Democrats to the Center
Muravchik, Joshua
Democrats to the Center BY JOSH MURAVCHIK Washington While the Republican party appears to be setting the stage for a Presidential nomination contest heavily weighted toward the Right, the...
...That is why, in the ideological and abstract debates that raged in party councils throughout '73-74, the regulars found themselves so overmatched...
...Equally important, the procedures make it very difficult for one Presidential contender to gain advantage over another through the manipulation of challenges...
...its goal is to remake the organization in its own image...
...The new credentials procedures, it is hoped, will settle most delegate designation disputes well before they become formal challenges...
...This is not to argue that those rules were in some crude way rigged for the Senator's direct benefit...
...Louisiana Congresswoman Lin-dy Boggs will be in the convention's chair...
...Still, the ultimate impact of the recent victories by the mainstream Democratic leaders is hard to gauge...
...The sentiment of the DNC was overwhelmingly behind him and all of the nominees were approved...
...Similarly, the reformers have seized the policy initiative by staging conferences around the country designed to influence the views of Presidential aspirants...
...the Democratic center...
...Boggs the authority to turn the chair over to DNC Chairman Robert Strauss, a skillful man with a gavel...
...Their speeches will probably be complemented with welcoming addresses by "hosts" Beame and Carey, making Madison Square Garden reverberate with traditional New Deal rhetoric...
...Cranston and Griffiths are strongly liberal, but neither has supported factionalist positions in internal party debates...
...Noel is an outspoken moderate, and if he has his way the Democratic platform in '76 will not much resemble the one George McGovern ran on in '72...
...This prompted the DNC's women's and black caucuses to prepare a motion to censure Strauss for his failure to "consult" them about the four women and two blacks he included...
...the traditional Democratic leaders seemed suspect and acted apologetic...
...The charter adopted at their 1974 Kansas City mini-convention contains an ambiguous "affirmative action" formula which, in its original form, would have involved the use of quotas...
...Democrats to the Center BY JOSH MURAVCHIK Washington While the Republican party appears to be setting the stage for a Presidential nomination contest heavily weighted toward the Right, the Democratic party has been taking firm steps to assure a moderate atmosphere at its national convention next year...
...In withdrawing from participation in internal Democratic affairs, the AFL-CIO left its constituent unions free to pursue their own inclinations...
...Strauss defended his actions with surprising vigor, asserting boldly that he deliberately avoided consulting anyone on this matter...
...Four separate attempts to modify the minority report restriction by the DNC's new politics wing were voted down...
...The regulars, in contrast, are primarily concerned with beating Republicans...
...But in a little-noted series of implementation decisions the party has moved steadily away from making demographic "balance" a test of the legitimacy of a convention delegation...
...The regulars note with some justification, however, that the procedural aspects of the convention will help shape the atmosphere of the primary contests, too...
...The first of these was the summer selection of New York as the site for the event...
...The political character of the convention in New York will be shaped not by procedural decisions but in the primaries, and reformers retain advantages in two areas that may affect the primaries: labor backing and public policy debate...
...Keynote speakers will be Representative Barbara Jordan, who often plays Texas maverick to the "new politics" majority of the Congressional Black Caucus, and John Glenn, the glamorous and decidedly middle-of-the-road Senator from Ohio...
...What explains the sudden demonstration of resolve on the part of the Democratic leadership...
...to them, ideology enters essentially as a question of which issues will be most effective in winning elections...
...Probably few of the regulars who sit on the DNC could convincingly refute McGovern's ideology, but all of them know that McGovernism spelled defeat...
...This will not prevent some lively controversy, but Democrats trust it will enable them to avoid a series of esoteric debates on matters important to only a relatively small section of the party...
...In '72, the fight over the California and Chicago challenges became the focus for much of the party's internal bitterness...
...In 1972, McGovern benefited from the "Mc-Govern Rules" in his stunning capture of the nomination...
...Sharing the podium with her as vice-chairmen will be Los Angeles' Mayor Thomas Bradley, Connecticut's Governor Ella Grasso, New Mexico's Governor Jerry Apo-doca, and Nebraska's Democratic Chairman Richard White, all from the party's mainstream...
...A little noticed provision of the convention call also gives Mrs...
...The answer would seem to lie in the very nature of Democratic "regu-larism...
...Although a liberal, at least by Southern standards, she is clearly not from the party's "reform" wing...
...By being in tune with the reform spirit of the moment, the Senator from South Dakota was able, briefly, to project an intangible quality of leadership that carried him to the nomination...
...the centrist campaigns of Mayor Abraham Beame and Governor Hugh Carey in their respective primary and general election victories of 1973 and 1974 reflect lessons party leaders hope will not be lost on the convention delegates as they choose a Presidential nominee and fashion the 1976 platform...
...And the Democrats want badly to win in 1976...
...The 10 convention officers, each proposed by Strauss, represent a fair mix of Democratic philosophies and geographic regions...
...It is specified that, even where a violation is proven, a challenged delegate may be supplanted only by a person of the same Presidential preference—except where it is shown that the violation involved the selection of a delegate with a different Presidential preference...
...In the same way, the new, down-to-earth mood of those planning the party's convention could help moderates seeking the Democratic party's 1976 Presidential nomination...
...Consequently, their overall tilt is toward Josh Muravchik, who works for Representative James G. O'Hara of Michigan, is active in the Coalition for a Democratic Majority...
...Thus the paradox: At the time of the '72 convention, McGovern led the polls among Democratic contenders, yet the same polls showed his views to be overwhelmingly unpopular...
...These matters, regulars feel, will materially affect Democratic prospects in the general election...
...Finally, in a move to make it difficult for unrepresentative groups to disrupt the convention machinery, the party has adopted a rule requiring 25 per cent of the membership of any convention committee to sign a minority report before it can be brought to the floor...
...The party's reform faction, born of the antiwar movement, reflects a more or less coherent ideology...
...This is also why they were willing to stand and fight on matters bearing directly on the '76 convention...
...Noteworthy, too, is the fact that the Democrats have apparently eliminated quotas from their '76 delegate requirements...
...This new mood among the Democratic leaders has also resulted in rules for resolving credentials challenges that are designed to prevent a recurrence of the bloody battles of '68 and '72...
...Rounding out the convention's top roster will be the chairmen of its three major committees—Rhode Island's Governor Philip Noel (platform), California's Senator Alan Cranston (credentials) and former Michigan Representative Martha Griffiths (rules...
...In the primaries reformers seemed to hold a monopoly on conviction and elan, and they created a mood of change and promise that had little to do with the substance of their positions...
...At the moment the unions making most active preparations for primary participation are those aligned with the new politics forces...
...And last month the Democratic National Committee (DNC), in naming key convention officers and establishing credentials and floor procedures, reinforced the point...
...Rather, they helped create a feeling that reform was on the wing and insurgency appeared to be sweeping the party...
Vol. 58 • September 1975 • No. 23
