Theodore H. White
Theodore H. White, the journalist who followed the campaign most closely, reports that the "1000 percent" phrase was repeatedly mentioned over and over again by voters and damaged McGovern even more than his actual reversal of support for Eagleton. The reason, according to Trent and Trent, was that McGovern's rhetoric throughout the campaign had been intensely moralistic and hyperbolic: he repeatedly emphasized his moral superiority over Nixon and Nixon's supporters. For example, in one speech McGovern attacked some Nixon advocates as "lousy, bitter, paranoid, predictable, despicable, obnoxious propagandists who are consistently wrong and who write nothing good about any candidate more liberal than Genghis Khan." But now his own extreme language was exposed as fraudulent by his use of the 1000% metaphor.