Fair Game

...he has probably left some voters with the notion that they are going to have their savings taken from them and passed along to promiscuous women...

...Their interpretations, however, tend to miss the point of our political system...

...That is, an excess of candor appears to many to be an ingredient of radicalism...

...But in deciding whether a candidate seems radical, the public is likely to be much influenced by how forcefully a man is willing to press for proposals of doubtful popularity...

...Well, I'm not sure what about them, because at this writing, McGovern himself has still to show a grasp of the details of passing around $1,000 to everybody...

...The winning alliance they envision, consisting of young people, blacks and women on the road to liberation, is largely delusory...

...But the McGovern forces are in danger of deluding themselves about the extent and depth of the nation's readiness for substantial change, and of underestimating the fears of sudden change among voters who are by no means plutocrats...

...High-spirited Jane Fonda can do far more to hurt McGovern's cause than she can to help it...

...After so many years of protests against tax loopholes, the nation may be ready for a greater change than is envisioned in the philosophy of the Grand Old Party...

...Any Democratic suggestion at rapprochement with the East is certain to be labeled radical by the Republicans-in contrast to the solidly traditional journeys to Russia and China by the incumbent-but given the general weariness with Vietnam, the Republican candidate, who is still promising to get us out "with honor," will perhaps have trouble scaring many people with a charge of radicalism on this issue...

...It's all quite difficult-especially for a fellow who comes from outside the centers of power, has ridden into prominence on the steed of principle (whipped along by an energetic organization), and offers us above all integrity and honesty...

...It's a rare politician who can come through an election without exposing his weaker self-that's one of the benefits of campaigns...

...Prematurity is, granted, a symptom of radicalism...

...On both the Right and Left of our political spectrum are numbers of people who are perennially outraged bv the political process...

...But what about McGovern's tax proposals...

...by that measure, George McGovern bears no resemblance to Barry Goldwater...

...He is no more a radical than Richard Nixon is a Tory...

...lacking Dracula or Frankenstein's monster, we have to get our chills from Ira Levin's witches...

...Some of Senator McGovern's limitations have already become manifest...

...For George McGovern, on the other hand, the options are likely to be hard-one reason why it would be preferable to have him in the White House...

...Phillips' analysis does not bear close scrutiny-he lumps together minority-party and majority-party candidates rather casually, and does not trouble to analyze the difference between, say, Bryan's base of support and Barry Goldwater's...

...But compared to the President, who has built a career on opportunism, compared to the Republican party, which is as comfortably abed as ever with privilege, McGovem and the Democrats still represent the hopes of liberals...

...Welfare reform, for example...

...Similarly, a certain evasion on the subject of abortion may be unbecoming in a candidate who trades on his forthrightness?but certain evasions are marvelously reassuring to the nation at large...

...Kevin Phillips, who helped to bring us the President in 1968, classed McGovern with "the other major radicals of the century, William Jennings Bryan, Robert LaFollette, Henry Wallace, and Barry Goldwater"-all of whom, he explained, were "radical in the sense of differing from the current wisdom...

...To select Curtis LeMay for the Vice Presidency is truly a principled-and radical-Gesture...

...Perhaps the basic test of radicalism for most Americans is not so much what a politician promises as the manner in which he conducts himself...

...Still, the main part of Phillips' argument, though not deep, applies in this election year: If McGovern is widely perceived as a radical, he will be badly defeated...

...That so conventional a figure as the Senator from South Dakota can be painted as a radical tells us something about the state of radicalism in our time...

...On the Right, the candidate, even Richard Nixon, is charged with being a dupe of the great Socialist conspiracy...

...I do not mean to make light of the issue...

...If he is to correct that impression, McGovern will first have to understand the operation of his own tax program, and then explain it to the rest of us in clearer fashion than he has as yet managed to do...

...What really exasperates both groups of the pure in heart is the realization that insofar as the system works, it works because of deals that take a price in principle...

