Humphrey's Irish Miracle Maker

...Humphrey and O'Brien conceived the idea of using question and answer sessions with young people and others on tv, instead of the usual campaign oratory...

...After watching the smooth, sophisticated O'Brien mastermind Lyndon Johnson's legislative program over the past four years, Humphrey is convinced the Irishman is the most talented political operator on the scene...

...Ironically, Humphrey is the third master O'Brien has served in the past six months—a fact which underlines the volatile aspects of this year's politics...

...and Bob Short, a Minnesota business executive, who will raise the money...

...but the electoral importance of the big industrial states, and the political machines which help to control them, are essentially unchanged by the years...

...Adding to Humphrey's woes is the rump session of Congress, which threatens to be little more than a nagging political embarrassment for the Democrats that will last until early October...

...Indeed, Larry O'Brien directed the John F. Kennedy campaign in West Virginia that resulted in Humphrey's humiliating defeat...

...Besides the Vietnam issue, for example, he would like the Vice President to play to the suburban "crab grass" vote, which he believes may hold the balance of power in this election...

...Pardy this fear is based on the practical consideration that Johnson is a dangerous man when crossed...

...Typically, Johnson never reacted, never mentioned the memo to O'Brien or anyone else, and after Eugene McCarthy and Robert Kennedy entered the race, the President dealt almost exclusively with Marvin Watson, his then appointment secretary...

...O'Brien, who was one of the strongest doves in Johnson's Cabinet, has privately expressed the view that Vietnam should be settled at almost any price...

...Humphrey has 1,600...

...Larry O'Brien has never been part of a losing effort," Humphrey told his staff recently...

...Joe Napolitan, who has managed political campaigns on various levels, specializing in television programming and opinion polls...

...Humphrey promised to try to smooth the President's ruffled feathers if O'Brien should leave...

...And with Humphrey the underdog in an uncertain year, it has been decided to follow a play-it-by-ear pattern...

...It was, among other things, a warning not to become too frisky or stray too far from the reservation...

...Humphrey may be right, yet O'Brien, for all his manipulative genius, may not be able to do very much for him this year...

...I think we are better counters than Nixon...

...When Kennedy announced his candidacy, O'Brien went to Humphrey to explain that while he had personal differences with Bobby, he would join his campaign staff if asked out of respect for President Kennedy...

...Politics," O'Brien said recently, "is still basically a game of counting...

...For his part, O'Brien is a determined politician who believes that despite revolutions, upheavals and bad opinion polls, elections are won and lost by such nitty-gritty matters as voter registration, get-out-the-vote drives, and the like...

...He's so good, it's incredible," Humphrey told friends in 1960...

...Anything is possible this year...

...I've got 1,800 votes at this convention...

...But most of Johnson's domestic accomplishments are not located in suburbia, again making the strategy difficult to fulfill...

...O'Brien desperately wants Humphrey to become a distinct personality in his own right...

...It was a rather sophomoric observation, but as one aide later observed: "The boss has got to continue thinking positively, and if O'Brien becomes his personal talisman, all the better...

...Maybe the big city vote is as liberal and ideologically soft as in former years...

...His overly enthusiastic defense of Vietnam policy, his cringing attitude toward Johnson and his hucks-terism for the Great Society have badly tarnished his public respect...

...If he'd kept his mouth shut more often, he could've had 1,800, too," Johnson reportedly said on the night of the Democratic balloting...

...It will take all of O'Brien's fabled organizational talents to put the Democratic campaign in order...

...Bob Mc-Caudless, a political pro, who will coordinate advance planning for campaign appearances...

...The campaign will focus on the industrial sections of the Northeast and Middle West?surrendering the West and the rural sections of America's heartland to Nixon, and most of the South to Wallace...

...Clearly, too, Johnson will take any unpopular or controversial steps he feels are necessary between now and November 5, letting the chips fall where they may...

...Perhaps O'Brien is right...

...Humphrey knows this and is determined not to rouse the brooding giant...

...I first met Larry O'Brien in West Virginia when the two of us stumbled into the same graveyard, looking for votes," Humphrey told a Springfield, Massachusetts, testimonial dinner several years ago...

