Facing the Choice

...Even the most disillusioned of Democrats should ponder these things quickly...

...This was of little consolation to the new breed, who—like the Humphreys of 20 years ago—are terrifically impatient...

...They turned to George McGovern —who shared much of McCarthy's appeal but none of his arrogance...

...On the convention floor, several hundred McCarthy-McGovern delegates chose not to leave...

...From the podium came the order for the band to drown out the in-subordinates, and dutifully the band began to play . . . "Happy Days Are Here Again...

...A call for a bombing halt would have been a critical symbol of the party's desire to scale down the war now...

...The fact that the political apprentices outlasted the union band that afternoon tells more about the future of the party than the nomination of Hubert Humphrey...

...On his part, Hubert Humphrey must decide what to do with his tarnished prize...

...The older professionals did not like or understand him, which he made perpetually easy by refusing to meet them half way, or even a tenth of the way...

...That was the way the whole convention went, as the great Democratic party tried to choose a leader of the Free World in an armed camp...

...That may have been the time for Humphrey to stand up to Lyndon Johnson...

...Although Humphrey was nominated in Daley's town with Daley's help, it is not fair to identify him with Daley's caveman approach to justice...

...It is quite possible that between the violent death of Robert Kennedy, violence in Vietnam, violence in the cities, and the violence at the Democratic Convention, American voters may opt for the serenity they associate with the yesteryears of Ike and Dick...

...As unfair as the caricature of Humphrey as a reactionary is, he has supplied his opposition with some ammunition...

...Everyone who was sickened by the Chicago parody of law and order should consider which candidate, Humphrey or Nixon, would be more sympathetic to similar performances in the future...

...It is all very well to say that the new politics transcends party unity, but the decision of dissenting Democrats to unite or not to unite behind Humphrey could make the difference...

...As it turned out, that nomination was never in question...

...Like the Vice Presidential nomination of Julian Bond and the prolonged singing ovation following the Robert Kennedy film, it was one in a series of declarations of independence which proved so maddening to the men who have run the party for a generation...

...Although most had long recognized the inevitability of Hubert Humphrey's nomination, many had hoped that the party's platform would not merely echo the State Department line on Vietnam...

...Quite by accident, it was a telling moment: The song of the New Deal, played professionally by professionals, trying to beat down the song of temporarily lost causes, sung haphazardly—but with abiding spirit—by amateurs, political as well as musical...

...like all political decisions this year, it necessarily pertains to Vietnam...

...By tacitly endorsing Johnson's Vietnam record, and by giving no indication that it would alter present U.S...

...The party elders, who controlled the credentials and the cops, but who could not control any of the delegates some of the time or some of the delegates any of the time, had just called a recess...

...Seven weeks hence, the nation will elect a President who will shape its destiny for the next four years...

...Gene McCarthy had no chance at all...

...The records of Humphrey and Nixon deserve thorough examination, not only in domestic affairs, where the differences are obvious and well-known, but on such matters as arms control, where the differences should be equally obvious but have been obscured by Vietnam...

...No doubt Humphrey will do much to demonstrate his independence from Johnson between now and November, yet it would have been far more significant coming before his nomination rather than after...

...The Kennedy men, still bitter over the fact that McCarthy had the temerity to stand in the way of their collective ambitions, refused to help him...

...Disappointed and defiant, they stood together in the vast Amphitheater and began to sing "We Shall Overcome...

...In Chicago, he suffered most grievously on the issue that gave birth to the new politics...

...That destiny could be as different as the records of Humphrey and Nixon...

...His aloof detachment from politics as usual, and his stubborn insistance on telling the party the truths it did not want to hear, appealed to no one but the voters...

...it was their pettiest hour...

...But that misses the point...

...The Democrats were swept into office four years ago by promising "no wider war...

...While their moral indignation over the war knew no bounds, apparently it did not match their sense of vengeance against McCarthy...

...But for now, like it or not—• and they didn't—they've got Humphrey...

...At one point, the Humphrey forces had almost reached an accommodation with the doves on the Vietnam plank, but the President would not go along—and Humphrey went along with him...

...But win or lose, the Democratic Party?and ultimately the American political system—will never be the same after the week that was in Chicago...

...and although the professionals won their Vietnam plank and the nomination, theirs must be considered a holding action at best...

...Had he done so, not only would he have made it easier for the McCarthy and Kennedy forces to actively support his candidacy now, but he would have won wider respect from the entire electorate...

...For a man who has been ahead of his time so much of the time, this can only be the most disheartening of ironies...

...By initiating and pushing through party reforms (abolishing the unit rule at all levels of the party, giving youth a greater voice in party councils, opening the gates to wider participation in the selection of delegates to future conventions), they "laid the foundations of a new Dem-cratic party," as the Vice President acknowledged in an acceptance speech that did not quite meet the demands of the moment...

...Whatever he does, he and his wounded party may well lose in November...

...After all, no one really knows if an unconditional halt to all bombing of North Vietnam will hasten an end to the war or not...

...Some of them viewed the convention as a total loss, but in terms of the politics they are trying to replace, they have come very far very fast...

...Will he continue to parrot the Administration line, or will he move to embrace the doves in his own party...

...Granted that after all the political convulsions of 1968, a Humphrey-Nixon choice is anti-climactic in the extreme...

...Each course has its risks, but either would be more attractive than playing it both ways, which Humphrey has given signs of trying to do in recent weeks...

...Disenchanted though they may be, they should begin to examine him not as McCarthy's or Bob Kennedy's opponent, but as Richard Nixon's...

...And every voter, hawk or dove, Republican or Democrat, has an obligation to evaluate the relative qualifications of Spiro Agnew and Edmund Muskie for high office...

...Not only have they brought down an incumbent President and persuaded two-fiifths of a national convention to oppose the leadership of their party on the major issue of the day, but they have sharply limited the options of the next President, be he Humphrey or Nixon, in regard to the war...

...This time, they did not even do that...

...Another way of asking the question: Can Humphrey win the nomination with one policy and the election with another...

...To cop out by claiming that there is no difference between the two men, however, is neither realistic nor responsible...

...identified as the enemy of the new order at a convention—and in a year—in which the lines between the new and old were drawn so sharply...

...policy, the party has regressed in the eyes of the doves...

...Either Humphrey does not believe this is in the national interest, or he did not believe it was in his interest to risk Johnson's animosity...

...Humphrey and his lieutenants defended his action by telling people that the differences between the majority and minority planks on Vietnam were small ones of judgment, and in a sense they were right...