Alter New Hampshire

...In fact, the fear of our antagonizing voters with our clipped, impersonal, hard-driving New York mannerisms was so intense that canvassing was drastically curtailed for the remainder of the campaign...

...In view of the anti-Establishment bent in New Hampshire Democratic primaries, the "pledge card" effort of the Johnson backers was undoubtedly counterproductive...

...What is more, McCarthy—with his crusading campaigners and convinced voters—came close to his maximum strength in the primary...

...3) now he continued to rise in New Hampshire...

...On the trip up to New Hampshire we wondered if we could win 25 per cent, and if that would keep us alive until the more promising Wisconsin primary...

...Even as loyal a Bobby-booster as James Wechsler faults RFK for suggesting that McCarthy make way...

...Neither I nor any of my colleagues was greeted with hostility by the people we met...

...Despite the dramatic friction between the two Senators in the first post-New Hampshire days, however, the conflict is more superficial than real...

...The large number of students who turned out, however, did give this campaign a unique texture...

...For President Johnson, the results from New Hampshire—coming on the heels of Minnesota and Massachusetts—must raise doubts as to whether the traditional rule that a sitting President cannot be denied renomination is a self-enforcing law...

...While we understood that the New Hampshire voters rather than non-voting campaign workers should get the auditorium seats, the continuing quarantine was not appreciated...

...Whatever our mixed feelings for Kennedy, we all shared an intense admiration for our candidate, his incompetence at campaign demagogy notwithstanding...

...We were also enjoined to stay away from the press, dire warnings being given us about the consequences of an injudicious remark to a network microphone...

...The Johnson people sought to discourage the McCarthy people...

...Poor Harry S. Truman polled practically nothing in the Democratic primary...

...At the Chicago convention, McCarthy can start off with 300-400 votes and, with luck and pluck, even more...

...Yet like most of us, he agreed in the end that our sacrifices seemed worthwhile...

...We had been told we would sleep on the floor and had brought sleeping bags or blanket rolls...

...In 1968, Nixon took New Hampshire in a walk, getting more votes than Lyndon Johnson, Eugene McCarthy and Rockefeller added together...

...To be sure, the very conservative, high-circulation Manchester Union Leader pointed out that the state was being subjected to an invasion of hippies: but that paper also advised Democrats to write in Nixon's name on their ballot, and the almost complete non-compliance with the recommendation indicates the power of its appeal...

...In what we thought was a rather humorous, if not ridiculous incident, a campaign leader boarded our bus three blocks before its destination point in Manchester and informed us with the greatest solemnity that the national press was waiting to observe our correct appearance...

...Will McCarthy step aside for Kennedy...

...Both hawks and doves are reading the outcome as a victory...

...For only by reading the newspapers did we learn how well we were doing...

...Optimism gave way to elation as the tallies came in, and we shouted ourselves hoarse and drank ourselves sick...

...Richard Melman attends the Columbia School of International Affairs...

...It turned out that we were being more correct than the people to whose correctness we were trying to appeal...

...Regardless of what you may have read in the newspapers or seen on television...

...We were put to leafleting instead, to limit our having to talk to voters...

...Filled with the heady mountain air of New Hampshire, he began to act as if he were the inevitable heir to the throne...

...Nevertheless the New Hampshire totals, though numerically representing less than 1 per cent of the nation's voting strength, are significant as a force adding momentum to existing movements...

...On the other hand, the foreign press was welcome, apparently being considered no threat, and the presence of a Japanese camera crew at one of our briefings filled our leaders with pride...

...our fears that the rock-ribbed reactionaries would be waiting for us with shotguns, determined to stop the Communist infiltration at their property lines, were entirely unfounded...

...What does this mean...

...top Kennedy talent went to work for McCarthy...

...The three bearded men among us were then ordered to remain on the bus and out of sight while the rest of us...

...The evidence lies in the fact that in the delegate fight, the LBJ slate ran 45 candidates for 24 positions available against a McCarthy slate that very sensibly ran only 24 candidates for the 24 openings...

...They were replaced by a fresh contingent from Boston on Monday morning and most of us stayed, doggedly determined to make an impression on the seemingly unapproachable voters...

...His strength reflected a confluence of several factors: First, Nixon has always run strong in New Hampshire...

...Student volunteers, of course, have always been part of American politics (I have mixed memories of street-corner leafleting for New York State Students for Johnson in 1964), and reform politicians have normally made extensive use of them...

...But it was Truman, not Dewey, who was elected...

