McCarthywas the Republican senator from Wisconsin. He was never a candidate for president. The highest he rose, while senator, was Chairman of
"Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the Senate Committee on Governmental Operations and became its chairman in 1953. At the time of his chairmanship, the jurisdiction of the subcommittee was principally the investigation of waste, inefficiency, impropriety, and illegality of government operations." C-SPAN.org has audio of the Army-McCarthy hearings, which was essentially the end for McCarthy.
CENSURE OF SENATOR JOSEPH MCCARTHYResolved, That the Senator from Wisconsin, Mr. McCarthy, failed to cooperate with the Subcommittee on Privileges and Elections of the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration in clearing up matters referred to that subcommittee which concerned his conduct as a Senator and affected the honor of the Senate and, instead, repeatedly abused the subcommittee and its members who were trying to carry out assigned duties, thereby obstructing the constitutional processes of the Senate, and that this conduct of the Senator from Wisconsin, Mr. McCarthy, is contrary to senatorial traditions and is hereby condemned.
Sec 2. The Senator from Wisconsin, Mr. McCarthy, in writing to the chairman of the Select Committee to Study Censure Charges (Mr. Watkins) after the Select Committee had issued its report and before the report was presented to the Senate charging three members of the Select Committee with "deliberate deception" and "fraud" for failure to disqualify themselves; in stating to the press on November 4, 1954, that the special Senate session that was to begin November 8, 1954, was a "lynch-party"; in repeatedly describing this special Senate session as a "lynch bee" in a nationwide television and radio show on November 7, 1954; in stating to the public press on November 13, 1954, that the chairman of the Select Committee (Mr. Watkins) was guilty of "the most unusual, most cowardly things I've ever heard of" and stating further: "I expected he would be afraid to answer the questions, but didn't think he'd be stupid enough to make a public statement"; and in characterizing the said committee as the "unwitting handmaiden," "involuntary agent" and "attorneys-in-fact" of the Communist Party and in charging that the said committee in writing its report "imitated Communist methods -- that it distorted, misrepresented, and omitted in its effort to manufacture a plausible rationalization" in support of its recommendations to the Senate, which characterizations and charges were contained in a statement released to the press and inserted in the Congressional Record of November 10, 1954, acted contrary to senatorial ethics and tended to bring the Senate into dishonor and disrepute, to obstruct the constitutional processes of the Senate, and to impair its dignity; and such conduct is hereby condemned.
Source: 83rd Congress, 2nd Session, Senate Resolution 301 (2 December 1954).
"I think the greatest asset that the Kremlin has is Senator McCarthy." Harry S Truman
"Your telegram is not only not true and an insolent approach to a situation that should have been worked out between man to man but it shows that you are not even fit to have a hand in the operation of the Government of the United States.
" I am sure that the people of Wisconsin are extremely sorry that they are represented by a person who has as little sense of responsibility as you have" - Harry S Truman (possibly unsent telegram)
Other good sites
http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/6456/http://www.historychannel.comhttp://www.eisenhower.utexas.edu Transcript of Edward R. Murrow SEE IT NOW, March 29, 1954 
