EUGENE MCCARTHY

Eugene McCarthy was an American politician from the 1940s to the 1970s. He served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1949 to 1959, the U.S. Senate from 1959 to 1971, and in the 1968 presidential election, McCarthy was the first candidate to challenge incumbent Lyndon B. Johnson for the Democratic nomination for president of the United States. Because of McCarthy's strong showing in the first presidential primaries, Lyndon Johnson chose not to run for re-election as President, correctly guessing that he might not win if he ran, and in fact, his Vice President, Hubert Humphrey, ran and lost against Richard Nixon. Eugene McCarthy would unsuccessfully seek the presidency five times altogether. McCarthy passed away in 2005 at the age of 89.