McCarthy's method is classic, literally. Three great failures of the modern U.S. press, according to McCarthy, are Communism, Vietnam, and now campaign reform. McCarthy believes that what is generally considered campaign reform and is supported by most of the press is incompatible with free speech. Most radical movements in the country, from the American Revolution to abolition to the women's movement, to his own campaign in 1968, were not financed by small contributors, according to McCarthy. Money, according to McCarthy, is a source of low-level sin.
Ambition is worse.
If Nixon had acted on the basis of money, we might all have been better off. If the limits were off individual contributions, he says, we might have fewer rich men running for office and they could go back to playing polo in October. One wonders what McCarthy thinks about Hubert, but if you want to hear the usual cultural memes about tragedy or other complexities you will be disappointed. McCarthy does not select his categories of analysis from out of the usual cash drawer. His only mention of Humphrey was in the context of a riff on Lyndon Johnson.