Candidates in Contrast

...Sometimes his desire to ingratiate himself with voters bordered on incest...

...Thus, despite a continuing series of experiments in waffling, McGovern's greatest personal asset as a candidate is that people tend to believe he is telling them the truth...

...he may be rhetorically im-capable of doing so, even if he were temperamentally inclined, which he doesn't seem to be...

...But try as he might—and Lord how he tried—he never did find a new theme with which to successfully replace the old ones...

...In California, Humphrey tried to isolate McGovern...

...The outward emotion that flows between McGovern and most of his audiences couldn't roast a marsh-mallow...

...The local assemblyman who introduces him is not merely an able officeholder...

...What this country needs is faith, hope, optimism, fellowship and experience...

...But as the words gushed on and on —"the dignity of the aged . . . this great, rich, marvelous country of ours . . . this wonderful audience"— the old women nodded and smiled...

...but nonpartisan experts in the Treasury Department and Congress estimated the savings would come to less than half that amount...

...People want a President they can feel comfortable with," he kept saying...

...Although he never actually called him an extremist or a radical, his speeches were peppered with references to McGovern's "extreme" proposals and "very radical" ideas...

...Since the grant is taxable, Howard Hughes would be giving most of his right back to the government...

...Perhaps he was right, yet to many this litany simply was not an adequate response to the American condition in the 1970s...

...When he was floundering down around 3 per cent in the Gallup poll, McGovern was willing enough to face up to the consequences of his rather concrete proposals for change in this country...

...at least some observers were starting to wonder if McGovern might not be a picture-postcard candidate for the particular mood of the nation in '72...

...Humphrey audiences are not simply "ladies and gentlemen...

...they are, rather, "my dear, dear friends," "this wonderful audience," "those beautiful faces out there...

...What makes these triumphs all the more remarkable is that they were achieved rather unobtrusively...

...In this respect, Humphrey's attacks on McGovern in California could turn out to be of significant service to the McGovern campaign...

...Unable, ultimately, to stir voters with his own watered-down version of McGovernment, Humphrey turned around and began to assault the McGovern platform...

...iike McGovern's, Humphrey said in the final days of the California campaign, is "a fool...

...less than four months later, he won the primary by a greater plurality than either Robert Kennedy (in '68) or Barry Gold-water (in '64) won theirs...

...Perspectives CANDIDATES IN CONTRAST BY CALVIN FENTRESS Los Angeles As Hubert Humphrey zigzagged across the hot, dry sprawl of Southern California earlier this month, he ignored the dead-end signs and tried to forge himself a victory by sheer force of personality, energy and words words words...

...He charged that McGovern's proposed defense cutbacks would not only cost thousands of Californians their jobs, but would seriously endanger the nation's security...

...nonetheless, to many taxpayers, Humphrey's criticism appeared to have merit...

...He rarely milks his partisans for signs of approval, agreement or affection...

...His hands sailed through the musty air—pointing, pounding, entreating as he tried everything he knew to orchestrate and invigorate the small restless audience...

...he strongly implied that his old friend and neighbor is too far out of the mainstream to be entrusted with the Presidency...

...These attacks may have been a symphony to the ears of Richard Nixon and the Republican National Committee, and they probably cut into McGovern's pluralities, but they ultimately failed to impress enough Democrats in California, New Jersey and New Mexico to turn the McGovern tide...

...No matter what happens between now and November, McGovern has tasmoned an astonishing political success story...

...Humphrey also scored when he noted that McGovern wants to cut the defense budget by some 40 per cent, but "he would not close a single air base in California or Nebraska [home of the Strategic Air Command...

...During one 15-minute talk at a Knights of Columbus hall in Oxnard, Humphrey covered by count 21 different subjects, including everything from his mayoral record in Minneapolis to his friendship with John Kennedy to his "initiatives for peace" in Vietnam...

...Nothing worked in Oxnard...

...Apparently he is only going to close bases in non-primary states...

