landslide loss

Just over two weeks after his Democratic nomination for the 1972 U.S. Presidential election, it was revealed that George McGovern's [born 1922] running mate, Thomas Eagleton [1929-2007], had received electroshock therapy for clinical depression during the 1960s. A Time Magazine poll taken at the time found that 77 percent of respondents indicated that "Eagleton's medical record would not affect their vote," but an increasing number of influential politicians and columnists questioned Eagleton's ability to handle the office of Vice President; McGovern's mismanagement of the situation doomed the campaign.

shocking

While undergoing electroshock therapy at Rochester, Minnesota's Mayo Clinic in 1961, Ernest Hemingway [1899-1961] told visitor A.E. Hotchner [born 1920]

What these shock doctors don't know is about writers and such things as remorse and contrition and what they do to them. They should make all psychiatrists take a course in creative writing so they'd know about writers…Well, what is the sense of ruining my head and erasing my memory, which is my capital, and putting me out of business? It was a brilliant cure but we lost the patient. It's a bum turn, Hotch, terrible.

After a second round of shock therapy, he was unable to write and he killed himself with a shotgun at his home in Ketchum, Idaho. Memory and writing skills can be lost after shock therapy but usually return over time.