Former senator Eagleton critically ill in hospital

HANNIBAL, Mo. -- Former U.S. Sen. Thomas Eagleton, who briefly was the Democratic vice presidential nominee in 1972, was in critical condition at a St. Louis hospital Saturday, the state Democratic Party chairman said.

Eagleton, 77, has suffered from various ailments and illnesses in recent years. Party chairman John Temporiti announced Eagleton's condition to hundreds of Democrats gathered at their annual conference in Hannibal and asked them to keep Eagleton in their prayers.

"He's in critical condition," Temporiti told reporters. "They're not hopeful he's going to make it."

Eagleton served in the Senate from December 1968 through January 1987, and was Sen. George McGovern's vice presidential nominee in 1972 until quitting after it was revealed he had been hospitalized years earlier for depression.

Eagleton was elected circuit attorney at age 26 in 1956, just three years after graduating from Harvard Law School. He was the youngest man ever elected to the position. He went on to be elected Missouri attorney general in 1960 and lieutenant governor in 1964.

Even after exiting elected office, Eagleton continued to play a leading role in Missouri Democratic politics.

For example, he was among the first in 2005 to encourage then-State Auditor Claire McCaskill to enter the U.S. Senate race, which she won last year against Republican Sen. Jim Talent.

McCaskill wore a 1968 yellow-and-black Eagleton campaign button -- which she had saved since she was 15 years old -- as she addressed Democrats at their Saturday night banquet.

Telling the crowd he was "gravely ill," McCaskill praised Eagleton as "somebody who had courage and integrity and was very smart and was willing to go out and fight for the little guy."

Most recently, Eagleton was co-chairman for the Missouri Coalition for Lifesaving Cures, which backed a successful constitutional amendment in November guaranteeing that all federally allowed stem-cell research also can occur in Missouri.

Democratic Attorney General Jay Nixon, who is running for governor, recalled Saturday how his parents hosted an Eagleton campaign event at their home in 1968, when Nixon was 12 years old.

"Thomas Eagleton is a political hero of mine," Nixon said.

"I was always struck by him," Nixon added. Eagleton is "a Harvard-educated guy, as smart a politician as I've ever met. But every room that this man ever walked in, everything thing he ever did, every person in that room was of equal value to him."