...Fourth, a dedicated student movement, withdrawing from withdrawal, threw itself into the McCarthy campaign with zeal and discipline...

...By the second night many of us had found other arrangements...

...In this respect, Nixon and McCarthy gained impetus...

...A side room was provided for us, with the sound piped in...

...But JFK won and Nixon lost...

...One of those who believes Nixon has it and that McCarthy has proven—to use Richard Goodwin's phrase—that LBJ is "vulnerable" in 1968, is Senator Robert F. Kennedy...

...We spent up to eight hours a day on our feet—annoyed only by the hours of enforced idleness and waste, not the frantic activity required of us in the periods of work...

...The immediate impact of the Vietcong resurgence was to polarize American politics...

...I would go so far as to say that few of us did...

...Despite the wide variety of opinions and positions, irreverence was universal: On the bus ride up from New York we passed an Army Reserve Training Center...

...And LBJ, who has been holding the middle-ground, suffered accordingly...

...After Minnesota, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire, he is no longer the lonely philosopher delivering a low-key sermon in a campaign cathedral...

...That is clear from the 1960 primary, when he carried the state by 21,832 votes over John F. Kennedy...

...On Election Day...

...In his last weeks, Romney appealed to the peace sentiment...

...So far...

...As the driver began turning the wheel, the outcry revealed a negative consensus on the idea, but the joke was appreciated...

...Interestingly, New Hampshire young men seem to wear their hair long as a rule, though styled differently from the East Village hippies, and tend to dress in open-collared shirts and jeans...

...The people were all admirably polite, if noncommital...

...Nixon polled well over 50 per cent...

...Should McCarthy ultimately be inclined to do so, he would have to break faith with his most devout and effective followers: the student youth...

...It is clear, however, that the Johnson people really believed originally that McCarthy would be beaten three or four to one...

...In the other 34, delegates are elected without a commitment...

...It strikes me that the obsessive apprehension over our image among the New Hampshirites was largely a case of nervous nellyism...

...If he does, then he is that rarest of candidates who, though bitten by the bug, is immune to candiditis...

...In the case of Governor Rockefeller, the New Hampshire primary has pried open the mouth of the sphinx...

...tired from the long ride and the late hour, were paraded past nbc's cameras to demonstrate our dedication to the American ideal of the cleanshaven face...

...But came convention time...

...It was basically this esteem for the man, I think, that made us work so hard in a campaign about which we were initially rather dubious...

...But most of us were surprised at how hard a floor really is...

...Against divided Democrats Nixon can win...

...Whatever it was planned to be, it appeared as an effort to coerce voters—exactly the wrong thing for these ornery mountaineers...

...When the Sunday New York Times informed us that the Johnson people credited us with a potential for bringing out 5,000 votes, we were surprised and gratified...

...Impatience demanded an early end to the war: Pull out all stops or just pull out...

...It wasn't even a good speech that the Senator made, and we strenuously objected to his remark about the "children's crusade...

...Though we provided virtually all the manpower used in the campaign, we were something of an embarrassment, and very much a cause for anxiety among our superiors...

...policy in Vietnam but also because he dared to set aside the pragmatic for the principled...

...But we never expected to poll 42.4 per cent of the Democratic votes, depriving the incumbent of a majority, and almost outpolling the President if Republican McCarthy write-ins are included...

...Meanwhile, California Kennedyite Jesse Unruh publicly declared that McCarthy had "served his purpose," clearly suggesting that the stalking horse should now make way for the real racer...

...It means Nixon is a very strong candidate—at this time in New Hampshire...

...He received almost the same number of votes, 29,021, in the present 1968 write-in, the second time he broke the tradition...

...Someone suggested that we attack the place and make March 8 the American 26th of July...

...The anti-Johnson movements were united...

...Discomfort was soon added to disappointment...

...it does show Nixon's basic appeal to Republicans...

...Small town New Hampshire is GOPish...

...Even voters hostile to Senator McCarthy were decent to us...

...But the central fact that stands out in the New Hampshire primary —after piercing the thick veil of particulars, personalities and parochialisms—is the polarization of American politics in the weeks immediately following Tetcong...

...Although Johnson outpolled McCarthy, 49.5-42.4 per cent, the division was close enough to make this a serious split...

...eight months later he rolled 107,995 votes or 47 per cent of the total...

...Hence the role of New Hampshire, a small state of little political import but much portent thanks to its early primary...

...The men were billeted in the lounges of the dormitories at a nearby college, the women at a local ywca...

...and a major preoccupation of such leadership as we had was to find ways of keeping us off the streets and out of sight when we were not working...

