Eight years later, another egghead set Democratic hearts aflame and left the rest of the country cold: former college professor Eugene McCarthy, a U.S. Senator from Minnesota. Gene had next-level egghead cred: in addition to delivering fancy speeches, he wrote poetry. (Sample lines from his poem “The Camera”: “My eye is everywhere / I am Tom, peeping.”) In 1968, McCarthy rocked President Lyndon Johnson’s reelection campaign with a strong showing in New Hampshire’s Democratic primary.
