PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN CAN HUMPHREY REVERSE HIS DOWNHILL SLIDE?

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31781, 11 September 1968, Page 16

PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN CAN HUMPHREY REVERSE HIS DOWNHILL SLIDE?

(By

STEWART ALSOP.

*, writing to "Newsweek** Irom Chicago)

(Reprinted by arrangement)

Most Presidential nominations have something in common with a coronation. Hubert Humphrey’s nomination in the hate-filled convention in this hate-filled city—Mayor Daley’s gift to Richard Nixon—has been more like an execution. It is hard to see how Humphrey can possibly survive this political decapitation.

The disastrous convention has been only the culmination of a process of decline. Three months ago, Humphrey was defeating Richard Nixon easily in the polls, and running ahead of both Robert Kennedy and Eugene McCarthy. He has been bouncing steadily and precipitously downhill ever since. True, he has been nominated, but in the process a very large number of people have come to believe the following things about him: (a) He is a toady, a weakling, a mere creature of Lyndon Johnson’s. (b) He is a warmonger, determined to prolong the war in Vietnam.

(c) He is a cynical practitioner of the "old politics." (d) He is a bit of an ass. (e) He has a face like a furious turtle’s. Truthless Notions Except possibly for (e), which he cannot help, there is no truth at all, or hardly any, in these notions. Yet enough people believe them sd that Hubert Humphrey cannot possibly be elected unless he can somehow and sharply reverse his long downhill slide. The reversal maj possibly have started on Thursday night, with his effective acceptance speech. Meanwhile it is interesting to consider some of the reasons for Humphrey’s decline, for they suggest what must somehow be done if it is to be reversed. There are three main reasons for Humphrey’s decline —fate, the liberals, and Humphrey himself. Fate took the form of the bullet that killed Robert Kennedy. If he had not been killed, Robert Kennedy might have been nominated here—that no-one can now tell for sure. But at the time of his death, he was Humphrey’s greatest asset. For Robert Kennedy was calling, not only for an end of the war in Vietnam, but for a major redistribution of income in the United States—and with great passion and sincerity. In so doing, he scared and angered a great many professional politicians, and a great many ordinary citizens too. Murder’s Effect Kennedy made Humphrey seem, by contrast, a safe and reassuring fellow, which was why, at the time of Kennedy’s death, Humphrey was well on the way to winning the nomination. After Kennedy was murdered. Humphrey suddenly began to seem more boring than reassuring. And Kennedy’s murder robbed Humphrey of his chance to prove himself, by defeating a Kennedy, a major politician in his own right. In defeating that odd fellow, Eugene McCarthy, he has proved noth-

ing of the sort. Thus the image of Humphrey as the feeble creature of Lyndon Johnson remains unerased. As for the liberals, his erstwhile allies, they have performed a really brilliant knife job on poor Humphrey. Article after article in the major liberal organs—notably the bell-wether “New York Times” have portrayed Humphrey as a mere buffoon, and both the McCarthyites and the Kennedyites have been busily slicing Humphrey into small pieces. Finally, and most important, there is the knife job Humphrey has performed on Humphrey. Except perhaps for George Romney’s “brainwashing” confession, no more infelicitous phrase has been used by a major politician in modern times than Humphrey’s “politics of joy." But Humphrey has also hurt himself badly in a more fundamental way. Likes To Be Liked Every politician likes *o be liked, and it is the art of politics to gather people of contradictory views under one large tent. But nobody likes to be liked more than Humphrey—this may be his greatest weakness. And it surely should have been obvious that it would be impossible to gather under one tent Lyndon Johnson and his followers and Eugene McCarthy and his followers. It should surely also have been obvious that it was not possible to reach any sort of accommodation with McCarthy, simply because an accommodation would have destroyed McCarthy’s political reason for being. But Humhprey foolishly tried. Every time Humhprey made cooing noises, McCarthy simply took more »- treme positions —like his proposal for forcing this country’s South Vietnamese allies into a coalition with their life-and-death enemies, the Communists, before holding an election. Instead of denouncing this proposal as morally indefeni sible ard big-power imperialism of the crassest sort—which it was—Humphrey went on making cooing noises. Finally, and inevitably, Humphrey had no choice but to support the basic policies of the Administration of which he had been a part. Thus the cooing noises earned him' nothing but a reputation for) weakness. Can all the damage that has) been done to Humphrey by himself and others be undone in a mere eight weeks or so?) Most of the answers. obvi-| ously, will depend on: Humphrey. Humphrey has been, in all fairness, in a next-' to-impossible situation in I recent weeks. But now that he I is his party’s nominee, and as Lyndon Johnson fades into

ghostliness, he will have a chance to prove that he is his own man. For example, it is a good guess that, now that the convention is over and the much-advertised “new Tet offensive” has failed to materialise, Humphrey may soon advocate a full bombing pause to test Communist intentions—and also to establish his independence of Lyndon Johnson. Liberals’ Attitudes Much will also depend on the liberals. McCarthy has already made it clear that he intends to spend the campaign contemplating his own virtues, and his more impassioned followers will also sit out the election. Some of the Kennedy people are also toying with the notion that after four years of Richard Nixon, Camelot will be re-created with Edward Kennedy as the new King Arthur. But this is a silly idea, because Nixon is quite shrewd enough to use the immense powers of the Presidency in this increasingly conservative country to make the Republican Party again, and for a long time, the majority party in the nation. The Kennedy people, by and large, are not silly people. Much will also depend again on fate—notably on whether the Communist side now decides to negotiate seriously on Vietnam. But after the Chicago disaster it seems clear that Humphrey needs a threehorse parlay. Fate, the mores sensible liberals and Humphrey himself will have to work together, if this decent and honourable man is to have any chance at all of becoming President of the United States.