...One problem with this strategy— a strategy we will be exposed to again and again in the weeks and probably months ahead—is that the low-key, mild-mannered McGovern does not match anyone's stereotype of an ultra anything...

...Speaking before an elderly audience in Watts near the end of the California race, Humphrey held its attention, and revived its affection, by saying things like "Care is love, and love is God, and if we don't have that, we're in real trouble," and, "Old age is like turning the book to a new chapter...

...The wrinkled black ladies who sat fanning themselves in the sweltering stucco hall could not possibly have summarized all that Humphrey told them for close to three-quarters of an hour (any more than the aged white reporters could have...

...In early February of this year, polls showed him to be the choice of just 6 per cent of the state's Democrats...

...When I'm your President," Humphrey often told his listeners during the primaries, "I'm going to be President of the American family, and when there's trouble in your family, Hubert Humphrey is going to do something about it...

...There is, instead, a sense of mutual trust, mutual respect, mutual liking...

...This country doesn't need something called New Politics...

...McGovern never did satisfactorily answer that charge...

...Anyone who would propose a tax program Calvin Fentress, a past contributor, covered the California primary...

...Ordinarily," he said dryly during one of his televised debates with Humphrey, "we don't send wild-eyed radicals to the United States Senate from South Dakota...

...Humphrey tried to persuade California voters that he was just as concerned as George McGovern about Vietnam and tax and welfare reform, but that somehow he could deal with these problems without changing the national furniture around too much...

...While McGovern edged out into relatively unexplored territory, Humphrey stuck close to the political home that served him and his generation fairly well for a long time...

...Now that he is within a few hundred delegate votes of the Democratic nomination, he appears to be backing off somewhat...

...But he calls for that break so calmly (drawing less and less attention to any unpleasant side-effects) that the "extreme" label Humphrey and others have tried so hard to paste on him seems not to stick...

...For a long time, McGovern's potential strengths as a candidate—his freshness on the national scene, his ability to inspire trust, his stunning organizational instincts—all went unrecognized...

...By the time he got to California, the former Vice President must have realized this...

...he is "a very fine and wonderful public servant, one of the finest I've ever known...

...If desire and drive always brought success, Hubert Humphrey would have been elected President years ago...

...For example, McGovern said that by repealing the present $750 tax exemption (it would be replaced by a taxable $1,000 grant to every citizen, regardless of age or need), the Federal Government would save $63 billion...

...If, as the year progresses, McGovern keeps backing off—if he tries to assure us that there can be gains without pains—then he is going to get clobbered by Richard Nixon, who has had a lot more practice at that sort of thing...

...Much of what McGovern has been proposing, especially in the areas of defense and income redistribution, does represent a genuine break from the past...

...In California, the pendulum was beginning to swing the other way...

...His speeches (inevitably referred to on his daily schedule as "brief remarks," and almost as inevitably 30-40 minutes long) overflowed with neighborly love or unctuous flattery, depending on one's point of view...

...And Humphrey made some points by continually noting that under the McGovern "scheme," Howard Hughes would receive the same $1,000 as the poorest child in Watts...

...McGovern's income supplement program has confused even many experts, partly because the cost is so nebulous and the financing so controversial...

...this was a man whom they understood, and who understood them...

...He called the McGovern welfare package "a giveaway scheme," and he accused McGovern of "tampering with the Social Security system," much as he and others accused Barry Goldwater in 1964...

...It begins to appear, however, that the old political touchstones (faith, Social Security and a defense second-to-none) are no longer adequate to soothe the nation, or even to win elections...

...But they proved to be the exception, not the rule...

...When he visited California two years ago, he couldn't find anyone in the state to give him a cocktail party...

...As a result, the income supplement program is now being re-studied...

...For although Humphrey missed the mark more often than he hit it, he did dramatize weaknesses in McGovern's candidacy—and it became apparent that if left unattended, they could quickly doom the South Dakotan should he survive Miami Beach...