Loren Gatch wries:

While the word "flip-flop" has been a part of America's political lexicon since the early 20thcentury, as a piece of political invective the term has become widespread only in the lastgeneration. As with most political speech, the more it has been used the less it means. Nowadays,almost any apparent inconsistency-or even the intellectually honest act of changing one's mind-getsa public figure in hot water. Back in 1972, however, "flip-flop" did most definitely describe thebehavior of the Democratic Party's presidential candidate, George McGovern, towards his runningmate, Thomas Eagleton. The fiasco of McGovern's embrace and then disavowal of his vice-presidentialchoice not only created the "Eighteen-Day Running Mate" but gave rise to a widely-available exampleof political scrip, George McGovern's $1000 Promissory Note.

The convention proceedings in Miami Beach stretched on in a way that rushed the selection ofMcGovern's vice-presidential candidate. When other alternatives, like Boston's mayor Kevin White,proved unacceptable, the McGovern forces finally turned to Thomas Francis Eagleton (1929-2007), thejunior senator from Missouri. While not as well-known as Kennedy, Eagleton's Catholicism and hislinks to organized labor promised to balance the ticket in a similar way. With hardly any vettingof his background, Eagleton was offered a spot on the ticket on July 13 in a phone conversationwith McGovern that lasted barely one minute.

It was only after accepting the nomination that Eagleton confirmed rumors that since 1960 he hadbeen hospitalized three times for depression, and twice undergone electroconvulsive-popularlycalled "electroshock"-therapy. Not only had Eagleton dissimulated in failing to tell the McGoverncampaign about these episodes, he continued to resist explaining his medical record in any detail.Eagleton's stance put the McGovern campaign in a terrible bind. Forcing Eagleton off the ticketwould look callous, and destroy McGovern's image as a different, and more principled, type ofpolitician. Yet keeping Eagleton raised enormous doubts about the competence of a man who might besecond in line to assume the presidency, as well as about McGovern's own sense of judgment.

In a joint press conference with McGovern on July 25, Eagleton first publicly confirmed his pasthospitalizations, and McGovern famously declared that "I am 1,000 percent for Tom Eagleton and haveno intention of dropping him from the ticket." The statement was, according to Theodore H. White,"possibly the most damaging faux pas ever made by a Presidential candidate."

The pushback against McGovern's decision was intense. The liberal press was against Eagleton;donations to the Democratic Party dried up; and McGovern's own campaign workers were dealt ademoralizing blow.

McGovern's unfortunate use of the term "1,000 percent" regarding Eagleton also resonated withone of his earlier campaign proposals to reform the country's welfare system. McGovern had proposedto give each American a $1,000 payment (a "demogrant"); an idea that, linked with a broader taxreform, actually had a certain academic pedigree and was a forerunner of what later emerged as theEarned Income Tax Credit.

On its face, though, the notion was easy to caricature; Humphrey ridiculed it during theCalifornia primary, while Nixon's campaign director Clark MacGregor called it a "$1,000-perpersongiveaway program that would split America permanently into a welfare class and a workingclass."

A short time later, during the Republican convention (also in Miami Beach), Scripps- Howardnewspapers noted how "funny money-fake $1,000 bills bearing the face of Democratic presidentialnominee George S. McGovern-floods convention hotels." Dispensed over souvenir store counters at theconvention, the $1,000 bills sport a red profile of McGovern, facing to his left, framed by bluescrollwork. The text, also in red, reads "Here's the $1,000 McGovern promised everyone", "Legaltender to anyone stupid enough to take it at face value", and with the promise that "On Nov. 7,1972 this bill will self-destruct." The reverse (of which there seem to be two varieties, oneprinted brown, and another green) is labeled a "promissory note" with a portrait of an agitated andperspiring Eagleton mopping his brow. "McGovern says he's behind me 1,000 percent", "but...he didn'tsay how far behind!" This side is described as "Payable Nov. 8, 1972, at Credibility Gap,U.S.A."

Crudely printed on the cheapest paper, the parody notes deftly juxtaposed the two lines ofattack directed at McGovern's candidacy: that his policy proposals were too radical for the nationand that his treatment of Eagleton reflected poorly on McGovern's character and judgment.Reproduced in facsimile in newspapers across the country, the notes themselves quickly showed up atpolitical events as far away as San Antonio, Texas.

The Democrats never recovered from the Eagleton debacle, and the McGovern-Shriver ticket went onto lose in November 1972 by the widest margin of the popular vote in the history of presidentialelections. After the Eagleton experience, vice presidential nominees were never again selected socasually and without proper background checks.