In March 1968, Larner became a principal speechwriter for Eugene McCarthy in his campaign for President, working with him closely from the Wisconsin primary (when LBJ, knowing he was about to lose, announced he would not run for re-election), through the California primary (at the end of which Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated), through the convention in Chicago, where the police were rioting in the streets as Larner wrote and faxed the famous seconding speech which Julian Bond gave for McCarthy, just in time to save Bond (who had never met McCarthy) embarrassment, and help to put him on the map politically.