All the Presidential Men

...Not with the controversial things he believes and has said...

...He would like to return the bulk of the federal government’s responsibilities to the states, which, if given the chance, could manage things far better...

...With his sensitive face and gentle manner, he is not what you would call charismatic-a quality which many people who haven’t quite let go of the Kennedy era still believe is important...

...A President is supposed to be able to make quick judgments and to have the self-confidence to believe that at least most of the time he may be right...

...The case of Richard Nixon should be enough to convince us of the Paul R. Clancy is a Washington writer...

...Floyd Haskell of Colorado and William Hathaway of Maine are other relatively new members who are highly regarded...

...an aide to Hart...

...Nelson’s speech against confirmation of Nelson Rockefeller sums up what he has been talking about for years...

...Some still believe that the presidential primary system is an efficient mechanism for testing candidates...

...The Democratic Party may not, after all, end up a prisoner of the ambitious...

...This time, he claimed, it is not going to be an impossible dream...

...So Phil Hart is probably the antithesis of the accepted model for presidential candidates...

...You really ought to do the job at hand, and if you do it well, thmgs may follow and things may not...

...In Congress, he is usually meticulously prepared, frequently witty, and always appears to be deeply committed to whatever cause he is advocating...

...Mondale is not really a product of the system...

...Frank Church, who has largely confined himself to international affairs, should be watched closely as he heads the Senate’s CIA investigation...

...Oh, he supposes he’d take the nomination if the party gave it to him, but they wouldn’t...

...We’ve created that kind of system,” the congressman said...

...But the current system, which may produce as many as 33 separate primaries next year, is ludicrous...

...A deadlock could also produce a fresh face, a new leader...

...Although less well-known than most of the legislators I’ve discussed, Seiberling seems to have a greater grasp of what he, Congress, and the presidency should be...

...Yet a man who commands so much respect has too strong an appeal to be completely discounted...

...Said colleague Alan Cranston of California, “Fritz Mondale may have all of the right qualities, which is one reason why he might not be a candidate...

...Hart’s problem, like that which haunted Adlai Stevenson, is that the things people admire about him could make him a weak president...

...Suppose the country is looking for someone with heart and brains and substance...

...It comes, he said, from pacing” himself-14 or 15 “good, hard hours a day...

...Udall’s problem is that his ambition may be getting in the way of his effectiveness...

...The Senate, maybe, but in due time...

...It’s not necessarily like being quoted in The New York Times or being on ‘Issues and Answers...

...The giantism which the Rockefeller dynasty represents is to Nelson one of the gravest dangers imaginable, a threat to the freedom and vitality of the nation...

...Nor is the daily press playing much of a role in the search for alternative presidential candidates...

...But of a good leader, When his aim is met, His dreams fulfilled, They will say: “We did this our~elve...

...One of the House’s own is President...

...They don’t have to announce their candidacy, but they do have to play the game, say, by going on an extended “non-political” speaking tour or by loudly denying they want to run for President but refusing to rule out a draft...

...Although 1976 seems to be a Democratic year, it appears that the party might be in better shape to win the presidency if it didn’t have to actually nominate a candidate...

...the old guard has been unceremoniously booted in the britches...

...necessity of keeping out of the White House men who are obsessed with getting there...

...he’d run a campaign that would be good for the country...

...I don’t trust anybody with power who doesn’t have a sense of humor, a good, self-deprecating sense of humor...

...In his view, there should be no glory in being President...

...Seattle’s Brock Adams, just elected to head the House’s new Budget Commit tee, is considered an economic whiz...

...He is a man of searching intellect who, as head of the Antitrust and Monopoly subcommittee, has been patiently chipping away at the foundations of corporate power for years...

...In the view of many, among the most promising is 45-year-old Tom Foley of Washington state...

...Besides intelligence, compassion, and integrity, Nelson says a President should have the capacity to laugh at himself...

...He’s often said he would be a basket case in six months if he ever had to be President...

...Dick Clark of Iowa, although elected only in 1972, is a likeable, persuasive figure...

...He also has been a quiet champion of consumer protection and equal rights...

...When Mondale saw the grueling year and a half.that lay ahead, he realized that he didn’t want the White House badly enough to give up his personal life and become the political automaton that a presidential race requires...

