Those Primary Surprises

...familiar words, like "capitalism" and "socialism," lost their classic implications...

...In Pennsylvania, he showed strength only in the elitist precincts outside Philadelphia...

...So Act One proved to be a series of surprises: the rise of Hart and Jackson, the early withdrawal of Glenn, the double reversal of frontrunners from Mondale to Hart to Mondale...

...They sense that life is passing them by without their having had their turn in the true seats of power...

...But the stylistic gap persists in subtle ways: hairdos, hand gestures, facial grimaces, intonations and cadences, code words...

...One more Act One surprise was organized labor...

...Later the media began to focus on Mondale, when the sleeping dragon started to lash his tail and breathe fire...

...As for Hollings and Askew, the Democrats who might identify with them could hardly have a strong motive to get deeply involved in the party's primaries...

...He stood for the "new," and Mondale stood for those stale, stinking...

...There was another difference between them, a class difference...

...Now we had teenagers untamed by the usual rites of passage growing up in a society that was itself in passage—an in-between generation in an in-between era...

...That is not to say there are no other competent leaders...

...To another constituency, Jesse Jackson has also brought the conviction that their time has come...

...But in the 1960s, when the postwar generation began to come of age, the turmoil of transition became painfully patent...

...nor did they promote him heavily until he won in New Hampshire...

...Vietnam gave a whole generation, or at least its activists, a simple one-point program around which to rally...

...In their fantasies, they were pages in the court at Cam-elot, destined someday to be courtiers and kings...

...Equally important, those who backed him at the beginning remained loyal...

...Senator to fill a vacancy and was re-elected as an incumbent...

...Hart came on the tube with his Kennedyesque croon...

...No longer could he be silent about his rivals in the hope that he would be the candidate of a party undisturbed by a bruising primary...

...Furthermore, his positions on questions such as education, the nuclear freeze, child care, and aid to families with dependent children commended him to these activists who identify with programs that go beyond just equal rights for women...

...In the big chill of the 1980s, the Yippies turned Yuppies have exchanged their dashikis for three-piece suits...

...This year he again sought labor's backing, and when he was unsuccessful he tried to stigmatize the unions as a "special interest...

...In 1976, he was named by Jimmy Carter to fill the Vice Presidential slot...

...In any event, Act One has been dramatically much more exciting than anyone really expected...

...They were soon told that while their aid was welcome, their advice was not...

...Yet while the distrust of governmental power (actually, of large institutions in general) has always been there, certain times bring the mood to the surface...

...To an older generation it meant labor...

...They lined up behind Mondale, although it might have been expected that these opponents of the ancient ways of men would be attracted to an anti-Establishment type like Hart...

...on Election Day they could vote for a real conservative, Ronald Reagan...

...Both men emerged from the pack because they spoke for a body of people...

...Very few of the established black leaders were happy with Jesse—for personal, ideological or organizational reasons...

...In the younger movement many of the leaders came from homes that may have been associated with labor-liberal-radical undertakings, but their parents, including activists in the Old Left, had "made it...

...Fundamentally, the same holds for Jackson...

...Let's talk about that in the next installment of this series...

...Jackson brought substance as well to his campaign, however, particularly in the many television debates where he exhibited grace, good humor and sound logic in colloquies with Mondale and Hart...

...Still another surprise was the stand taken by leaders of the women's movement...

...Whatever the case, the postwar generation found an immediate cause in "Vietnam...

...But he was able to break through their iciness by appealing—as did Hart —to that anti-Establishment strain that has affected the black community no less than the white one...

...on the contrary, the party may be energized by it...

...As the old order was passing, the United States, along with the entire world, found itself in transition...

...Yet he, along with several others, was gone from the stage even before the end of Act One...

...That is the great common denominator of millions who feel their time has come...

...All of these individuals hold office because blacks have been moving with increasing vigor and accomplishment into the mainstream of American politics...

...In 1960 Richard Nixon was handed the nomination, while Democrats Kennedy, Humphrey and Lyndon Johnson battled away: Nixon lost and Kennedy won...

...That is true only in small part...

...For a while, immediately after Glenn withdrew, there was talk of how Hart would be the beneficiary of the Glenn vote because it was fairly conservative and eager to contain that "special interest" known as labor...

...In 1974, after testing the Presidential possibilities, he dropped out with a public statement that this was not the kind of baptism by " fire" he was ready to suffer...

...For 1984 marks the first time Mondale may be seeking office in a situation where he is not campaigning as the incumbent...

...The Hart victory in the early contests in New England undoubtedly spurred many union leaders into rolling up their sleeves: They didn't want to look bad...

...The Democratic primary is not likely to destroy the party...

...But the notion that primaries hurt the party engaged in internal struggle has little evidence to support it...

...Now they await the second coming of the Kennedys...

...The Phenom—as Hart was dubbed after he rose from obscurity to sweep New England—has been a long time a coming, foreshadowed by George Mc-Govern, Jimmy Carter, John Anderson, and Ronald Reagan...

...In New Hampshire and in the states where primaries were held immediately thereafter, Hart could rely on two catchpenny phrases to carry him through: "new ideas" and "special interests...

