ABSTRACT
Eugene McCarthy ran his Illinois campaign as a toe-to-toe competition with Muskie. A group of reformers set up delegate slates nominally pledged to Muskie to challenge Richard J. Daley's slates and to embarrass Muskie. The new McGovern rules for 1972 forbade Daley or any other elected leaders to endorse candidates. Daley's eighty-seven uncommitted delegates were elected, usually by large margins. In June, most of these would be banished from the Democratic convention, in favor of a "reform" slate rejected March 21 by the people of Illinois. McCarthy's practical genius was that he recognized before anybody else the huge, growing numbers of educated, discriminating people. McCarthy believed that once he held the educated Left and penetrated even the liberal Republican vote, the working-class and black vote would naturally follow along. McCarthy is quick to see through and to deflate the American civil religion, its rituals and its deficiencies.