...It does indicate a growth of hawk sentiment...

...As we boarded the bus at 11:00 p.m., with the television network computers predicting 39 per cent of the vote for us and 51-52 per cent for Johnson, there was a richly satisfying feeling of significant accomplishment, a feeling that few of us had experienced in our previous forays into politics...

...Only 16 of the 50 states have a referendum on Presidential preference...

...Third, the McCarthy campaign got a real lift when "Citizens for Kennedy" swung its support to the Minnesota Senator in early February...

...When Kennedy ran in 1960?unidentified with the national Democratic Establishment—he polled a high of 43,372 votes, while Stevenson got 168 write-in votes...

...Previous contributors to the series, which presents the thoughts of college students on the issues of greatest concern to them, were John Kyper of the University of Vermont ("Vietnam and Beyond," NL, January 1) and Elliott Abrams of Harvard ("The Sky is Falling," NL, February 12...

...JFK was also beneficiary of the New Hampshire Democratic party's heavy Catholic enrollment, a continuing condition that did not hurt Eugene McCarthy either...

...Second, Nixon was the beneficiary of the Vietcong Tet offensive...

...instead, the caustic New York Post columnist proposes that the Senator from New York get on the bandwagon of the Senator from Minnesota...

...He is a candidate who smiles like one, talks like one and acts like one...

...This, incidentally, was the only such accusation I heard about, and I found nothing of the kind in my own canvassing...

...This did not make us feel that our contribution to the campaign was appreciated...

...in opponent (Adlai Stevenson) by 7-1...

...From then on: "As Maine goes, so goes Vermont...

...Later Saturday night we all trooped down to Manchester's chief hotel to hear Senator McCarthy speak...

...Whether Nixon has the nomination in the bag or whether McCarthy has the nomination within his grasp is less important in terms of political momentum than surface appearances...

...In 1960...

...But no matter how closely we shaved, we still did not look like New Hampshirites...

...At the state headquarters in Concord, where some of us went Sunday night to pose for Walter Cronkite, who arrived after we left...

...In both cases, of course, the talkers were talking politics...

...They turned to McCarthy not only because of his opposition to U.S...

...While LBJ has been busy fighting a shooting war abroad, his domestic enemies have been busy fighting a political war at home...

...We all agreed that Senator Kennedy would be the stronger candidate, but many could not forgive him for what they considered cowardice in the face of the enemy, and vowed to scorn him even if he entered the race...

...it was assumed that any unorthodox appearance would alienate votes in great numbers...

...a sound which became infuriatingly familiar...

...New Hampshire has augured unambiguously—and, generally, incorrectly...

...Obviously, McCarthy got far more votes than anybody had expected...

...After the first day's canvassing, a few calls came into headquarters complaining of the patronizing or high-pressure tactics used by a few of us, and at subsequent briefings the necessity of a gentle, subtle approach was impressed on us with great care...

...Our initial impressions of New Hampshire did not encourage us...

...It is in the latter states that Kennedy may decide to make his major play, hoping to elect delegates informally loyal to his candidacy...

...The nurses at the college, who were Nixon supporters, were kind enough to allow five of us to use beds in the infirmary...

...Among the more than 200,000 voters who did not come out, a majority of whom will vote in November, the percentage for McCarthy would be much lower than his 19 per cent...

...But the Presidential nomination went to a "dark horse"—Adlai Stevenson...

...After New Hampshire he must be recalling 1952, when Estes Kefauver moved on from there to win every primary across the country...

...Third, he was assisted by the 11th hour withdrawal of George Romney...

...Of the approximately 155,000 votes cast in the primaries, McCarthy polled about 19 per cent...

...Lodge was not even in the running...

...Imagery makes its own impact...

...And in New Hampshire they hit him both from left and right...

...A little more than 48 hours later he announced his readiness to run for the White House, to allow America another Kennedy versus Nixon referendum...

...Nixon immediately challenged Rockefeller to come out or get out...

...If McCarthy goes over to Kennedy, he will have difficulty taking his troops with him...

...Consider the elections from 1948, the first post World War II balloting, to the present: In 1948, Thomas E. Dewey won the Republican primary with 18,860 votes...

...We had seen the early polls giving the Senator 11-12 per cent of the vote...

...While the bigger cities are more Democratic, they do not hold their local elections on primary day...

...Nixon appealed to American frustration, promising to end the war by getting tough...

...but I don't plan to vote for any Communists this year...

...As Maine goes, so goes the nation...

...The power and prestige of the Presidency are nonexistent if they are not put into play...

