View from the Campus-III

...View from the Campus—III Wooing the Tup' Vote By Richard Melman ??^pi 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...

...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...

...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...

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

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

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

...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...

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

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

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

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

...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...

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

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

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

...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...

...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...

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

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

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

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

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

...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...

...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...

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

...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...

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

...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...

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

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

...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...

...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...

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

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

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

...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...

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

...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...

...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...

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

...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...

...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...

...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...

...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...

...The effect of this noncommital attitude was quite discouraging to us, even though we had expected it...

...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...

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

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

...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...

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

...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...

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

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

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

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

...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...

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

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

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

...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...

...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...

...On to Wisconsin, baby...

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

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

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

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

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

...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...

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

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

...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...

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

...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...

...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...

...I T STRIKES me that the obsessive apprehension over our image among the New Hampshirites was largely a case of nervous nellyism...

...THOSE LABORS were not of unquestioned value...

...We were also divided into Bobbyphiles and Bobbyphobes, with the latter in the majority...

...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...

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

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

...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...

...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...

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

...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...

...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...

...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...

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

...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...

...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...

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

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

...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...

...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...

...For election day...

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

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

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

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