McGovern getting tests before launching book tour

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SIOUX FALLS (AP) — Former Democratic presidential candidate George McGovern is at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota for what he says are routine medical tests in advance of a book-signing tour.

The 89-year-old former U.S. senator last month was treated at a South Dakota hospital for exhaustion following a lecture tour in Europe. He told the media Monday that he has his strength back and will be at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., for only two days.

"I don't think they're looking for anything in particular," he said. "They just want to make sure all eight cylinders are functioning and capable of a non-stop tour to promote a new book."

His latest book, "What it Means to be a Democrat," is scheduled to be released Thursday.

McGovern was a South Dakota congressman from 1957 to 1961 and a U.S. senator from 1963 to 1981. He ran for president against incumbent Richard Nixon in 1972 and lost in a historic landslide. The liberal McGovern won only one state, Massachusetts.

McGovern was hospitalized in Sioux Falls for about five days in October to be treated for fatigue after his overseas speaking tour.

"It was just too heavy, too many colleges in too short of time with too much travel going from one to the other," he said. "Then I flew to Miami and that's when I ran out of steam."

McGovern has lived in St. Augustine, Fla., since 2008. His daughter lives in Sioux Falls.

McGovern on Monday is to attend the annual political discussion McGovern Conference at Dakota Wesleyan University in Mitchell, where he keeps a home. He is to open the conference and do a book-signing.

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