THE POLITICAL BLAHS

The U.S. has seldom had occasion to look north to Canada for political excitement. Yet last week Americans could envy Canadians the exuberant dash of their new Prime Minister, Pierre Elliot Trudeau, who, along with intellect and political skill, exhibits a swinger's panache, a lively style, an imaginative approach to his nation's problems. A great many U.S. voters yearn for a fresh political experience, but at midpoint in 1968, the U.S. presidential race has begun to seem grindingly familiar. Hubert Humphrey and Richard Nixon appear destined to seize their parties' nominations, then meet in an old-style confrontation in the November election. For some voters, at least, the prospect is enough to start a small migration to Canada. In a last-ditch effort to start some domestic excitement, various professional and amateur politicians last week jock eyed to capture for themselves a bit of the vanished magic of the late Robert Kennedy. Despite much personal antipathy, some Kennedy forces have melded with Eugene McCarthy's. At a fund-raising hoopla in Manhattan staged by show-biz and artistic figures, Conductor Leonard Bernstein tried to re-orchestrate the R.F.K. melody for McCarthy: "What would Robert Kennedy be telling us now if he could? He would be warning us against passivity and irrationality, two evils that feed on each other, that might lead to the ugly triumph of the status quo."

Style Y. Substance. Other R.F.K. supporters have gravitated to Humphrey. Larry O'Brien, once a John Kennedy lieutenant, then Postmaster General under Lyndon Johnson, then a strategist for R.F.K., began work campaigning for the Vice President. Last weekend scores of former Kennedy hoplites gathered in Chicago with McCarthy supporters and other Democratic dissidents to plot a stop-Humphrey campaign. To some, it is Rocky who now personifies Bobby's qualities of style and passion for the poor (if not his youth). Mrs. Joan Braden, a Kennedy family friend who was co-chairman of the California People for Kennedy, crossed over to the G.O.P. to become chairman of a national People for Rockefeller group.

In Chicago, some 500 members of a Coalition for an Open Convention discussed means of trying to keep delegates uncommitted. Should they fail to block Humphrey, some of the coalitionists may work for establishment of a fourth party or switch to Rockefeller if he wins the G.O.P. nomination. Mc Carthy has hinted that he may participate in a fourth-party drive but insists that he would not lead one.

Despite all the striving for freshness, the New Politics of '68 is really more a matter of style than substance. Eugene McCarthy, who seems a paragon of the New Politics--challenging his party's Establishment, rallying the forces of dissent--is paradoxically conservative in many ways. The wry, witty Minnesotan, like Rockefeller and Nixon, would emphasize state and local responsibilities over federal control, and decentralize the office of the presidency, delegating many more duties to the Cabinet. Indeed, even his antiwar stand links aspects of conservatism with liberalism, appealing to residual isolationist sentiment on the right.

Seeking Luster. The mood of the nation reflects ambiguity: craving new approaches and answers, yet responsive to a deepening conservatism; anxious to heal the blighted cities, yet apprehensive about riots and crime. There is little exuberance. Humphrey has lived to regret his "politics of joy" effusion. McCarthy's mien is often somber, and Rockefeller, despite his smiling expeditions through campaign crowds, speaks with earnest gravity about the cities and the war.

The contradictions and uncertainties of the electorate have led Nixon and Humphrey, as their parties' frontrunners, to place unwonted emphasis upon their choices for running mate, seeking the broadest possible ideological umbrella. The old considerations of geographical balance are largely forgotten in the age of jet travel and TV. Instead, the candidates are seeking vice-presidential possibilities to bandage their political weak spots--and to add some luster to their familiar personalities. Some combinations discussed last week:

P: HUMPHREY-TED KENNEDY. A Harris poll showed that a Humphrey-Kennedy ticket could easily defeat Nixon and Percy, Rockefeller and Reagan. Ted Kennedy would reconcile many of his brother's former supporters to the Vice President's cause.

P:HUMPHREY-MCCARTHY. Humphrey "does not rule out" the possibility of asking McCarthy to make the run with him, despite the fact that under the Constitution, Minnesota's ten electoral votes might be jeopardized, since they could not go to two residents of the same state. McCarthy is not now considering the matter, has even refused to promise his support should Humphrey get the nomination.

P: JOHNSON-MCCARTHY. Possibly the wildest combination of all is being predicted by some of Washington's more recondite theorists. The speculation is that realistic prospects of peace would persuade the President to run again, with a reconciled Gene McCarthy at his side.

P:NIXON-LINDSAY. New York's Mayor John Lindsay would attract urban liberals. But last week the former Vice President ruled out the possibility of such a slate.*

P:NIXON-PERCY. Illinois' Senator Charles Percy is being generally discussed as a candidate who would also help Nixon win in the large cities, where he is weakest.

P:NIXON-ROCKEFELLER. Wisconsin Republican Melvin Laird declares: "I still think that a Nixon-Rockefeller ticket is the strongest one there is," but that combination was remote even before Rocky heated up his attack on Nixon in recent forays.

For all the apparent inevitability of the Nixon and Humphrey nominations, one component of the New Politics, the public-opinion polls, could conceivably persuade convention delegates to change their minds if the front-runners were to suffer sudden unpopularity. Meanwhile, President Johnson last week moved to assure a wider constituency for the New Politics in elections to come. He proposed a constitutional amendment granting the vote to 18-year-olds.

*Nor, it seems, will Lindsay be leaving his office to fill out Robert Kennedy's unexpired Senate term. Rockefeller said he could not ask Lindsay to leave city hall to the Democrats in order to go to Washington.

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