...Combat fatigue reached the point where one young man declared to me: "I don't like New Hampshire...

...has scheduled for April on the grounds that they might adversely affect the Oregon primary...

...The effect of this noncommital attitude was quite discouraging to us...

...Indeed against this iconoclastic tradition, LBJ did better than his predecessor standard-bearers...

...being coached on the subject—but we shaved and put on ties for the edification of the New Hampshire electorate...

...In 1964, Henry Cabot Lodge stunned the nation by beating both Barry Goldwater and Nelson Rockefeller handsomely in the gop primary...

...That we gathered after the closing of the polls in a mood of optimism was chiefly due to the newspaper reports...

...As we gathered at a hotel on the edge of Manchester Tuesday evening for our victory celebration (the President was right—we would have called any result a victory), we had the feeling, mainly through wishful thinking and close attention to an optimistic national press, that we would do rather well...

...Finally, Nixon was the beneficiary of a big Republican turnout for the local elections to public office that take place along with the primaries...

...On March 12 there were two entries, Nixon and McCarthy...

...They could sometimes be induced to give expression to their disaffection with the Administration, but refused to betray any interest in McCarthy...

...Post New Hampshire, there are five: Everybody has decided you can't win this horse race by standing still...

...Several Republican Nixon supporters wished me luck, and one member of our group described an incident in which a lady took his literature and with the utmost kindness declared: "Thank you...

...Richard M. Nixon got 65,204 votes in the gop primary against John F. Kennedy's 43,372 votes in the Democratic primary...

...There are at least five reasons for this: First, the Tet offensive aided McCarthy too, albeit far less than it did Nixon...

...His delegate slate polled some 9.000 votes against Kefauver's 13,815...

...McCarthy's percentage far exceeded the early expectations of his opponents, and even the closing predictions of his backers...

...In 1964, LBJ broke the tradition: He was a Democratic standard-bearer who actually won the Democratic primary, getting 29,317 votes on a write-in...

...Ironically, it was the press that provided us with much of our will to persevere...

...But Stevenson was renominated...

...His act, in their eyes, became bolder and braver precisely because Kennedy did not make the run...

...On to Wisconsin, baby...

...Both are right—with hawks outnumbering doves...

...Senator McCarthy's effort in New Hampshire did not depend entirely on us: The billboards, newspapers, and electronic media were saturated with his advertising...

...In 1952, when Truman's name once more appeared o.-i the primary ballot, he was beaten by Senator Ke-fauver, 12,791-12,211...

...True to their stereotype, the natives listened to us with stone faces, replying to every cunningly calculated pitch with "uh-hm" or the elongated New England form of "yup...

...Joan Baez was on the phonograph, leading to jealousy on our part...

...A more typical response was that of a farmer in Auburn, the only voter to ask me where I came from, who was quite impressed with the fact that someone would travel all the way from New York to talk to him...

...Whether a good McCarthy showing could pull Kennedy out of hiding and into contention was a major topic of conversation, and most were both pessimistic and angry on the point...

...Some of these wrote in McCarthy's name in the Republican primary...

...In 1956, when Democratic slmd-ard-bearer Adlai Stevenson bec.ime a write-in candidate, he polled some 3,000 votes against Kefauver's 21,000...

...Truman polled 4,409 votes...

...even though we had expected it...

...Senator McCarthy's candidacy may have had the highly salutary effect of demonstrating to the Administration the bankruptcy of the "McCarthyite" tactics Governor King and others used against us...

...Second, Romney's withdrawal helped not only Nixon but McCarthy as well...

...Nothing terrified our superiors more than the sight of a beard on the street...

...In 1956, Kefauver beat his writeGus Tyler, a frequent contributor, is the ilwgu's Assistant President...

...Nixon was left uncontested except for a Rockefeller write-in that was started too late to be effective...

...The diffident crusader became the determined campaigner...

...When he withdrew, many of his followers were left without a "dove" to lead their flock...

...Why give this all up for a Kennedy—a clan he never loved...

...the McCarthyites tried to understate their expectations to make the most of their final vote...

...In 1948, when President Truman stood for re-election without an opponent in the New Hampshire primary, the Democratic voters asserted their anti-Establishment attitude in the only way they could: They stayed home...

...McCarthy benefitted somewhat from this movement toward the political poles...

...All of us objected to the "Get Clean For Gene" tactic—either because we considered a false image dishonest, or because we already looked conventional and resented This issue "View from the Campus" descends from the ivory tower to report on the field trip in American government conducted earlier this month by Senator Eugene McCarthy in New Hampshire...

