. My mother's "McGovern/Eagleton" buttons may go up in value now - or not. I still remember the "scandal" when his psychiatric history was revealed. Would it be better now? Certainly stars aren't hurt by admissions of depression, not even serious ones like Mike Wallace, but what about a politician? Hard to say what would and would not bother voters these days. Anyway, he was a great Democrat for Missouri.

Thomas Eagleton; Missouri Senator Ran With McGovern - washingtonpost.com: "Thomas Eagleton; Missouri Senator Ran With McGovern

By Adam Bernstein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, March 5, 2007; B06

Thomas F. Eagleton, 77, a Missouri Democrat and U.S. senator who spent two weeks as the vice presidential running mate of Sen. George S. McGovern in 1972 before leaving the ticket after revelations of his earlier psychiatric hospitalization for depression, died March 4 at St. Mary's Health Center in Richmond Heights, Mo. He had heart and respiratory ailments.

Mr. Eagleton made his name as a crusading young lawyer and politician in his home state before winning election to the U.S. Senate in 1968. He supported consumer protection laws and labor union rights, but it was his strong opposition to the Vietnam War that made him a natural political ally of McGovern, a South Dakota Democrat who had long denounced the war.

For Mr. Eagleton, being tapped as vice presidential nominee among a dozen potential candidates was a signal of his rise in the party leadership. Future Colorado senator Gary Hart, who was McGovern's campaign director, once wrote that Mr. Eagleton's appeal was 'primarily because he was Catholic, urban and an unknown from a border state.'

Although McGovern's staff knew that Mr. Eagleton had been hospitalized for fatigue, the cam"