...Most of the nation, as usual, does not know quite what to think, but is watching McGovern and his supporters with considerable suspicion...

...McGovern wants to win, and he plays by the rules...

...By pressing their affinity to the most conspicuous protest groups, they are in danger of getting their man identified, willy-nilly, with some aspects of the counterculture-an identification that is death to any national political hopes...

...Maybe in his heart of hearts, he still hankers after the folk songs that gave an illusion of life to the Progressive party of 1948, but on the basis of his performance in the Senate and in the campaign so far, the charge is an empty one...

...Any man who shows that he really doesn't care about winning gives rise to a suspicion of radicalism...

...In all likelihood, given the power of political campaigns to nudge candidates into similar positions, we shall soon be getting a tax reform proposal of a nominal sort from the Republicans as well...

...It seems to them that their principles are constantly being watered down, if not frankly sold out by their candidates -and, as a matter of fact, they are not wrong about that...

...By this analysis, all George McGovern need do to escape the taint of radicalism is to beat Richard Nixon...

...Here, the Democrat appears to be a victim of his desire for a dramatic position during the primaries...

...But, in fact, an aversion to war is part of a conservative tradition in this country, as is the hesitant movement toward neoisolation-ism that McGovern typifies...

...Many of McGovern's most passionate supporters were appalled to find that a reformed Democratic convention resulted in many of the same platform accommodations as unreformed conventions, that the reform candidate chose his running-mate by the same criteria as any unreformed candidate...

...Beware of Friends All observers seem agreed that the election will turn on the willingness of the electorate to accept a redirection of our national concerns and energies...

...Likewise, despite Secretary Laird's fulmina-tions about white flags, McGovern's proposed treatment of the Defense Department is admonitory but scarcely abolitionist...

...To an old operator like Richard Nixon, the choice between personal advantage and political principle can scarcely bring a sleepless night...

...Several fat-cat contributors have already been scared off-but they are a nervous breed...

...It would be a most unfortunate irony if McGovern's friends should impose on him a reputation which he has not earned, and one that will give glee to Richard Nixon in 1972...

...McGovern's major distinction up to now has been his premature opposition to the war in Vietnam, and today, in the judgment of some, he is premature in calling for our complete withdrawal before we finish off that country with our bombs...

...Though the electorate may prefer the Nixon proposal, with its lower payments and its work requirement, to the more generous McGovern proposal (insofar as it understands either), there is no longer anything very radic?l about wanting to scrao the present welfare setup...

...to choose an Eagleton or a Shriver indicates merely a hungering after the Catholic vote...

...Moreover, in a campaign, the Democrats can be counted on to control their more generous inclinations...

...Something of the sort is assuredly at work-that much was evidenced in the Democratic primaries...

...and Nixon-Agnew can be counted on to raise the question of McGovern's Americanism on this point...

...Therefore, Franklin Roosevelt, vehemently denounced as a radical by good Republicans of 1932, is not so defined today by Phillips-for Roosevelt won...

...A fearsome charge, sure to send multitudes into the sheltering arms of Richard Nixon...

...On the Left, the candidate, even George McGovern, is charged with deferring to special interests or to private ambition...

...others will undoubtedly show up as the campaign progresses...

...Perhaps Herbert Hoover was the radical...

...And, indeed, the main job of our politicians is to weigh that price at every step...

...And in calling for a guaranteed annual income, McGovern is more or less in accord with the President's own unfulfilled program...

...Is George McGovern in fact a radical...

...Ah, the fun that Spiro Agnew will have at his $100-a-plate dinners as he puts down the Democrat as the candidate of kooks and clowns...

...The real measure of radicalism in America has to do with domestic affairs, with promised or feared alterations in our daily lives...

...it was not he who released the Pentagon Papers?that is not the McGovern style...

...His definition of a radical politician is not simply one who differs from the current wisdom, but one who is soundly beaten while so differing...

...he votes against gun-control bills because a lot of folks back in South Dakota like to shoot...