The United States lost one of its most influential politicians from the last half-century when Eugene McCarthy died last week. Before Howard Dean, before Russ Feingold and even before Paul Soglin, there was Eugene McCarthy. He was not merely an anti-war activist, he invented the modern peace movement.

Not to be mistaken with a certain paranoid Wisconsin lawmaker who purged the nation of suspected communists in the 1950s, Sen. McCarthy was one of the few prominent politicians willing to speak out against the war in Vietnam before it became the trendy thing to do.

Sen. McCarthy is perhaps best known for his role in the 1968 presidential election, when he shocked the nation and gave a credible voice to thousands of long-haired peace freaks on college campuses, especially right here in Madison.

Prior to January 1968, the government had most Americans convinced the Vietcong were suffering defeat after defeat and a glorious American victory was in sight. Sen. McCarthy, however, saw the inherent problems with U.S. military involvement in Southeast Asia, and sent a letter to President Lyndon Johnson in 1966 asking him to refrain from bombing North Vietnam.

Disaster struck the Johnson administration when the Vietcong stunned the entire world via the Tet Offensive in early 1968. Americans' view of a dominant military came crashing down as they saw clips of the U.S. Embassy under siege from our godless communist enemies. And although Tet proved a massive military failure for the North, it forced average Americans everywhere to come to grips with the fact that their government lied to them.

These feelings manifested themselves only a few weeks later in the Democratic Primary. Sen. McCarthy exceeded all expectations, and with a little help from college activists — his most visible supporters — nearly defeated President Johnson in the New Hampshire Primary. Johnson had been expected to wipe the floor with McCarthy as early as a few days before the primary, but the Minnesota senator managed to turn the collective anger over the war into votes.

Sensing that the tide had turned and Sen. McCarthy's once-fringe views on the war now represented a sizeable faction of the Democratic Party, Bobby Kennedy decided to enter the race as a dove later that month, and a few weeks after that President Johnson uttered the now-famous phrase, "I will not seek nor accept the nomination of my party for another term as president."

Sen. McCarthy went on to win primaries in Oregon, Pennsylvania and Connecticut, and his legion of hippie peaceniks in Madison helped lead the senator to a comfortable victory in Wisconsin.

Bobby Kennedy quickly stole much of McCarthy's thunder, as he hailed from perhaps the closest thing America has ever had to a royal family. However, it appears likely that the former Attorney General would not have entered the race had McCarthy not set the stage for him to do so. Yet when Bobby Kennedy was senselessly assassinated shortly before the Democratic Convention, all eyes were once again on the only anti-war candidate left.

Unfortunately, the Democratic powers that be decided in their smoke-filled rooms that Hubert Humphrey, the vice president, stood the best chance of defeating the spawn of Satan himself, Richard Nixon. Party bosses basically decided the nominee back then, so Sen. McCarthy stood little chance of winning the nomination (Mr. Humphrey subsequently lost a close contest to Nixon).

And when utter chaos erupted on the streets of Chicago during the convention, Humphrey glared down at the street from the safety of his hotel window, voicing his disgust with the protestors. However, Sen. McCarthy grew enraged with the rampant police brutality and rushed to the streets to save a skull or two from the batons of Mayor Daley's minions of destruction.

The problem with Sen. McCarthy, however, was that he was not the type of politician who quickly and easily appealed to many Americans. He was a rather quiet man who could be heard quoting Yeats and Whitman instead of spitting out generic talking points that conveniently fit well into a 20-second news clip or a 400-word column. As a former professor and a philosopher at heart, he realized an honest debate trumped the childish name-calling that has become commonplace in American politics.

Sen. McCarthy forced aspiring Democratic politicians to take a dovish stance on the war and helped alter public opinion on Vietnam, something current-day Democrats have largely failed to do with regard to the war in Iraq. He brought down a president and changed the face of not only the Democratic Party, but the entire nation.

So when we're all toasting to the end of finals next week, be sure to raise your glass to the father of the protest movement and intelligent debate, Eugene McCarthy.

Robert S. Hunger ([email protected]) is the editorial page content editor and is a senior majoring in political science and journalism.