NEW: Sen. Kerry Marks Passing of Liberal Champion George McGovern

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Sunday, October 21, 2012

GoLocalWorcester News Team

Former Democratic Senator and presidential candidate George McGovern passed away on Sunday. He was 90.

The South Dakota statesman was a staunch advocate for liberal politics and rose to national prominence when he ran against Republican Richard Nixon in the 1972 presidential election as a strong opponent of the Vietnam War.

Massachusetts Senator John Kerry released a statement honoring his fellow Democrat for his decades of service to the country.

"George McGovern was a voice of clarity and conviction at a time when America needed it most. He spoke to many of us who opposed the war but loved our country, because he was the genuine article, a soft-spoken, decent and gentle man who lived a remarkable life with humility, a decorated bomber pilot who never bragged about his own heroism, even as he ran into the buzzsaw of the negative and destructive politics that marked the Watergate era," Kerry said.

"He never stopped caring about things like peace, hunger, poverty, and fairness, whether they were in political fashion or not, and history will record, to paraphrase the old saying, that George McGovern may not have been President, but George McGovern was right."