HUBERT'S PROBLEM & GENE'S PROGRESS

THE next President of the United States," grinned Hubert Humphrey before a partisan audience in St. Paul last week, "is going to be a Democrat from Minnesota. And whoever he is, I'm going to support him." Beneath the familiar air of cheer, however, the Vice President was a troubled man. He retains a long lead in delegate strength over the other Democrat from Minnesota (see box). But as he emerged from a fortnight of seclusion and contemplation following Robert Kennedy's assassination, he faced a thicket-of intangible and all-too-tangible brambles.

The Democratic Party is seriously divided, and some members profess a sense of gloom about November. Every primary from New Hampshire to California has revealed serious disaffection with the Johnson Administration. Last week's New York primary was no exception. There, Humphrey's delegates and the Senate candidate supporting him ran a poor third while Eugene McCarthy's forces triumphed in a surprising show of strength.

His Own Man. When Humphrey, who can point to one of the most effective civil rights records of any public figure, appeared at the poor people's Solidarity Day rally in Washington, he was spontaneously booed. Wherever he stepped, the long umbilical cord of the Administration seemed to trip him up.

Humphrey's problem is to disassociate himself from the status quo without appearing to disown the President, which would do him no good either at the convention or in November's election. Bill Moyers, Johnson's former press secretary and a Humphrey friend, put the problem into embarrassingly sharp focus. On a radio program he suggested that it was time for Humphrey "to say publicly what he has been feeling privately" about Viet Nam. According to Moyers, Humphrey is deeply disturbed about "present policies."

Humphrey has been keenly aware of the necessity to re-establish his political identity. He entered the campaign two months ago proclaiming: "I am my own man," but proving it is something else. To break with the Administration on Viet Nam would be an act of disloyalty and, in the eyes of many, an admission that he has been living a lie. His first angry reaction to Moyers' comment: "I can stand people opposing me because they think I am wrong, or even stupid. But I will not have anyone oppose me because they think I'm a hypocrite." Even so, he was careful to emphasize last week his commitment to a nonmilitary solution. "The American people want an honorable, genuine settlement," he said. "They want to get on with the works of peace. So do I. I always have."

Captain of the Team. In his first public appearance since the assassination, before the National Press Club in Washington, Humphrey was very much on the defensive. Stung by criticism that he is a practitioner of the old politics and a standpat factor in the new equation, Humphrey declared: "I believe in change. I believe strongly in change. I've been a man of change." At another point, he declared: "Hubert Humphrey as Vice President is a member of the team. Hubert Humphrey as President is captain of the team. There's a lot of difference."

He tried to give some measure of the difference when he urged implementation of the ambitious recommendations of the President's Commission on Civil Disorders; Johnson, by contrast, has treated the proposals coolly. There was no talk of the "politics of joy" or the "politics of happiness," slogans that his rivals and critics have used to club him. Instead, in St. Paul he spoke of a "new morality," which he defined as meeting the demands for social justice at home and reducing the causes of conflict abroad.

Thankless Honor. McCarthy's strategy remains one of barring a first-ballot Humphrey victory and guaranteeing an open convention. His showing in New York was testimony to his staying power. Of the 123 delegates at stake, McCarthy collected 61, the uncommitted Kennedy forces 31, and Humphrey only twelve, with the rest scattered. The victory also gave McCarthy a claim on some of the additional 65 delegate votes to be apportioned by the Democratic state committee.

In the wake of the New York showing, there was a strong temptation to overemphasize the results. But that could prove misleading. For one thing, there was a relatively small turnout--under 25% of the Democratic registration--giving undue weight to the more militant voters. For another, the fact that no presidential candidate's name appeared on the ballot detracted from the primary's significance. Nonetheless, it did indicate a level of discontent with the Administration that can only discomfit Humphrey.

McCarthy supporters cared enough not only to vote but also to learn which delegates to vote for. In the primary to choose an opponent for Republican Senator Jacob Javits--a thankless honor in view of Javits' 22-year winning streak--the winner in a close three-man contest was Paul O'Dwyer, an antiwar, pro-McCarthy candidate.

Cool & Cerebral. The election also demonstrated that while many top-echelon Kennedy men still refuse to commit themselves to McCarthy, rank-and-file Kennedy supporters may feel they have nowhere to go but to the Minnesota Senator. After the assassination, Speechwriter Ted Sorensen had appealed for election of the Kennedy delegate slate, hoping to maintain a significant independent bloc for bargaining at the convention. The appeal failed, and Sorensen himself was defeated in a delegate contest by a McCarthy man.

As it had in previous primaries, McCarthy's cool, cerebral style carried a number of areas containing relatively affluent, well-educated voters. "There's no special alchemy," McCarthy observed later. "I try to put things in some kind of historical context, and these people respond to this kind of approach." This constituency, says McCarthy, is "what America is becoming. The more people are educated, the more they will want this kind of politics."

For the time being, though, the Democrats must still appeal to large numbers of working-class citizens, black and white, as well as to the middle class. McCarthy did well in the latest polls. But so far, neither Humphrey nor McCarthy has been able to evoke deep support across a broad spectrum. In a year when discontent may prove a more powerful influence than partisan loyalty, that could prove a fatal flaw.

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