Captain McCarthy running for Senate while in Bougainville, Solomon Islands, April 1944
Courtesy of Marquette University Archives
McCarthy ran for the U.S. Senate as a Wisconsin Republican in 1944, while in the Marines. He portrayed himself as an airplane rear gunner, calling himself "Tail Gunner Joe." When Captain McCarthy returned to Wisconsin in July, he talked to voters about postwar jobs and the creation of an international peace organization.
The Wisconsin Republican party organization gave little support to the relatively unknown McCarthy during the primary. Many overlooked the Captain because he had run as a Democrat in the 1936 Shawano County election for district attorney. McCarthy lost the Republican primary to incumbent Senator Alexander Wiley. Wisconsin voters later re-elected Wiley to the Senate in the general election.