...It is popular to say that Hart and Jackson are media creations, the brain-children of the image makers...

...Fortunately for Mondale, things did not work out that way...

...Ours has been one such time...

...Anti-establishmentarianism is no recent invention in our society...

...Gary Hart, then McGovern's campaign manager, explained to Sally Quinn of the Washington Post that "they don't have the political experience or the ability to organize...

...And if a real one is not available, they will settle for a reasonable facsimile thereof...

...it changed the nature of the nominating campaign...

...there are eloquent and skillful black state legislators and members of the United States Congress...

...The first two had a logical claim on the anti-Establishment vote, since they had long records of battling the "vested interests...

...The youngsters grew up in relative affluence, in a milieu where the "class struggle" evoked an empathetic echo yet was secondary to other struggles over less economic questions, such as nuclear power (peaceful as well as military), the environment, abortions, gun control, privacy, the draft, sexual preference...

...he had to go out there and talk to the people himself, eyeball to eyeball...

...Another surprise...

...Once Mondale began to force Hart to be more specific, the categories came through as empty or contradictory or—when Gary finally did try to spell out what he was talking about—as disillusioning to one or another of his original constituencies...

...he had to go after his main challenger...

...its more radical or articulate leaders may have enjoyed much education and a measure of economic achievement, but their background—generally their childhood home—was working class...

...The anti-institutionalism of our time may also be a very realistic response to the inadequacy of our institutions...

...The reasons for this have to do with Mondale's long record of battling for women's rights...

...It is revealing that in New York, Hart was the favorite by far of Democrats who voted for Anderson in 1980...

...The media did not latch on to Hart in Iowa, where he was a far stronger contender than anyone anticipated...

...It has built suspense...

...In addition, the generations give different weights to the importance of what is being said as against how it is said, depending on the issue...

...Because this generation is more a chronologic than an ideologic entity, it can be unified by a single word: New...

...The big story in Act One was Gary Hart and, in a different way, the Reverend Jesse Jackson...

...But both Cranston and McGovern, whatever their views on Vietnam and on the hohenheeren, were not of the proper generational vintage...

...As Hart moved from bun to beef he lost customers...

...Black viewers had to feel proud...

...His candidacy was of his own making...

...Candidates are gaining recognition, and are sharpening their campaign skills...

...They were shut out of decision making meetings...

...What this cast of characters had in common was their anti-Establishment air...

...The strategy worked because those who were drawn to Hart by his style could fill in the blanks "new" and "special interests" according to their own fancies...

...In primary campaigns where the favored candidate seems certain of winning, the labor effort is ordinarily pro forma: the unions save their ammunition for the general election...

...Nevertheless, the effort might very well have lacked true zeal had it not been for Hart's charging that unions were a " special interest...

...When the campaign started, though, they were lowly also-rans...

...The real challenge to Mondale—the Establishment man— was John Glenn...

...In the second half of Act One, the same pundits saw labor as Mondale's strength in Alabama, Michigan, Illinois, New York, and Pennsylvania...

...Commenting on the Democratic primary following Act One, White House political advisor Ed Rollins said, "We'd like to see this primary process run as long as possible...

...More than most wars, that global conflict shook the foundations of traditional authority: great empires were shattered and previously unknown nations emerged...

...Small wonder that they responded positively when he trumpeted: "Our time has come...

...became so crucial...

...After Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination, there was no one to bring soul brothers together again nationally until Jackson started his run for the Presidency...

...Polls had shown that many Democrats who thought of themselves as "conservatives" viewed Hart favorably...

...Their rejection of the powers-that-be had enough appeal to win a major party nomination for three of the four, to win election for two, and to give John Anderson—a man whose only virtue was that he was none of the above— enough ballots to make the difference between Reagan and Carter in several states...

...The onus had become a bonus...

...He was appointed to the post of Attorney General in Minnesota and was re-elected as the incumbent...

...By the time he got to New York, he could not count on carrying the suburbs...

...Hart toppled him in New Hampshire and continued to win throughout New England...

...Mondale's business boomed with the decline of Hart's appeal and Glenn's departure...

...He would not have to start running until after the convention...

...But it has been suspense with little substance...

...They had known what he stood for from the outset, that was why they supported him...

...But there was an additional reason, well known to many of the women who threw themselves with enthusiasm into the McGovern campaign in 1972...

...It may well be that the deeply underlying cause was World War II...

...Indeed, the primary could produce the momentum for victory in November...

...When the liberated country wrote its Constitution, the anti-institutional feeling re-surged: Power was divided and subdivided, and the Bill of Rights had to be included to protect little "us" against big "them...

...Act Two begins in Texas on May 5. Between-the-acts seems an appropriate moment to begin a running analysis of the 1984 Presidential race...

...For the first time in his life, Fritz had to become one of the boys brawling away with bare fists...

...The turnabout did more than change Mondale...

...they approved of what he had in his head, even if he had no fire in the belly...

...Nevertheless, it was Jackson who gave these separate black movements a national focus...

