Candidates' health can decide an election

Tom Curry National affairs writer • Profile • E-mail

WASHINGTON - According to eight years of Sen. John McCain’s medical records reviewed by The Associated Press, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee appears to be cancer-free and is generally in good health.

On Friday, other news media organizations get their chance to examine McCain's medical records.

Since the start of the primary season, McCain's age, 71, and his earlier melanoma diagnosis have been the subject of great debate.

If elected, the Arizona legislator would be the oldest person to ever be inaugurated as president.

Whether age or illness will affect McCain's chances of victory in November is uncertain.

But there are historical precedents — sometimes, a candidate's health can help decide an election.

Bruise bruises Nixon campaign
Republican nominee Richard Nixon didn’t know it on that day in August of 1960, but when he whacked his kneecap on a car door in Greensboro, N.C., it may have cost him the election.

Nixon’s knee bump seemed like just an everyday bruise.

Slide show   When illness strikes The election’s outcome sometimes hinges on a candidate’s health. more photos

But the pain persisted and after a test for infection, his doctor called him and said, “You better get out to the hospital or you will be campaigning on one leg.”

Nixon had a staph infection. His doctor ordered him to remain in the hospital for two weeks and receive massive doses of antibiotics.

From his hospital bed Nixon watched as his opponent, Democrat John F. Kennedy, charmed the voters. The pain in Nixon’s knee was bad, but he wrote later “the mental suffering was infinitely worse.”

As soon he was released from the hospital, he threw himself into frenetic campaigning, became exhausted and ill and arrived in Chicago on the night of his first debate with Kennedy, as his biographer Stephen Ambrose wrote, “about ten pounds underweight, his shirt collar loose around his neck… his face wan.”

An hour before the debate when the two candidates entered the TV studio in Chicago, "It was apparent to Nixon that he had made a mistake" in agreeing to debate Kennedy, said the debate moderator Howard K. Smith in his memoirs. Nixon "was downcast; he knew it was a mistake."

Nixon decided to not wear makeup. On the television screen, he looked, according to journalist Theodore H. White in The Making of the President 1960, “tense, almost frightened, at turns glowering and occasionally haggard-looking to the point of sickness.”

Those listening to the debate on radio thought that Nixon and Kennedy had performed equally well; those watching on television deemed Kennedy the winner.

Kennedy "later told me he won the election that night," Smith wrote.

Illness can decide the outcome
Nixon’s knee illustrates how a candidate’s illnesses and injuries may help determine the outcome of an election. That truth applies both to candidates and their running mates.

Having won the 1968 election, Nixon was up for a second term in 1972.

The 1972 Democratic convention chose Sen. George McGovern as its presidential nominee and confirmed his choice of Sen. Thomas Eagleton as his running mate.

Two weeks after the convention, Eagleton told McGovern that he’d been hospitalized for “nervous exhaustion and fatigue” three times from 1960 to 1966.

The Knight newspaper chain was about to run the story, so Eagleton summoned a press conference and uttered frightening words: He’d had electric shock treatments after periods of exhaustion.

A reporter asked, “Did you find during these periods of exhaustion that it affected your ability to make rational judgments?”

No, Eagleton explained. “I was depressed. My spirits were depressed.”

Today, with ample advertising for anti-depression drugs, many Americans are familiar with depression as a condition that affects them or people they know. But in 1972, depression was more politically explosive.

McGovern’s aides had not thought to ask Eagleton during their vetting of him whether he’d been treated for depression. And Eagleton said years later that it didn't occur to him to mention his three hospitalizations to McGovern. The McGovern aides did ask if he had ever used drugs or had drunk alcohol to excess.

After the story broke, McGovern stood by Eagleton, telling reporters the Missouri senator was “fully qualified in mind, body and spirit” to “take on the presidency on a moment’s notice.” McGovern added, “I don’t have the slightest doubt about the wisdom of my judgment in selecting him as my running mate.”

Why Eagleton had to go
But after six days, McGovern decided Eagleton had to go. “Continued debate between those who oppose his candidacy and those who favor it will serve to further divide the party and the nation,” McGovern told reporters.

The Eagleton affair did nothing for McGovern's credibility, but it was only one of his many problems in the 1972 campaign. He lost to Nixon in a landslide.

After Eagleton’s death in 2007, McGovern said that he'd erred in dumping him from the ticket. "My first reaction was to say I was going to stay with him," McGovern told the AP. "But gosh, the outcry across the country was pretty intense. We felt that since we were starting a new campaign we needed to get that off the front page and we needed to get Tom to step down.”

Clark Hoyt, one of the correspondents for The Miami Herald who broke the story in 1972, wrote after Eagleton’s death, “I believe that Eagleton's mental health history was relevant to his fitness for the office he was seeking, a heartbeat away from control of the nation's military and nuclear arsenal, perhaps in a moment of international crisis."

He added, "We don't know how well Eagleton might have stood up under such stress because he never authorized any of his doctors to talk to the press or [authorized] the release of his medical records.”

MORE FROM

Section Front

Obama campaign head gets big book deal Officials turn down Franken request Joe the Plumber to become war correspondent Franken lead at 49 with absentees left to count Minn. Senate winner won't be known in 2008 First Read: 'Twas the seventh week of recount... Franken opens first lead in Minn. Senate race Mom of Palin daughter's boyfriend arrested Minn. court weighs rejected absentee ballots Minnesota panel reviews disputed ballots Section Front   Add headlines to your news reader: