Humphrey's Strategy of Optimism

...Most Democratic politicians stand in awe of the Kennedy machine, with its vast resources, its organizational abilities, and its tough, unrelenting drive...

...Humphrey, through hard missionary work as head of the President's advisory commission to the nation's mayors, has been carefully cultivating the party's power elite...

...Backing from party professionals hinges largely on a candidate's proven ability to win votes...

...Under the stern discipline imposed by the President, Humphrey has evolved from a liberal crusader to a consummate pragmatic politician who has devoted much of his time to building excellent relations with nearly every Democratic chiefRoger Kingsbury regularly reports on the Washington political scene...

...Minnesota, his traditional power base, is in a shambles, with McCarthy holding a majority of its delegates and the Farmer-Labor coalition wracked by internal bickerings and weak leadership...

...Still, each campaign has a life of its own and must move at its own pace toward a verdict...

...Humphrey is clearly the Democrats' favorite son against the Johnson protest candidates, now cast in the role of rebels without a cause...

...Washington To say that Hubert Horatio Humphrey is the lesser of the three evils currently vying for the Democratic party's Presidential nomination is perhaps to oversimplify his growing stature as a contender...

...The first Gallup poll after Johnson's announced retirement showed Kennedy leading Humphrey by only four points...

...Humphrey is still in bondage to the President...

...Since he could not risk entering any of the primaries, he can only hope that his public utterances, coupled with the private efforts of Johnson Democrats to hold the line against Kennedy, will keep him reasonably strong and within striking distance on the first ballot...

...It is not too early to guess, however, that McCarthy may have a lot to say about who eventually gets his party's nod...

...Obviously, he will spend part of his time defending the Administration's record...

...And while Humphrey was viewed with mistrust by many of these same businessmen and politicians when President Johnson teased him onto the ticket in 1964, the Vice President has spent the past four years convincing (he establishment that he has abandoned his youthful radicalism for a softer life in middle age...

...Much of the emotional fervor now being expended in behalf of Hubert Humphrey is traceable to Kennedy's unpopularity within his own party, and he has only to demonstrate that he is strong with the public to convert ill will into reluctant support...

...But when you lose, you wonder how in hell you could've hired so many slobs...

...Added to these woes is the fact that Humphrey's other sources of support—the Negro and intellectual communities—are being fought over and divided between Kennedy and McCarthy...

...McCarthy nevertheless has several very severe problems to overcome before he can be said to have a realistic chance for the nomination...

...What is believed in politics, moreover, is no less important than what is true, and currently most Democratic politicians opposed to Robert Kennedy believe the public is turning against him...

...But these attributes have been exaggerated...

...If, for example, Vietnam should flare up beyond its present level, Humphrey's entry into the campaign will restore legitimacy to the Kennedy-McCarthy protest candidacy...

...but we believe winning elections is even more important...

...But should Kennedy fool his eager burial society by winning handsomely in the remaining primaries—especially in California—the psychological advantage for his cause will be stunning...

...As convention time approaches, Humphrey will gradually escalate his political appearances around the country, speaking in the same cheerleader style he has used over the past four years...

...His campaign staff is reported to be one of the most poorly organized in the history of American politics...

...With Johnson out, the Senators appear trapped by their own devices on the fringes of the Left, beyond the reach of a popular mandate...

...In the memorable words of Democratic National Chairman John M. Bailey, "We Democrats believe personalities and ideology are important...

...Conclusions arrived at during this precon-vention period are necessarily little more than haphazard guesses...

...The Humphrey people count on picking up many of his delegates if there is more than one ballot...

...Governor Richard Hughes of New Jersey, a strong Johnson loyalist, has kept most of his state's delegation in line, and Humphrey sentiment is said to flow strong in the statehouses of Missouri and Iowa...

...Who's supporting whom is the number one topic in Washington these days...

...They note that RICHARD DALEY if his popularity takes another dip, and he politically bear-hugs Hubert, the results could be disastrous...

...The implication, of course, being that Kennedy could expect Johnson to fight him like hell...

...But the overriding fact of the Vice President's candidacy is that while he is the third Democrat to declare, he is the first to occupy his party's vital center position...

...This may well be the most realistic assessment of Humphrey's chances...

...And it's not too hard to ask a stand-in to move over...

...Both Tate and Mayor Joseph Barr of Pittsburgh have hinted in public that they may support him...

...He cannot, and will not, break with the basic policies of the Administration, and any future fiascos at home or abroad are bound to diminish his standing in the party and with the electorate...

...He is also expected to pointedly move off on his own by offering up kernels of programmatic schemes, such as his "minimum income for children" idea that was a sure-fire headline-grabber...

...It is difficult to overestimate Humphrey's popularity among party professionals, or to underestimate the number of personal favors owed in return to this genuinely friendly and openhearted man...

...For his part, Humphrey enters the Presidential race with wounds so grievous they would render him comatose under normal political circumstances...

...What other services Johnson might render his loyal Vice President remain very much a mystery...

...And if this is the principal reason for Richard Nixon's apparent lock on the Presidential nomination—despite Nelson Rockefeller's latest effort to get it—it could also be Hubert Humphrey's...

...Thus, while Humphrey begins his drive for the Presidency with the momentum of a Stop Kennedy movement providing acceleration, the Vice President's famous cheery optimism may well prove to be the tonic the public wants and make him strong in his own right...

...The more widely held view is that with so many votes needed this year to get the nomination, it seems unlikely that any of the three contenders will amass enough support to go over on the first ballot...

...And his rapidly dwindling bankroll, coupled with his low-key, often vague platform manner, hardly inspires thoughts of ultimate victory...

...After all, we're the President's stand-in as far as defending the Administration's record is concerned...

