Last weekend, when I heard the news of the death of Sen. Eugene McCarthy, not long after hearing the news of the death of Richard Pryor, I thought how appropriate it was. McCarthy spent much of his Minnesota political career living in the shadow of Hubert Humphrey, the titular head of the Democratic-Farmer Labor Party of that state. McCarthy’s name even left him in the shadows, as he was always “the other McCarthy,” so as to separate him from the infamous Joe McCarthy. Now he leaves in the shadow of another more famous than he.

Growing up in Minnesota, the state of the political giants at mid-century, I was always aware of McCarthy, but he was always “the other senator.” As part of the trinity of Minnesota politics — Orville Freeman, Humphrey and McCarthy — he was the ghost of the group. As senator and governor, Humphrey and Freeman were often seen in tandem. McCarthy was, more often than not, seen alone.

He was an odd politician. Not much interested in the spotlight, seen essentially as a senator who served the state and the nation, he was admired as a man of principle. He was also admired as a man of considerable learning and erudition. How many politicians, except the great Southern orators, ever quoted poetry, let alone wrote it? (Listen to a reading of his “No Country for the Young”).

The underside of his low profile was a feeling in many quarters that he was a do-nothing politician, a lazy senator who did not much care for the day-to-day detail work of the Senatorial round. The story that he took a book along to read during committee hearings reinforced that image.

He is best remembered by those of my generation as the man who sent President Lyndon B. Johnson into retirement in 1968. His view was to reshape the debate over the war and move LBJ away from his futile policies. So Sen. McCarthy stepped forward and challenged the president in the New Hampshire Primary when others, unwilling to risk the wrath of the party and the president, sat on the sidelines (listen to his speech upon entering the race).

Young people across the country responded in large numbers. “Clean Gene’s Army,” they were called, as many of those with long hair cut it off and shaved their beards as they enlisted as foot soldiers in the New Hampshire primary.

At the time I was in Memphis, Tenn., caught up in the day to day protests of the garbage strike that claimed the life of Martin Luther King Jr. After New Hampshire, I gathered with a group of people supporting McCarthy and we opened a “McCarthy for President” headquarters in an empty warehouse near downtown. We knew that McCarthy’s candidacy was not going to sweep through Memphis or Tennessee but we felt it important to establish a presence. The one thing that surprised us is how many people on the streets of Memphis would say they were Wallace supporters, but if Wallace was not in the race they would vote for McCarthy. Al Gore Jr. supported McCarthy and offered his efforts while he was in Memphis that summer of 1968.

We headed up to Nashville at one point to hear McCarthy speak at Vanderbilt, as he was now a national phenomenon following his close second-place finish in New Hampshire. He had not won that primary but he did change the course of politics when LBJ dropped not long after the New Hampshire vote.

The months following New Hampshire were difficult for the nation and for McCarthy supporters. The assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., the entrance of Robert F. Kennedy into the presidential race, and then the assassination of Kennedy following the California primary in June, all added to the high tensions of the time.

Through it all Sen. McCarthy was a steady and calm voice against the war, decrying the violence and turmoil at home, and expressing the feelings of many in the face of turbulent events (listen to a 1967 anti-war speech).

The climax of the McCarthy campaign came at the Democratic Convention in Chicago when the week was filled with violence. LBJ’s choice as his successor, Sen. Hubert Humphrey, now the other senator from Minnesota, was nominated. McCarthy went to the convention knowing he could not win, but he stayed as the head of the movement he had started and took its message to the convention floor. Many of his supporters took it to the streets.

When his nomination failed, many were disappointed. Some looked for him to mend fences and endorse his old colleague from Minnesota. It did not happen until the final week of the campaign as McCarthy continued to pressure the Democratic nominee to push away from the president on the war.

In the end Richard Nixon was elected and many blamed McCarthy for the result. It is doubtful that McCarthy affected the ultimate outcome, but what he did do was remain faithful to the anti-war cause that started him down the road in ?68, and for that all should be forever grateful.

I still think of Eugene McCarthy with some frequency as I have become more disconnected from the world of political action and protest. I have watched in dismay as for the second time in my life the United States has chosen a military option to a problem that is not amenable to a military solution (listen to McCarthy’s own opposition to the Iraq War). I think of Gene McCarthy and wonder if there is another such politician in America with his qualities who can inspire an ?army? of supporters. It?s been too long a wait.