...Ernest Hollings, though a little too slick for some, a little too South Carolina for others, has one of the quickest minds and best set of vocal cords in the place...

...Ask the standard questions and you get the standard answers: It ought to be Jackson because he can bring back the labor vote, or Muskie because he can hold the center...

...No one in the party is actively searching for presidential candidates who will not repulse an electorate weary of naked displays of unbridled ambition...

...But I’m not going to neglect the job I’ve been elected to fill in order to seek it...

...Too many have come in and out with blazing speed, only to get bumped off or lost on their way to fame in the Senate...

...Too many politicians have forgotten that in 1972 the uncharismatic George McGovern won primary after primary-and began to falter not because of lack of charisma but because of the appearance of ineptitude...

...Some critics say he botched the land-use bill and compromised unnecessarily on stripmining...

...As a former governor of Wisconsin, Nelson has administrative experience...

...Since the new representatives have come bustling into town, upstaging the Senate and even the White House, several members of depth and shrewdness have emerged...

...Sitting on the sofa in his modernistic office-an anomaly on Capitol Hill-feet propped on his glass coffee table, he doesn’t seem like a reformer...

...But in the era of television, where there is no longer the need to project to the back row of Madison Square Garden, this may not be fatal...

...When it was all over, Eagleton’s wife, Barbara, was warm with praise for the Wisconsin senator...

...Jerry Ford is getting his stiffest opposition from his old colleagues...

...That’s why it is so important to start talking about the best men now...

...Richardson Preyer, a former federal judge from Greensboro, North Carolina, has been fighting, along with Udall, for ..a compromise for the divisive issue of school busing...

...John Seiberling, a gaunt, stolid man who seems perfectly content to return to being a corporate lawyer in Akron, Ohio, is considered one of the most ethical members of the House...

...I have come away with what must be the most comprehensive list of people who almost certainly will never run for President but, given a different set of political realities, could or even should...

...but a chance to do some thing of substance...

...Cranston, considered one of the ablest leaders of the liberal wing of the Senate, is also one of the men in Washington least likely to run for President...

...Since the presidency, as much as anything, requires the ability to handle people, the Eagleton affair is an indication that Gaylord Nelson is more than man enough for the job...

...Less good when they Praise and obey him, Worse when they Fear and despise him...

...If they can’t, Nelson believes that the voters would eventually choose state officials who could...

...Let’s just try to answer the question: Who are the most qualified...

...Having an interview with him is more of an informal dialogue than a press conference and, more than likely, friends of Cranston who happen to have dropped by will gather around to listen...

...The list of bright, talented Democrats seems endless...

...With these liabilities, it is a reflection on the rest of the crop of announced candidates-men like Lloyd Bentsen, Eugene McCarthy, Fred Harris, and Jimmy Carter-that the press has declared Jackson the front-runner...

...This is quite evident in Cranston’s office, where he is not referred to in reverent tones as “the Senator,” as so many others are, but simply as “Alan...

...An even less likely candidate than Cranston is the quiet, intense, and immensely respected Phil Hart of Michigan...

...It may be that they are the only kind that can survive it . ” Some have said that Fraser, instead of Udall, should be the House member taking a shot at the presidency, but that’s just not Fraser’s style...

...He lives with his decisions too long...

...Now that he has the job, he thinks it’s a shame the Republicans can’t come up with some better candidates to run against him...

...That may be what Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon have done to the presidency...

...I have talked with aides, their loafered feet propped on desks piled high with papers, with reporters curled up on the comfortable couches in the congressional press galleries, and with members of Congress themselves...

...It may, in spite of itself, be rescued by the opportunity to nominate a candidate who did not bum himself out in the primaries...

...But many Democrats who remember his deadly campaign style from 1972 and have . kept up with his Senate record since then might argue with that prediction...

...What’s needed is not a candidate with a detailed program, but one with high ideals and intelligence, the flexibility of mind to try new approaches, an intuitive understanding of the political process, and the strength of character not to be seduced by the trappings of high office...

...All the Presidential Men by Paul R. Clancy “Scoop:’ Jackson, the Senator from Boeing, made it official a few weeks ago: he would again seek the Democratic presidential nomination...

