WASHINGTON REPORT: Political Winds from the Right
Sisyphus
WASHINGTON REPORT POLITICAL WINDS FROM THE RIGHT The month of March isn't yet behind us and the Democratic and Republican presidential nominating conventions won't take place for another four and...
...Social discontents, not just school busing but unemployment, generated votes in large measure to those three candidates...
...This is why it sounds almost wistful, as well as perplexing, when a knowledgeable observer, such as Richard Rovere, suggests otherwise...
...In Florida, the three men garnered nearly all the Democratic preference votes...
...This trend may be unsound, but it grows strong...
...As a result, Ronald Reagan is in trouble...
...Liberal contestants historically tend to believe that each has the official and true word-to the exclusion of competitors...
...In Massachusetts, Jackson, the winner, with 23 percent, Wallace placing third with 17 percent and Carter fourth with 14 percent (Udall placed second) drew more than half the total vote-54 percent...
...Whatever our liberal preferences, it would be constructive to realize, for example, that the Democrats running strongest in the primaries have proved themselves acceptable to the growing numbers of conservatives in their party and to those who are unaffiliated registered voters...
...SISYPHUSS...
...This won't occur, based on experience...
...The shock our forefathers generated two hundred years ago will not be repeated in 1976...
...In seeming contrast, the non-elected President Ford has won important preference primaries, although in New Hampshire, by a narrow margin over his major contestant, former Governor Ronald Reagan of California...
...A conservative candidate will be elected President this year...
...And in Florida, Carter did rebound to defeat Wallace and Jackson, 3 percent over Wallace and 13 percent over Jackson, who nevertheless is expected to do quite well in the New York State preference primary early next month...
...The other side of the coin is that candidates, campaigning as if it were the Cold-War years of the 1950s, will do the best among the Democrats...
...These Democrats include Carter, Jackson and Governor Wallace of Alabama...
...Nevertheless, primary results to date make it dear that conventional candidates will be nominated by both major political parties...
...Instead, it seems to be suggested, they should confer among themselves and agree to leave the field to the strongest among them-Representative Udall, former Senator Harris, Sargent Shriver, etc...
...Carter and Jackson obviously don't keep the same company that Wallace does...
...A story in itself is a related development-many, many voters are simply not voting in their primaries, based on comparisons with this year's primaries thus far and those in previous years...
...Carter, Jackson and Wallace not only are doing well in the popular vote, but they're similarly leading in coralling convention delegates...
...This trend, of course, is reinforced by a similar attitude on the part of un-affiliated voters, who constitute a larger percentage of registered voters than do Republicans...
...However, the President's fourth preference primary victory, in Florida, was a decisive one...
...Why is this...
...Humphrey, as the nominee, would be a "status-quo" candidate, supporting programs and policies that even have a degree of being out-dated and expensive...
...SISYPHUSear...
...Nevertheless, they do compete for votes from quite conservative voters, North, East, South and West, who agree with Wallace on many issues but can't accept his unpleasant characterizations of people and places he opposes...
...There has been no consistent winner among the Democratic contestants for their party's nomination...
...Nearly 40 percent of registered voters voted in New Hampshire at its last primary, 1972, while ,32 percent voted this year, lower, too, than the 1968 turn-out...
...The traditionally first was the presidential-preference primary in New Hampshire last month, followed on successive Tuesdays by those in Massachusetts, Florida and Illinois...
...The Senator will not campaign as a "liberal," which his voting record during eighteen years in the Senate suggests he is on most issues...
...Significant presidential-preference primaries have already taken place...
...Recently, in one of his occasional articles, customarily quite sound, that The New Yorker magazine publishes, Rovere would have us believe that a candidate of "the left" in the Democratic party has the support to obtain the nomination-impeded currently by a situation in which there are too many of them competing for the support of the same bloc of voters...
...WASHINGTON REPORT POLITICAL WINDS FROM THE RIGHT The month of March isn't yet behind us and the Democratic and Republican presidential nominating conventions won't take place for another four and five months, respectively...
...These days, increasing numbers of Americans have turned away from the progressive leaders in the political party to which they belong...
...We're electing next fall a President as we enter the third century of our nation's independence from Great Britain...
...If Senator Jackson continues to do reasonably well, including winning the New York State primary next month, it would become harder for Humphrey to emerge as an official candidate at the Democratic convention...
...Senator Church of Idaho, the most recently declared candidate, could prove the thesis of Rovere is correct, but this is not probable...
...Former Governor Jimmy Carter of Georgia won New Hampshire's, but finished fourth a week later in neighboring Massachusetts, whose primary Senator Jackson of Washington won...
...However, there are many Democrats of a progressive nature who are drifting toward a Humphrey candidacy simply as the only means of holding on to achievements already reached, rather than being enthusiastic about the candidate himself...
...Actually, the Democratic and Republican prefer-ence primaries to date inform us that "liberal" candidates among the Democrats aren't going to do well...
...He needs to win a few primaries...
...Usually, liberal contestants will break camp only after they don't run well in preference primaries and the money runs out-just as Senator Bayh of Indiana decided to do a few days after the Massachusetts primary earlier this month...
...Humphrey aside, the combined support for Carter, Jackson, and Wallace can not be overlooked-or minimized...
...Both President Ford and Reagan, his challenger, are, of course, born-and-bred Republican conservatives, although the latter has the air of an ideologue, particularly when talking about fiscal and foreign policy matters...
...Possibly after a brawl at the nominating convention in July in New York City, Democrats may nominate a New Dealer-say, Senator Humphrey...
...These days, Democratic voters in increasing numbers want no more New Frontiers and Great Societies...
...These two candidates will also have considerable appeal to registered voters of both parties...
Vol. 103 • March 1976 • No. 7
