PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION WHY STUDENT ENTHUSIASM TURNED SOUR FOR McGOVERN

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 33064, 3 November 1972, Page 8

PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION WHY STUDENT ENTHUSIASM TURNED SOUR FOR McGOVERN

< By

MALCOLM DEAN,

anting to the "Guardian. Manchester, from Ncu» I ork)

i Reprinted from the "Guardian" by arrangement)

If there was one crucial group which the McGovern campaign needed this autumn it was the students. They played a key role in his primary victories but became even more important in August when many lal«>ui leaders withdrew their support from the party after McGovern’s nomination at the Democratic convention.

The importance of the labour movement’s support for the Democratic Party in recent years has been as (much for the army of can- ; vassers it has produced as ' the money it has given to the ■party’s campaign fund. With ■ many trade unionists remain- ! ing neutral for the first time ; for 16 years, the people who I could most obviously fill the | gap were students. But whereas in spring the campuses rallied to his cause. McGovern no longer has a magic bugle. A hard core group of students continued to work for the Democratic candidate, but he has not got the army of student canvassers that he needs. Why they have not rallied is an issue on which some of the most experienced American political organisers disagree. Sheer numbers The student population is a much more important force in politics in America than in ■ Britain. One reason for this, as Theodore White noted in his book on the last election, is the sheer numbers involved. Between 1939 and 1969 the student population, increased from 1,300,000 to almost seven million. In 1939 the number of students was equal to the joint total of miners and railway workers but by 1969 they outnumbered the miners by 50-1. There are other factors. They are much easier to organise than any other, group. They live together and j have much more flexible: time-tables. It is easier to communicate with them. They have more energy and enthusiasm than most other sections of the community, and they are often in search of a moral cause. Why then did their support for McGovern fall off? There are several glib explanations: his low polls; the Eagleton affair; his L.8.J.-forgiveness scene; particularly the line that the former President should not be blamed for a war he "inherited.” To walk round a campus is to learn that these three j factors did have some effect; on potential student campaigners. “What is the purpose of giving up studies to campaign — no-one is going to close a 34 per cent gap,” said one student at Yale.; Fran Russo, the Students for McGovern organiser on the Yale campus, thought the polls had made it more difficult to recruit volunteers. Eagleton came up as an excuse in talks with several students. It was not McGovern’s dismissal of his running mate — even though he had pledged 1000 per cent support — but the manner in which it had been accomplished, with the hint to reporters of what was to happen several days before it occurred.

Bric-a-brac absent

A hard-core group of about 40 students at Yale were working hard for McGovern. But there was an ominous absence of the political bric-a-brac which is one indication of mass involvement: no bumper stickers, few buttons or posters, no rallying centre or collection canisters. There was a low turnout at two political rallies and when McGovern’s campaign manager, Gary Hart turned up late for a talk there were only 50 students left in the room.

Senior McGovern organisers admit the fall off in student support has been serious. One theory for the fall off was outlined by a man near the top of the McGovern organisation who for reasons which will become obvious did not want his name divulged. This man went to work for McGovern believing he had serious weaknesses but that of all the Democrats he was most likely to push for reforms. “The trouble with too many students was that, helped by the media, they created a myth out of the man,” said the McGovern aide. “Having become by far the most enchanted of his supporters in the spring, they naturally had the furthest to fall when disenchantment set in when the true candidate emerged in the autumn. “The main thing to change since the spring is not the man but the perception of ; students. They made him out to be something he was not. Now that they know he was not what they thought he was, they are using this as an excuse for not working for him. ' “McGovern has achieved i something which not even

Goldwater accomplished—he 1 has made even his own supporters doubt him. McGovern is the problem. There is nothing on which he does not ‘change positions. Nixon changes positions but out ofi calculation; this guy changes! just because someone pushes him. But the more you talk about it. the more it becomes the centre of the problem and diverts attention away from Nixon. Whatever McGovern is. he would make a better President than i Nixon." Institutional problems But another reason for the 'fall off could be institutional. ! There are many differences 1 ■ between the spring primary (Campaign and the national campaign of the autumn. The I first, involving passionate and intense activity,! is well suited to students.; series of winnable tar-: (gets — there were 23 primaries this year — helped to ■ build up momentum. Campaign workers received concentrated media attention, as ; newspapers and television; ! take each of the primaries in ■turn. But in the national cam-, paign it is a time for con-1 solidation. accommodation,; and compromise within the party. There is no series of targets to help maintain momentum. The second institutional problem is the inevitable ! hiatus in student activities ■ created by the summer holi- | days. Doris Kearns, now an associate professor at Harvard, I was one of the most cele-j brated students in the United States in 1967. She won the ; plum assignment in the pres-■ tigious White House Fellow- i ship programme — a personal i aide to the President — only i to have it withdrawn when i it was discovered she was < the anonymous author of a i widely quoted article on i “How to Drop L.8.J.” This year she has been,! working with McGovern. She : believes the break in the 11

momentum of the student campaign has been crucial. “We’ve never had a fail campaign in which there has been intense student activity We might have done with (Robert Kennedy or Eugene (McCarthy. but look at 197 u After Cambodia there waintense primary activity. But it all evaporated by the fall " Seasonal preferences But the most famous student organiser in the United States disagree-. Allard Lowenstein was the man who put together the 'Dump Johnson Movement” in 1967. It was this move rnent which carried Eugene McCarthy to his famous victories in the 1968 prim aries. Lowenstein believe'students are prepared to work in the autumn — even when a candidate is far back ■in the polls. If he has been unable to prove it yet at national level, he has achieved it at Congressional level. Hundreds of student - turned out for him in his jown 1968 and 1970 Congressional elections. Part of the problem this year appears to be that politics is no longer fashionable. Doris Kearns believes that there may have been fewer students working for McGovern in the spring than j there appeared to be. By 'moving from primary to primary the student army should have appeared larger than it really was. What is clear is that politics has (become a less dominant ; factor on the campuses. I The political pendulum is .bound to swing back. Even I though they are campaigning (at a lower fervour than ■ expected, the students have made an important impact this year. What remains unanswered is whether a student-orientated campaign can maintain the same intensity in October that it achieves in April and May. Perhaps it is just too long ; for even Americans to sustain their energy and [enthusiasm.