...If Kennedy wins the remaining primaries in a convincing fashion he will be the only candidate in Chicago next August who is a proven vote-getter...

...Meanwhile, the Vice President has hurriedly put together a campaign organization that will be further expanded should he win the nomination...

...There are those who say, with some justification, that Washington is probably the worst observation post from which to view the national political scene...

...This places him in a potentially disadvantageous position, for, if either Kennedy or McCarthy win big in all the remaining primaries they are sure to slice away at Humphrey's position in the polls as well...

...While it is true that Kennedy possesses some superb political talent on his campaign staff and unlimited financial resources, the Senator has so far failed to create the kind of tightly knit juggernaut that brought his brother victory in 1960—an operation, incidentally, that never quite equalled its public image either...

...This has not stopped the rumor mills from grinding, of course, and where three weeks ago few politicians were giving Humphrey much of a chance, the talk today is that Kennedy is in trouble...

...of Atlanta, Governor John Connally of Texas, and industrialist Ben Heineman of Chicago are undertaking active roles in his drive for the Presidency...

...Indeed, the rhetoric flowing from the Kennedy and McCarthy campaigns seems to defy the public mood to return to normalcy and tranquility at whatever cost...

...For the moment at least, Kennedy's campaign is just as frantic, disorganized and frustrating as McCarthy's has been, and Humphrey's will surely be...

...At first glance, this growing opinion would seem to work in Humphrey's favor...

...Some Humphrey aides are nervous about Johnson's penchant for being heavy-handed...

...The Vice President has rightly bragged that he is the best stump orator in American politics, and he is certain to employ the approach he loves best—the politics of optimism and the articulation of what is right with America...

...The irony, of course, is that Robert F. Kennedy and Eugene McCarthy now raise the same sort of hackles in the business community and among middle-of-the-road Democrats that Humphrey raised in the early 1950s...

...In addition, Humphrey's image has been badly tarnished during his four years as official Great Society booster, a role that cost him the respect of many anti-Johnson Democrats, and his enthusiastic support of Vietnam has ruptured many of his old alliances in the party's liberal wing...

...The optimistic Humphrey people say they are getting roughly half of the committed and unconuTiitted state delegations—a percentage that could bring them close to the 1,312 votes needed for a first-ballot victory...

...Humphrey's Strategy of Optimism By Roger Kingsbury tain and business leader of any consequence...

...It is a tribute to Humphrey's broad appeal that such diverse men as Labor Secretary Wil-lard Wirtz, New Dealer James Rowe Jr., Mayor Ivan Allen Jr...

...Given the President's secretive and often devious ways, much of the behind-the-scenes help he may furnish Humphrey will probably never be known...

...That this has not happened is heartening to Humphrey, although there is no reason to believe such cunning politicians as Mayors Richard Daley of Chicago or James Tate of Philadelphia would be willing to wear their political hearts on their sleeves this early in the game...

...But lest popularity be confused with political strength, the Kennedy camp is already comparing Humphrey to Nixon, pointing out that neither man has won an election by himself in more than a decade...

...The billing he is now receiving as party unifier comes naturally to the Minnesotan whose radiant good will has helped to smooth relations between the White House and scores of politicians neglected or abused by Lyndon Johnson...

...It has been reported that in his White House meeting with Senator Kennedy, the President made it clear that while he has declared his intention to stay out of domestic politics, he reserved his right to change his mind...

...A few staffers worry in another direction, being suspicious that Johnson may not be quite as retired as everyone thinks...

...Humphrey is in the fight, but in the role of a main eventer waiting for the preliminaries to end...

...It is also known that at an emotional Cabinet meeting the following day, Johnson heaped praise on his Vice President...

...We are everybody's second choice," is the way one Humphrey aide puts it, "and if Kennedy doesn't win on the first ballot, we'll take it on the second or third...

...The only real measure of Humphrey's political effectiveness will be the various opinion polls...

...There seems to be no more vital task the President could perform in Humphrey's behalf than to keep the country and the world on an even keel until mid-August...

...and in the evening he followed this up with a long telephone call to Humphrey concerning political strategy...

...Much the same may be said of McCarthy's chances...

...Yet if he should upset all predictions and win strongly in Oregon and California, he will have provided some solid evidence to use against those who claim he lacks the necessary style and leadership to be effective in a national campaign...

...One Humphrey man put it this way: "I'll believe the President is retired when he tells the country, 'Hubert is my man, and if the convention tries to draft me I'm going to turn as many supporters as I can right over to him.' Until then, I can't help thinking that Humphrey is working to keep open Johnson's opportunity for a draft...

...The initial thinking in the Humphrey camp following the President's withdrawal was that Kennedy would move quickly in a virtual political vacuum to gather powerful preconvention support...

...It is almost impossible, therefore, to accurately gauge the status of Kennedy's campaign...

...Naturally, the Kennedy supporters fail to mention that like Nixon, Humphrey has firmly cemented his relations with the party professionals and has a large number of political debts to collect...

...Some Humphrey people are even claiming that their man is the most popular Democrat in memory...

...By necessity as well as by choice, both McCarthy and Kennedy sought the support of vocal minorities in American life—the university population, the peace militants, the civil rights activists—in the effort to kindle a genuine grass roots movement against the President...

...Possibly in anticipation of Humphrey's role as binder of the nation's wounds and accentuator of the positive in American life, the war-weary and ghetto-scared public offered a down payment of strong support for the Vice President...

...Very few political leaders are taking him seriously these days...

...As Ted Sorenson recently told a group of reporters, "Let's face it, when you win an election your staff seems to be suddenly composed of political geniuses...

...Of course, much can happen domestically and internationally in the two and a half months before the convention to drastically alter these chances, for better or otherwise...