...Too much emphasis on the ability of a single leader to take us out of the wilderness is a mistake, Cranston said...

...By primary time we will know more about them than we ever wanted to: how they stand in the polls, how they walk, how they talk, whether they drink, what they drink, and, occasionally, what they think or how they collapse under pressure...

...Suppose no one has it locked up by convention time...

...Even so, Udall, when I saw him, about to leave for lunch with Averell Harriman, seemed relaxed...

...That decision says something about the man and the system...

...Although he . subsequently had to win re-election on his own, he has never had to consider the consequence of no longer being Walter Mondale...

...The guy who stays around and works like hell at his job is not going to make it...

...But judging from the crop of those who are willing to be tested, it is also a major deterrent...

...Said Bill Pursley, an aide to Florida’s Senator Dick Stone, “He’d be able to appeal to people’s best instincts, instead of their worst...

...Neither do the players often know that much about their teammates...

...But this is the Age of Revolution in the House, and things are changing...

...He does not like being considered a rising political star...

...Hart is another senator with absolutely no presidential aspirations...

...He is deceptively sharp, but because he is so loose, relaxed, and funny, because he takes you back so effortlessly with his high, flat accent to Clear Lake, Wisconsin, where he grew up, because he is balding and a little paunchy, he comes across as just plain folks...

...And all give the impression of being too bright to become slaves of political ideology . Just Plain Gaylord One of the least likely to run, and at the same time the man regarded by many as most suited for the job, is Gaylord Nelson, now in his thirteenth year in the Senate...

...The answers varied greatly, from one wire service reporter who said he wouldn’t trust any of those sons-of-bitches to run the country to a senator who told me this story about Durocher: Frustrated center-fielder: grabbed a glo baseball manager Leo with a bumbling rookie , the old Dodger manager ve to show him how the outfield should be played...

...All of them should be broken up and replaced by efficient, manageable, competitive units...

...He is one of the most courageous people I know and one of the most intelligent .” Fraser says he never thinks beyond his current place in the political hierarchy...

...These dedicated, serious, non-humorous people frighten me...

...Although Foley tends to follow the views of Scoop Jackson on military and foreign-policy issues, his more liberal colleagues thought enough of him to elect him chairman of the Democratic Study Group in 1974...

...said Jack Comman...

...The House’s New Guard I wandered over to the House side of the Capitol, which in the past has been just about the last place to look for presidential candidates...

...There is no glory in being Alan Cranston...

...As the tough-minded reform congressman from Minnesota, Donald Fraser, told me, “I don’t look for the ideal candidate...

...Nelson doesn’t want to be President now for the same reason he didn’t accept McGovern’s offer to join him on the ticket three years ago: “I’m more comfortable in my role as critic of the system...

...Given the failure of traditional styles of presidential leadership in recent years and given the unprecedented problems we face in terms of both the economy and our demand for energy, the ideal occupant of the White House should be a person with fresh ideas and a fresh conception of the office...

...The problem is that few of them, if any, want to be in the White House badly enough to run the gauntlet necessary to win the nomination...

...Although the Democratic leaders have obviously learned this lesson, they aren’t putting to use their hard-won knowledge...

...Barbara Jordan of Texas and James Mann of South Carolina are two of the most intelligent voices on the Judiciary Committee...

...He was initially appointed to the two political offices he has held-first as attorney general of Minnesota and then, 10 years ago, when Hubert Humphrey stepped into LBJ’s shadow, as senator...

...But why not the ideal...

...Foley has not only wrested the the crucial Agriculture Committee chairmanship from the old guard but has also successfully led the revolt against the Administration’s proposed changes in the food stamp program...

...Don Fraser doesn’t have charisma,” said Ohio’s John Seiberling, “but, by gosh, he’s got everything else...

...He received top honors at Princeton, was a Rhodes Scholar and a Harvard Law graduate...

...Others who are highly Egarded include Sidney Yates of Illinois, David Obey of Wisconsin, Andrew Young of Georgia, and Bob Eckhardt of Texas...

...One congressman who took an exceedingly dim view of my project was Paul Sarbanes, the third-term congressman from Baltimore...

...A scholarly voice on the House Judiciary Committee during the impeachment debate, Sarbanes would have been one of the floor leaders for the impeachment bills if they had been taken up by the House...

