McGovern cool, determined

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 32971, 18 July 1972, Page 15

McGovern cool, determined

(By

JAMES RESTON.

of the New York Times News Service, through N.Z.P.A.)

MIAMI BEACH, July 17.

The Democrats have come out of their convention in fairly good order. In Senators McGovern and Eagleton, they have a ticket that runs no farther than from Missouri to South Dakota, but at least they have avoided the worst of their nightmares, and they are not deceiving themselves about the magnitude of their problems.

The only thing they don’t have to worry about is overconfidence.

They have lost three of the last five Presidential elections, they have been out of the White House for 12 of the last 20 years, and they are broke and divided.

But they seem to thrive on adversity. They have time, energy, and youth on their side, and they hope that the old Democratic slogan of peace and prosperity will carry them back to the top. In the meantime, they have a few consolations: their younger delegates proved to be more temperate and disciplined than they looked; they got through the convention without a single bloody nose;

they minimised, though they certainly did not end, their controversies over drugs, abortion, amnesty, taxes, and welfare; and from their new stand, a little west of Centre, they believe that they will new be able to recapture their historic position as the reforming force in American politics. Considering what might have happened in Miami Beach, and where Senator McGovern started from only a few short months ago, this is not a bad record, and it compels a reappraisal of their candidate, his organisation, and his assumptions. Senator McGovern is a cool and determined man, with considerable inner serenity and a conviction that it is not the Republican Conservatives but the McGovern Progressives who have “the forgotten Americans” on their side.

Nevertheless, if the public likes things that are “new” and “different,” the Democrats should look better as time goes on.

In Senator Eagleton, they picked a man with a sense of humour and a good turn of phrase, and this should be worth a lot in a country which has not had a good giggle or a vivid line from any pominent politician since Adlai Stevenson. It is Senator McGovern’s assumptions about those

“forgotten Americans,” and about the war and the economy, that are the real question. Both Senator McGovern and President Nixon, not to mention Mr Spiro Agnew, agree that the American people are restless, frustrated, and unhappy, but they disagree about the causes of this churlish mood.

The Republicans think that they can hold the White House by promising them law and order, winding down the war, and gradually cutting down unemployment and prices. Senator McGovern is promising more, faster. He doesn’t want to wind down the war, but to end it; he does not want to talk to the Chinese and the Russians; he does not want to increase the defence budget, but to cut it substantially; and he doesn’t want to win the civil war with the rising generation. but to end it.

There is nothing in his mood or manner that marks him as a radical. He has the radical words, but not the melody. He has the populist impulse and something of the populist moral self-righteous-ness, but in manner he is nearer to Harry Truman than to Bryan. As for his organisation, it is about as amateur as the Dallas cowboys. This is no blue-jean brigade dominated by radical I zealots. There was less and horsing around in

Miami Beach than at any political convention since the Temperance Party met in Baltimore, and while some of the men around Senator McGovern look like Jerry Rubin (of the “Chicago Seven”), most of them talk like Jim Farley (chairman of the Democrats’ national committee in Roosevelt’s Administration, and a noted organiser). As a matter of fact, it was a little disconcerting to listen to the McGovern aides discussing the pros and cons of the various Vice-Presidential candidates. They were all votes and very little philosophy or ideology; there was seldom a word about whether the man could unite and lead the country in an emergency; but endless analysis of what the McGovern private polls showed about whether Ribicoff could improve Senator McGovern’s chances with the Jews, or what Woodcock could do to console the disgruntled labour leaders, or what Senator Eagleton or any of the four other Roman Catholics could do to balance the ticket.

The arguments at this convention took place inside the hall under rules which were respected. The police in Miami Beach are not so sure that the story will be the same when the Republicans gather on this teasing strip to renominate President Nixon and to approve his war policy.

More than likely, the election will be won this time, not by the personalities of the candidates, but by the side that produces a believable answer to this national mood of frustration. Senator McGovern is trying to make common cause with the young and the poor, and with the women and the blacks, but many Republicans think that the country is fed up with the demands of the noisy young, the poor, theblacks and the women.

Nobody will know until November who has judged this question correctly. Mr Nixon is in a position to do something between now and November about ending the war, and about improving the economy, while Senator McGovern is not. Mr Nixon would have to swallow a lot of threats and promises to do so, but that would not be new either.

Meanwhile, all the Democratic nominee can do is to promise to go to Hanoi and make peace with the Communists. And even this won’t mean much unless he first goes to Chicago and a lot of other places, and makes peace with the Democrats.