It’s been a bit less than two years since I interviewed George McGovern for my book, Clinton in Exile: A President Out of the White House, on Bill Clinton’s post presidency. McGovern and Clinton are good friends–in 1972 while a Yale law student, Clinton worked for McGovern organizing the state of Texas–although the friendship was frayed by McGovern’s switching his endorsement last May from Hillary to Obama.

McGovern, who lost every state but Massachusetts (and the District of Columbia), in what has to count as the biggest debacle in presidential contest history, was one of several who recently offered “My Convention Memory” on the op-ed page of the New York Times. Except for Kennedy speechwriter Ted Sorensen’s experience with another colossal loser, Michael Dukakis, none but McGovern’s are worth the time. McGovern’s, in fact, is downright jaw dropping.

In 458 words he describes a sea change over 38 years in the way campaigns are run.

We are finally finished with the nonstop cable/web/blog pontificating and handicapping of who will be the vice presidential picks. Although many stories alleging insufficient vetting of Sarah Palin have surfaced since Friday morning when McCain introduced the Alaska governor as his running mate, the vetting was 1000-fold more probing than it was back in ’72. (Some surprising stories have emerged since Friday about Palin—her 17-year-old daughter is five months pregnant—and some have also emerged about Joe Biden—the lobbying conflicts involving his sons and 5 draft deferments for Joe before he was classified to go into the military only in case of national emergency because of asthma as a teenager.)

That year, McGovern went to his convention in Miami having not yet selected his running mate. He hit the phones from his hotel, calling around the way someone who is going to give a speech at a local chamber of commerce might place some calls to find a local luminary willing to introduce him. The difference is that someone looking for a lead-in to a local speech to 50 people wouldn’t wait so long.

Even though Maine Senator Ed Muskie and Hubert Humphrey–who led the ticket to defeat in 1968–had already said no to running as McGovern’s number two, the South Dakota senator exhibited a surprising lack of urgency. McGovern recalls that he had arrived in Miami on the Sunday before the convention, but didn’t meet with his staff about the VP pick until Thursday–the day after he was nominated.

“We had until 4 p.m. to find a vice-presidential nominee,” he writes. That very day. One can only wonder whether McGovern and his advisers broke for lunch.

That morning McGovern had telephoned Ted Kennedy who “declined.” McGovern thought he might like Kennedy in-law Sargent Shriver, the architect and first director of the Peace Corps, but McGovern couldn’t reach Shriver because he was in the Soviet Union. (Was there no way to cable him or call him on a landline?)

Next McGovern called Walter Mondale, who also declined to take the number two spot (but accepted four years later when Jimmy Carter asked him).

Then comes the most wonderful paragraph:

“…I turned to Abe Ribicoff, a senator from Connecticut and another longtime friend. He said it would be an honor to be the first Jew on the national ticket of either party, but he was about to marry. `I just can’t cancel a honeymoon and take on a national campaign.’”

McGovern finally found a live one in Boston Mayor Kevin White, but White was not acceptable to the Massachusetts delegation.

The person whom McGovern says was “openly campaigning for the post” was Missouri senator Thomas Eagleton, who had come recommended by a few people–Ted Kennedy, Walter Mondale, Wisconsin senator Gaylord Nelson (who had also turned McGovern down).

So McGovern settled on Eagleton..

At a time when vice presidential candidates are supposedly vetted within an inch of their public and private lives, Eagleton, who was offered the job at 3:45, with 15 minutes to spare in McGovern’s deadline, was apparently simply taken at his word. Eagleton assured McGovern’s political director, Frank Mankiewicz, that, as McGovern recalls, “There was nothing in his background that would be considered troublesome.”

After 18 days and despite a promise to back Eagleton “1000 percent,” McGovern dropped Eagleton from the ticket after news stories that the Senator had undergone electroshock for treatment of depression overwhelmed the campaign. McGovern then went with Shriver, who was finally home from the Soviet Union and easily reachable.

McGovern recalls that “Mankiewicz …said with a wry smile: `Walter Cronkite was just named the most admired man in America. How about him?’ We let this intriguing possibility pass as too unrealistic. I later learned from Walter that he would have accepted. I wish we had chosen him.”