Eugene J. McCarthy

In 1948 Eugene McCarthy was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, where he served five terms. He was the first congressman to publicly challenge the vicious antiCommunist attacks of Senator Joseph McCarthy and was instrumental in the creation of the Democratic Study Group, which set forth a liberal program of action for the Democratic Party. McCarthy was a member of the famed "Class of 1958," one of 13 liberal Democrats who defeated incumbent Republicans in that year. He ran against President Lyndon Johnson in the 1969 election as an antiwar candidate, and his campaign mobilized thousands of young people across the nation, changing the face of presidential campaigns, and the Democratic Party forever.