...He is regarded as brilliant, articulate, and effective, although his critics also consider him calculating...

...When I went to talk with him, he summed up his views on leadership by reciting a poem by Lao Tsu : A leader is best When people hardly know That he exists...

...This leaves the race for the Democratic nomination not to the swiftest but to the most driven...

...He was an outspoken critic of Rockefeller’s confirmation, saying in a floor speech that private wealth and public power should never be merged...

...So, during recent weeks I have been on Capitol Hill, in both the Senate and the House...

...Udall’s office has the frenetic quality of a campaign headquarters, with people darting about looking harried and hassled...

...He has said he would accept the vice presidency only if assured that he would never be promoted...

...With all the power that has been drawn to the office of President since the Depression, he believes, corruption is inevitable...

...Mondale is certainly well thought of in the Senate...

...After missing every ball that was hit to him, Durocher turned to the roolue in disgust and growled, “You’ve screwed up center field so bad, nobody can play it...

...But the House still does not provide the exposure or national forum of the Senate, and therefore its residents receive much less attention...

...The current political debate suggests that our problems have grown so vast that it is unreasonable to expect anyone-even a President-to have too many answers...

...They are the official candidates because they have held countless press conferences to tell us so...

...Now there’s a chance to have some impact here...

...Seiberling believes the House is “the only institution in our society that permits the people to control their government” and says he is going to fight tooth and nail while he is here to keep it that way...

...If he did he could not be as effective...

...Watching him, I couldn’t help wondering which was the real Mo Udall-the man of fresh ideas, cutting wit, and intellect, or the man of poor timing and judgment...

...The game has already begun...

...Nelson’s concerns go to management of the world’s resources, the wasteful, perhaps fatal, reliance on an overgrown military budget, and the disease of giantism, whether giant cities, giant corporations, giant schools, or a giant federal government...

...He can make audiences laugh with downhome jokes and then bring them to their feet cheering for cleaning up the environment, for breaking up General Motors, or for stopping the arms race...

...Maybe it’s the pictures on his office walls, like scenes of deer standing in fields of deep snow, or the way he sits, within easy reach of the books on his shelves, and gestures expansively with his arms when he talks...

...Then there would be a chance for the delegates to turn to the best man available, regardless of whether he was an announced candidate...

...Although McGovern won no plaudits for his handling of the affair, it is apparent that ‘Nelson carried out his own vital role in the drama with both integrity and compassion...

...That is why he believes in the Senate and wants to stay there...

...The honorable mention list: Henry Reuss of Wisconsin, who unseated Wright Patman as chairman of the Banking and Currency Committee, is thought of as a genius at international finance...

...Don Fraser, the Minneapolis congressman who has been credited with shaping major Democratic Party reforms, prefers to stay behind the scenes...

...Congress is just as capable of leading, maybe more so, if its talented members would stick to their jobs and forget about reaching for the Big Prize...

...It’s much too late now to change the primary system...

...But Nelson doesn’t want to run for the same reasons Walter Mondale decided to withdraw his bid for the nomination after a year of testing the waters...

...The pragmatists begin talking about things like a grasp of history, a healthy sense of humor, and personal decency...

...Jim Wright, a 20-year veteran from Fort Worth, who is putting together the Democratic alternatives on energy and the environment, is articulate and persuasive...

...His votes and positions appear to come out of some kind of inner torment...

...He believes that working quietly is the only way to make a real contribution...

...Nevertheless, he is so highly regarded by many of his colleagues, even some conservatives, that he is one of the few contenders now in the race being taken seriously...

...Sarbanes was born in Salisbury, Maryland, the son of Greek immigrants...

...Foley looks the part of the politician: tall, hair streaked with grey, self-assured, yet he is thought of as a self-effacing man...

...The Democratic Party is full of potentially attractive presidential candidates, men and women of integrity and proven ability...

...He’s level-headed, brainy, we 11-educated, attractive . Most important, he’s a decent person.’’ With all this going for him, Sarbanes is a rather plain fellow who keeps pictures of congressional baseball teams on his office walls...

...I’d love to be President,” Cranston said, his lanky left leg slung over the arm of a stuffed chair in his office...