...Toward this end he has surrounded himself with a small staff of bright, aggressive young politicians who will be the only men to see and the only ones who really count...

...Roger Kingsbury regularly reports on the Washington political scene...

...maybe the race issue has pricked America's conscience rather than hardened its heart...

...Meanwhile, one of the worst aspects of the Chicago convention was its date, selected to coincide with Johnson's birthday on August 27 and left unchanged after he withdrew...

...At a time when many Americans are of a mind to throw the rascals out, poor Hubert is often considered a chief rascal...

...O'Brien is convinced that a fighting, Truman-style campaign can carry the day for Humphrey...

...Thus when O'Brien went to Kennedy, Humphrey's feathers were the ones ruffled...

...But then came March 31, and Johnson's shocking announcement that he would not seek re-election...

...It has forced Humphrey to get a late start in an uphill fight for the Presidency...

...O'Brien is one politician who is as good as his press notices, and if organization and technique can tip a close election this year, his work may be the decisive factor...

...John Hoving, a Washington lobbyist and Humphrey intimate, who will coordinate the activities of state and local groups...

...There have been reports that the President has not been too flattering in discussing his Vice President...

...Humphrey also wants to debate Nixon, a desire that receives a mixed reaction in the Humphrey camp, where students of the Vice President fear his long-windedness...

...Whether he is beyond redemption may depend more on how the public eventually reacts to Richard Nixon, and the state of America's internal and external problems between now and the election, than on anything the beleaguered Vice President does or does not do in the weeks ahead...

...Humphrey's Miracle Maker By Roger Kingsbury The only one who kept in touch with O'Brien during his exile was Hubert Humphrey, who had long been close to the affable Irishman and often commiserated with him about the state of political affairs at the White House...

...It could be that Nixon's "Southern strategy" at Miami, and his subsequent hardline law-and-order Vice Presidential choice are largely the result of miscalculation...

...The guy who most accurately counts up what he needs to win, usually wins...

...The border states may be up for grabs, but at the moment it looks like Nixon there, with Wallace eating into traditional blue-collar Democratic votes...

...It is also ironic that the final step of his travels has carried him into the camp of his favorite candidate, the man he wanted to serve in the first place...

...As President, he controls Vietnam events to the point where embarrassing Humphrey could become a foreign policy goal...

...maybe the growing crime rate can be discussed in positive, social action terms...

...Nixon, by contrast, had about three weeks between the nomination and the beginning of his campaign for organizing his thinking and his staff...

...And we are not going to spoil his record...

...Since his influence on Humphrey, already considerable, is bound to increase as the campaign unfolds, Humphrey may still break with Johnson on Vietnam, although the Vice President's fear of LBJ is legendary...

...This inner circle consists of Ira Kappen-stein, O'Brien's long-time confidential assistant...

...It is difficult to overestimate what O'Brien's presence means to the Humphrey camp's morale...

...The 1960 rump session, also a disaster, ended in late August, much to the Democrats' relief...

...These men will work closely with Ted Van Dyk, Bill Connell and Bill Welsh, on the Vice President's staff...

...The lesson of Johnson's tough vfw speech on the eve of the convention was not lost on Hubert...

...But Hubert Humphrey's candidacy has yet to catch fire with the electorate, and evidence at the moment suggests that Richard Nixon may prove a more accurate vote counter than even Larry O'Brien...

...On his first day on the job, a few weeks before the convention, one of Humphrey's secretaries timidly approached O'Brien with tears in her eyes...

...Last Christmas, O'Brien prepared a detailed memorandum for the President, outlining the issues and strategy of the campaign...

...More than a year ago, President Johnson hinted broadly to his then Postmaster General that he would be the campaign manager of the LBJ re-election effort...

...Heightening this unease is the reluctant belief that Johnson may not be very eager for a Humphrey victory in 1968...

...Nixon and Wallace are the new challenges of 1968...

...The amens among the Humphrey tribe are virtually unanimous...

...I just want to say, thank God you're here...