Advice to a Candidate

...Another source of McGovern's strength has been his program...

...he was well financed by the "limousine liberals...

...he wrote the rules...

...Some went with Henry Wallace in 1948...

...As the first Catholic President of the United States, he was able to appeal to the traditional proletarian base of the big city Democratic electorate...

...He comes to Miami the choice of the people?at least of those people who bothered to register their feelings in the primaries or the caucuses...

...And by 1968 Humphrey-hero of '48, preference of the "liberals" for Vice President in '64-was old stuff made older by the wear of the war...

...In several states, party conventions dominated by extreme forces have officially called for immediate amnesty of draft evaders, increased busing of school children, and legalization of abortion, marijuana and homosexual marriage...

...some outside his faction may not want to deal, being eager to invite defeat to "pick up the pieces" after November...

...The people who gave McGovern his active base in the preconvention struggle might best be described as the generational wave of the young...

...A second Delphic reply might be: If McGovern sees his strengths as his weaknesses, he may be able to turn his weaknesses into strengths...

...But this strength also has an inherent weakness, for a majority at a convention is not a majority of the American electorate-as Barry Goldwater can testify...

...The prototypes of this wave entered the ranks of Democratic activism circa 1952...

...He started early...

...Under Kennedy, the appearance of politically unfamiliar faces in key positions of power did not threaten a damaging party split primarily because of JFK himself...

...Stevenson, Eleanor Roosevelt, Humphrey, and Johnson were either shelved or filed away for past reference...

...McGovern's third source of strength is the process under which he was able to gather virtually a majority of the delegates before the Democratic convention opened...

...he inherited the Kennedy-McCarthy mantle of 1968...

...The task McGovern now faces?assuming he wants to widen his base, appeal, and ties-is transforming himself from an "unbroken power" into a "power broker...

...His constituency, despite its performance in the primaries, is a Gideon's band, filled with the fervor and the fury that can give one man the power of ten?especially if nine out of the other ten are loose and lackadaisical...

...among Democrats alone, the Humphrey lead was still greater...

...What should McGovern's next move be...

...Who would get what...

...If McGovern wins the Democratic party nomination on this basis, with minimal dickering to pick up the necessary margin, he will have managed the entire operation without the usual "power brokers"-on his own, so to speak...

...In retrospect, of course, it looks as if McGovern's remarkable accumulation of delegates prior to the Democratic national convention was inevitable...

...With LBJ the arteien regime, only slightly youthened by ADA's fiftyish Hubert Humphrey as Veep, returned to power...

...he became, consequently, the only candidate with a national machine...

...It won't be easy...

...In sum, reorder priorities and redistribute income...

...he had the intense activists -youth, suburbanites, doves-in his camp...

...Regardless of the ultimate merits of these proposals, they are clearly not calculated to win over the 70-90 per cent of the eligible Democrats who refrained from supporting McGovern in his bid for the nomination...

...By 1970, a movement that had been almost 20 years in the making found itself ripe for power without a leader: Bobby Kennedy was dead and Gene McCarthy was playing dead...

...he ran against a divided Democratic "center" of Edmund Muskie, Hubert Humphrey and Henry Jackson...

...Consequently, the New York Times has begun to lecture McGovern on "economics" and the New Republic has been reading him a sympathetic lesson on "arithmetic...

...McGovern's strengths are people, program and process...

...As the candidate, he will have the chance to modify the specifics of his program by identifying with the planks that issue from the platform committee of the convention...

...he was helped by Nixon's resumption of heavy bombing in North Vietnam...

...This plan was conceived when the McGovern candidacy was more a goad than a goal...

...almost all felt at ease?ideologically and stylistically-in supporting Adlai Stevenson in 1952 (when he was defeated) and again in 1956 (when he was even more badly defeated...

...Thus the second McGovern strength, his program, could turn out to be a weakness, too...

...To all those who wish to break with the past, he has offered his set of radical proposals: end the war, cut military spending, soak the rich, take care of the poor...

...The up-tights on both sides will resist this approach: The "young" will see it as unprincipled toadying...

...A third Delphic reply might be: Lead present to past for future...

...As such, he is beholden to none of the traditional organized interests-like city bosses, union leaders, business corporations, church, farm, or ethnic groups...

...A goodly number of both were dismayed by JFK's selection of LBJ as his running mate...

...They did not like Truman, whom they viewed as a Rooseveltian leftover of rather seedy style surrounded by less than incorruptible cronies...

...the package was a prod for propaganda...

...Who would pay for what...

...A Delphic reply might be: His chances for election in November are as good on July 4 as his chances for nomination were on March 4. In other words, lousy...

...It is significant, therefore, that these crucial elements who could not be turned on by McGovern are being turned off by "McGovern" extremists...

...He might begin with a clear declaration: "If I am nominated, I will go to Delphi...

...The new wave rose to a new height with John F. Kennedy-after, not before, his election...

...Program...