...Many speculate that in such a situation the Democrats will turn to familiar faces like Muskie or Kennedy...

...In 1972 he was the only white political leader in Michigan who refused to give way to the anti-busing hysteria...

...Paul Sarbanes, as far as I’m concerned, is presidential caliber,” said John Seiberling, who sits next to him on Judiciary...

...another, Morris Udal1 of Arizona, is already an announced candidate...

...He is convinced that if he continued as a candidate to talk about the “vital” issues he’s concerned about and not just the patchwork cures like increased unemployment compensation, “I’d get run right out of the ballpark...

...Cornman belongs to the strong leadership school and knows Hart’s limitations, yet acknowledges that Hart would be “a great candidate...

...In the eyes of colleagues and reasonably neutral observers, Mondale, nonetheless, has most of the qualities the next Democratic nominee ought to have...

...there is a comfortableness about Nelson that makes communication easy...

...Most of those on the list are in the liberal wing of the Democratic Party, but there are exceptions...

...Although there are certainly governors and other public figures who have what it takes, Congress, the traditional home of presidencyseekers, is not a bad place to start the search...

...Suddenly you’re in another ball game...

...He does much better, however, in the small hearing rooms that are a senator’s usual domain than before huge throngs at campaign rallies...

...And he said this with feeling: “I don’t think you ought to write a game plan for your life...

...Seiberling, the grandson of the founder of Gooclyear Rubber, says he ran for Congress five years ago out of a sense of indignation over the quality of his district’s congressman...

...But beneath the cynicism and the jokes, you discover some keepers of the flame...

...For Sarbanes, any talk of the presidency is foolish...

...Foley intends to stay right where he is, where he can have an impact, and he hopes other liberal congressional leaders will decide to stick around...

...He, like most of the others, wants no part of the White House: “I’ve become disillusioned about the presidency as an institution to which we can safely entrust the fortunes and fate of our country...

...Perhaps that is why he is viewed by a lobbyist for the consumer movement as “the least egotistical man in the House of Representatives...

...There is a gleam in the eye...

...He has seen the pretentiousness of imperial majesty in the Nixon White House and has found it revolting...

...Forget for the moment the tenets of political realism, forget the absurd hurdles that stand between anyone and a presidential nomination...

...He’s not a hand-shaker, fund-raiser, promiser, bull-shitter...

...He has been called the man with the most integrity in the Senate...

...Furthermore, it is so large that few outsiders really know much about the players...

...But, and this is an important but, there is an excellent chance that nobody will win the primaries decisively enough to lock up a first ballot nomination...

...Since it appears likely that whomever the Democrats nominate will be an academic exercise to ask the simple question: who are the people of true ability and integrity who could lead the country...

...William Proxmire, a proficient gadfly in the past, has a chance, as head of Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, to really rock the system...

...The quality that has made Cranston so successful in recent months is his lack of interest in self-promo tion...

...There is a magnetism to this tall, rough-hewn Westerner that matches his definition of the requirements for the presidency: “A person who has self-confi6 6 dence, has his feet on the ground, has a sense of history, and is decisive.’’ Most of all, Americans are looking for “straight talk...

...I look for the best among the possible...

...Unfortunately, those who do make it are the driven candidates...

...Once these rumored candidatesmad dogs or light-weights though they may be-make it official, the press feels duty-bound to cover them like flypaper, even if the convention is still 18 months away...

...A few primaries in representative regions may be helpful in separating out dilettantes like Vance Hartke in 1972 from serious candidates...

...Perhaps the greatest tribute to Gaylord Nelson came after the 1972 Democratic convention when both George McGovern and Tom Eagleton chose him as the honest broker they needed to mediate the negotiations that led to Eagleton’s resigning from the ticket...

...You get the feeling that he, his staff and friends are all part of a big family, and if you want to come for dinner, there’s always a place...

...They are not willing to make the Faustian compact that requires surrendering the personal qualities that make them attractive in the first place in order to endure the mind-numbing ordeal of a presidential campaign...

...Political reporters do not feel free to write about possible candidates who haven’t made recognizable moves in the presidential sweepstakes...

...Who really has enough sense of himself and the needs of the country to lead...

...There are others with wit and ability in the Senate...