...We vowed that the Senator would have to do well, merely in payment to us for our labors...

...Our room was soon being referred to as the leper colony...

...Polls show a rapid rise of "hawk" sentiment in the month following the attacks on Hue and Saigon...

...In 1952, Estes Kefauver beat HST in the primary, and went on to win all the other primaries...

...Consequently, Republicans outpoll the Democrats in New Hampshire primaries...

...We were a heterogeneous group trying to project a homogeneous image...

...One man I spoke with was taking time off from his activities in counseling students interested in draft resistance, and looked forward to the disruption of the Selective Service System through massive non-cooperation...

...Now the impression is that he really wanted to run all along...

...When its citizens come out to vote for local officials, they use the occasion to vote in the Presidential primary as well, thereby swelling Republican totals...

...Another was appalled at the idea of advocating violation of the law, and even objected to the nationally coordinated demonstrations Martin Luther King Jr...

...We were also divided into Bobby-philes and Bobbyphobes, with the latter in the majority...

...In modern times, politicians look for similar omens before, and during, the electoral fray...

...Unless the pro-Johnson leadership was plain stupid, one must assume they expected such an overwhelming victory that they could risk running double the number to be elected...

...Still...

...Amid the many new uncertainties issuing from New Hampshire, one thing is certain: It has produced candidates...

...This power potential that had been dissipating itself in a variety of personal and political idiosyncracics cohered around McCarthy with an energy and earnestness that no old-fashioned machine can match...

...This would minimize the clash between the two Senators and maximize opposition to the President...

...A compensation was that the New Hampshirites applauded very enthusiastically, exceeding our own applause in every case...

...it does hasten him on his way to the nomination...

...2) he won the Massachusetts preference primary by default...

...He also picked up an unearned plus: The down-the-middle split in the Democratic party vote helped Nixon with Republicans who want a conservative who can also be a winner...

...Those labors were not of unquestioned value...

...The Senator, in his wrap-up address on local television Monday night, apologized to the electorate for any disturbance or invasion of privacy on the part of his supporters...

...Finally, McCarthy benefitted from the anti-Establishment habits of the New Hampshire Democrats...

...Within 24 hours of the New Hampshire primary, the New York Senator made it known that he was "reappraising" his role in the campaign...

...For McCarthy, the good showing in New Hampshire was his third boost: 1) He took an unexpectedly big bite out of the Minnesota delegation...

...when we called on those who had expressed sympathy for McCarthy to make sure they would not neglect to vote, we were painstakingly instructed to be respectful, almost self-effacing...

...Nixon's showing is impressive...

...imagination and ingenuity expressed themselves in other forms as well...

...There were so many of us, and we were so conspicuous, that it was feared our very presence would be taken as an invasion of privacy by the natives...

...One gimmick devised for the purpose was a non-alcoholic party at headquarters Saturday evening, where we unhappily sipped Coke to the accompaniment of terrible rock music...

...While the women spent their entire days at the telephones, learning to pronounce the Senator's name with a New England intonation, the men went out canvassing and door stuffing...

...No sacrifice was too great, including miniskirts and beards...

...Election day was devoted to poll-watching and foot-pulling...

...As a result, Nixon and McCarthy came on strong...

...McCarthy's added write-in votes on the gop side gave him a total count only 230 short of LBJ's...

...It was the press, also, that led us to raise our expectations to the 30-35 per cent level in the last two days, when the evidence of our senses was disappointing...

...Maine once played the role of New Hampshire...

...In fact, three Republicans who promised me they would write in McCarthy's name on their ballot struck me as being more enthusiastic for him than any Democrat I talked to...

...Some of us were there to give the American political system one final chance before refusing any further cooperation with it, and some of us were there because we had sufficient confidence in the system to believe that the McCarthy candidacy could bring about a basic alteration of national policies...

...That was the oracular rigamarole up to 1936 when Republican Presidential candidate Alf Landon took two states including Maine...

...For election day...

...Wooing the Tup' Vote By Richard Melman his is the shortest my hair J has been in years," complained one of the young warriors who did battle for Eugene McCarthy earlier this month in the hills of New Hampshire—and shook Lyndon Johnson's throne...

...Nevertheless, it could not be called a comfortable experience...

...And some independent voters (there are about 120,000 in New Hampshire) chose —as they legally can in the state?to vote in the Democratic primary for McCarthy...

...The result was that several carloads of students in Manchester returned to New York the Sunday night before the election, after two days of unrelieved frustration...