...Every time Hart tried to explain his "new" ideas, he found himself losing some part of his following, including an increasing number of Yuppies...

...The black community saw its hero, a contemporary of John F. Kennedy, gunned down too...

...That got the adrenaline running...

...As Michael Harrington said to me then:" Gus, you must understand, that for this generation Vietnam is their trade union question...

...The Hart challenge stirred Mondale to thoughts and actions that he might otherwise never have experienced...

...In retrospect, indeed, it seems so obvious that Hart and Jackson should be Number 2 and Number 3 at the end of Act One: They are effective spokesmen for pre-existent constituencies...

...Jackson took to the pulpit with the revivalist rhetoric of the Baptist preacher...

...The very phrase "the movement" took on a new meaning...

...In 1980 Carter had no opposition, and Reagan had to fight for the nomination in a contest that had George Bush accusing him of advocating voodoo economics: Reagan won...

...An unusually high percentage of blacks, women and labor people are being galvanized by the various contests...

...The discussion of issues has been blah...

...But his straightforward stand for the withdrawal of troops from Central America was hardly what the patriotic followers of Glenn wanted to hear from their Presidential candidate...

...Glenn held out for support from the South, theoretically the home of the sort of Democrat to whom he would appeal: patriotic, moderate and manly...

...This was not apparent in the 1950s, a period of war weariness for a generation that had been born and had matured in the old order...

...Labor was doubly enraged because, in Colorado, Hart asked for and got its endorsement in his race for the Senate...

...That, he went on, would give the enemy plenty of time for "destroying himself...

...What bread-and-butter was to workers, the anti-Viet movement was to the youth: a way to survive...

...When he entered this year's Democratic primaries he had every right to expect that he would be appointed the nominee, given his backing by the party organization, the unions, the women's movement, the established leadership among the minorities, and the big Democratic office holders...

...Put otherwise, the candidates without natural constituencies did not last long...

...Rather it affects nonunion workers, consumers, minorities, overall employment, taxes, inflation, housing, transportation, crime, civil rights, civil liberties, child care, health services, occupational safety, education, immigration, etc...

...As it happens, labor endorsements do not necessarily carry with them the maximum effort by union leadership...

...sexual roles were revolutionized...

...Hart's hot breath forced Mondale to learn some street smarts that should stand him in good stead in the November election contest if he is in fact the Democratic candidate...

...Although the two movements were not necessarily antithetical, their emphasis made a difference...

...The contrast, to be sure, is not as stark as it was in 1972 when the delegates to the Democratic National Convention, sporting their beads, beards and sandals, madeit appear on television that a gathering of the counterculture had nominated George McGovern for President...

...Today the two generations continue to differ, especially in style...

...In 1976 Gerald Ford had no opposition, and Jimmy Carter went through a grueling primary: Carter won...

...The older movement drew its mass support from workers, heavily blue-collar...

...Polls showed him running strong in the primaries, and they showed him as the strongest contender against Reagan...

...And just as Hart's style was familiar to his generation, Jackson's was familiar to his people...

...Both were surprises —although they should not have been...

...Both Betty Friedan and Bella Abzug campaigned vigorously against Hart, and now officially endorsed Mondale...

...That contrary current runs deep in our blood...

...Why...

...Meanwhile, the younger generation finds itself in the throes of a midlife crisis, as the under-30s of the early 1960s turn into the over-50s of the late 1980s...

...Ninety per cent of labor's legislative program has little to do with unions per se...

...He was appointed to the post of U.S...

...There are black mayors in Los Angeles, Chicago, Detroit, Atlanta, Newark, and Philadelphia...

...It was a conflict conceived by their elders, who, out of harsh experiences , felt it a moral obligation to contain Communism...

...To young people who knew little of Communism and were not ready to die on some distant soil to stem its tide, the war was "immoral...

...Of the others, two came from the Democratic Party's left (Alan Cranston and McGovern) and two from its right (Ernest Hollings and Reubin Askew...

...old "special interests...

...That's why the line "Where's the beef...

...Their heroes were gunned down...

...No longer could he confidently count on those who endorsed him to "deliver the vote...

...Scratch an American and you will find an anarchist...

...He was going to get an unusual assist from a movie about astronauts that would make him "the right stuff' for the Oval Room as well as for outer space...

...Disdain for our inappropriate forms of governance may be entirely proper...

...They provided the conflict and drama on which the media thrive...

...to the younger generation it meant peace...

...The candidate who gained most from the events in Act One was Walter Mondale, not simply because he picked up enough delegates to carry him well beyond half the number required to sew up the nomination, but because he was taught a lesson...

...Early on, the AFL-CIO endorsed Mondale: He was the nearest thing to the second coming of Hubert Humphrey...

...After all, we did make a Revolution directed against an established institution...

...America (the world) may be too complex, too big, too intermeshed, and changing too rapidly to be handled by the instruments we have inherited from our forefathers...

...After New Hampshire, pundits concluded that labor was an onus for Mondale...

...After they established their identities, they proved to be a good show as they turned a coronation into a contest...

...When he ran poorly in Georgia and Alabama, he withdrew...