Obama has promised massive new geysers of spending and a complete oevrhaul of the economy via climate change regulation and health care "reform." George McGovern supported a $1,000 grant for every American and a "negative income tax." McGovern was a free spender but within the agreed upon framework of robust capitalism. Obama's memoir of his years as a "community organizer" lay out his almost non-existant grasp of how capitalism works. Obama's stumping for a near doubling of the capital gains tax confirms his fecklessness on growth issues.
Then there are the friends of Obama: Ayers, Dohrn, Phleger and Wright. All far left, the first two unrepentant terrorists. George McGovern did not embrace the Weathermen or the Black Panthers in those years of upheaval.
(Obama's close friend, mentor, financier and next door neighbor is the newly convicted Tony Rezko. That's not an ideological issue, and this is an ideological assessment.)
Obama's assertion that rural voters are bitter and cling to guns and Gods because of their dsappointment with life would never have occurred to the senator from South Dakota, much less spoken to a gathering of San Francisco liberals.
It is true that the country has moved to the left on a number of social and cultural issues in the 36 years since George McGovern lost in a landslide to Richard Nixon.
But there is no mistaking which of the candidates from then and now is farther left on the ideological spectrum. The only difference is that the MSM and its allies in 1972 were willing to credit McGovern with his views while this year's crop of "analysts" are intent on keeping those views out of the public's view.