...But after Kennedy fashioned one end of Pennsylvania Avenue into a shining Camelot, his family, his Irish mafia, his honchos, and his nouveau Irish Bostonese became the touchstones of the newly arrived...

...But while this has been a major source of McGovern's strength, it is also a weakness...

...Whatever appeal Adlai had for these newer, egg-heady, reformist, better-incomed political elements, he was not able to stir the juices of the older, more pedestrian, lesser-incomed Roose-veltians, although the spokesmen for the New Deal loyally gave their normal endorsements to Stevenson...

...But will his most committed cadres, who interpreted his first pronouncements literally, allow McGovern to adjust, or will they view a concession to reason as treason...

...Process...

...he was the beneficiary of the newly-enfranchised 18-year-old vote...

...Perhaps, too, there are enough people in both camps who fear that there is no future for the Democratic party or the country this year, or any year soon, if the prime preoccupation of Democrats is party power rather than national policy...

...But they are not the "young" as commonly cartooned: long-haired, lazy and loud...

...In an effort to distinguish himself from others who were talking about reordering and redistribution (Humphrey, Muskie, Fred Harris, Wallace), McGovern came up with a specific program: Give everybody in the country $1,000 or thereabouts, then pay for that with an income tax that would redistribute income and an inheritance tax that would ultimately redistribute wealth...

...They are really several layers of new genera-tionists who have been gathering momentum and accumulating frustration for about two decades, a fact that makes many of them not so young...

...Let's examine them individually...

...If all the eligible Democrats had participated in a national primary this year, it is fairly well agreed by virtually every poll that Hubert Humphrey-the candidate of the old coalition-would have won...

...he was the one fresh face on the scene at a time of widespread voter disaffection with the past...

...the "olds" will see it as insincere flattery...

...Hence, he seemed to have been appointed by divine destiny to ease the transition of the Democratic party from old to new, until a fickle fate ended his appointed round...

...In other words, he must beware of hubris, the fatal flaw of the classic heroes whose self-righteous pride led them to a humiliating pratfall: Oedipus Rex, King Lear and Senator Goldwater, for instance...

...To the radical groups in the McGovern movement, who have been the real fire in that political furnace, the program-rather than the man-has been at the core of their commitment...

...McGovern won the preconvention battle because the "Humphrey" elements did not come out in the primaries, but without their votes the senator from South Dakota cannot become President...

...McGovern received his strongest backing from the 18-29-year-olds, and from people having an annual income above $15,000-the new wave Democrats...

...Humphrey ran way ahead with those above 30 years of age, with those earning less than $10,000 a year, with blacks (75-18 per cent), with union families (50-35), and with Democrats (50-38...

...And how much...

...others backed Estes Kefauver in the 1952 primaries...

...Moreover, some within his camp may not let him deal, being ready to risk defeat to fasten their grip on the party...

...Yet it is possible to do-for in both camps there is a lively dislike and a profound fear of Richard Nixon...

...He will issue as the kind of candidate that other candidates claimed they were in the past, even though they may have actually been handpicked by the "powers...

...In a Louis Harris poll taken in mid-May, Humphrey led McGovern 45 per cent to 40 per cent among Democrats and independents...

...he was not confronted by the solid opposition of organized labor because the AFL-CIO was, until the last moment, officially neutral, and some unions actively backed him...

...He has increasingly come to speak of himself in the Third Person, a rhetorical trait that inhibits the personal touch needed for successful brokerage...

...This program gave his inspired followers the sense that no matter what kind of guy the senator ultimately may turn out to be (his past record is not that radical), his candidacy would promote a platform on which the movement could stand?this year and in the future...

...In other words, cast hubris out of the hearts of the "new" people so that, with some humility, they may embrace the "then" people...

...But, once it was quantified and McGovern became a serious candidate, both he and his specific scheme were in trouble...

...At this rate, the new wave that elevated McGovern could drown him...

...Prior to the nominating convention, many of the young held out for Adlai, and many of their elders plumped for Hubert Humphrey...

...To the affluent liberals who see reduced military expenditure as both a moral and monetary gain, the threat of steeply stepped up taxes to finance a universal bonus appears downright scary...

...Indeed, even if the "independent" voters had been admitted to such a primary, HHH would have won...

...The new wave, however, is only a wave, and not the ocean of voters that will pour out on election day...

...It needed a head man and it chose from the Establishment a senator who was sufficiently at the fringes of the "ins" to appeal to the "outs": George McGovern...

...How, then, can McGovern do what has to be done to win...

...Will the McGovern miracle repeat itself between July and November...

...Yet if McGovern's victory in the primaries and caucuses-where few participate and where the angry activists do best- now seems to have been inevitable, it is well to remember that just a few months ago his nomination seemed impossible...

...And if winning a majority before the convention leads the McGovern campaign strategists to conclude that they can do very well after the convention without the backing of the traditional organized interests, then they are doomed to defeat in November...

...People...

...Even before the Vietnam protests, the new wave did not accept Johnson-his background, style, looks, wife, or kids...