- racial integration
- labor unions
McGovern was the liberal opponent of Nixon's dreams. The South Dakotan's support for racial integration and amnesty for draft evaders would not go down well with white voters in the South. Further, although McGovern had the most pro-labor voting record of any major-party candidate in U.S. history, blue-collar voters did not identify with him or his followers. At the contentious Democratic convention in Miami that summer, one labor leader complained of seeing
"too much hair and not enough cigars."
During the roll-call vote, a few conservative delegates protested by casting their ballots for Archie Bunker, the opinionated white protagonist of the television sitcom All in the Family (1971-1979), who had become a spokesman for blue-collar values in the culture wars of the 1970s. Republicans saw their opportunity. At Nixon's instigation, their party platform abandoned its traditional hostility to labor unions, instead praising them for advancing the well-being not only of their members but also of our entire free-enterprise system." The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) decided to sit out the election.