Vietnam war emphasised in hours before vote

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 33068, 8 November 1972, Page 17

Vietnam war emphasised in hours before vote

\ (N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) WASHINGTON, November 7. President Nixon and Senator George McGovern awaited the verdict of American voters today after a final day of campaigning in which there was heavy emphasis on the Vietnam war.

With the Gallup and Harris polls virtually unanimous in predicting a landslide re-election for him, Mr Nixon worked quietly today at the Western White House in San Clemente, California, while Senator McGovern rested at his home in South Dakota. The President, in an elec-tion-eve television statement. Mid that a vote for him would signal the North Vietnamese and the rest of the world that the United States would never accept peace with surrender. In a whirlwind cross-coun-try wind-up to his campaign, the Democratic contender repeatedly charged Mr Nixon with manipulating the Vietnam peace issue. He also hit hard at the issue of political spying and sabotage. In his television speech, Mr Nixon still predicted an early end to the war. “You can help achieve that goal by your votes,” he added. “You can send a message to those with whom we are negotiating and to the leaders of the world that you back the President of the United States as he insists that we seek peace with honour and never peace with surrender.” Mr Nixon labelled peace the overriding issue in the campaign and touched only briefly on other issues in his Jiort speech. After peace, he said, the doors would be open to achieving such goals as full employment without inflation or war. The Democrats' candidate, scoffing at the polls predicting that the President would win about 60 per cent of the vote, said that he would come up with the political upset of On his final day of campaigning he zig-zagged across the country from New York to California, even stumping in normal Democratic strongholds. This was read as a sign by some observers of concern over Democratic Party defections to Mr Nixon. But the underdog candidate drew an enthusiastic crowd in Philadelphia estimated by policemen to be at least

,20,000. He was also mobbed earlier in the day campaigning along New York's Fifth Avenue.

Displaying few signs of fatigue despite a gruelling campaign pace in 24 states compared with Mr Nixon’s short forays into only 14 states, Senator McGovern told one interviewer yesterday that this would be his last try for the Presidency if he were defeated. If the Presidential Election race unfolds as a landslide for Mr Nixon, most of the attention during the ballot counting will be on the Congressional races. The question is whether the President, if he pulls a lot of Democrats and independents into his column, can boost the Republican Party’s strength in the Senate and House of Representatives.

The general feeling is that there will be much ticket splitting, the Democrats retaining control of Congress, although not as comfortably as their 55 to 45 margin in the Senate and 255 to 177 in the House.

Poor weather, apathy, and other factors are expected to hold down the vote today. With 140 million eligible to cast ballots, political experts were predicting only about 85 million would actually vote.

The candidates, along with millions of other Americans, will be close to their television sets tonight as the vote count begins.

Although the Gallup poll has erred by less than two per cent since 1948, when it was wrong in predicting a Republican victory over the incumbent President, Mr Harry Truman, there were still a few political pundits who felt that the senator from the prairies, the minis-

ter’s son, would at least give Mr Nixon a scare. President and Mrs Nixon were to cast their ballots in San Clemente at the opening of the polls while Mr McGovern was to vote in Mitchell, near the challenger’s Sioux Falls home.