George McGovern Thanks Gonzo Journo for Calling Him 'Best of a Lousy Lot'

By: E&P Staff One of the vehicles Hunter S. Thompson rode to fame was the 1972 presidential election, which he immortalized -- not always in a factual manner -- in his classic "Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail."

Today, in an op-ed piece for the Los Angeles Times, the antiwar Democratic candidate that year, George McGovern, who lost 49 states to Richard Nixon, thanked the late writer for at least calling him "the best of a lousy lot" in that race.

"Thompson's position," McGovern wrote, "was that I was 'honest' -- except for one 'wicked moment' when I attended Nixon's funeral and said a few sympathetic words to his family and friends. 'Yeah,' Hunter told me, 'you went into the tank with that evil bastard.'"

McGovern also recalled that Thompson had printed on the jacket of "Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail" a photograph of the two of them with the caption: "Pictured above is George McGovern urging Dr. Hunter S. Thompson to accept the vice presidential nomination."

In retrospect, "I wish I had," McGovern concluded. "Perhaps then Hunter and I might both still be alive and well instead of dead and wounded, respectively."