ARDOR AND DISENCHANTMENT

WHEN Hubert Humphrey took to his bed in Washington with a 101DEG fever, Los Angeles Mayor Sam Yorty was unsympathetic enough to suggest that the Vice President had contracted a diplomatic malady. The reason for his sudden indisposition, suggested Yorty, was the threat--which indeed materialized--of massive anti-war demonstrations in Los Angeles, where he had been scheduled to address a Democratic Party rally.

Humphrey's grippe was genuine, but so was the quandary that the mayor was hinting at. Like Richard Nixon, Humphrey is almost certain to win his party's nomination next month; yet rank-and-file reaction to his candidacy, never notably enthusiastic, has been increasingly indifferent of late, if not outright hostile. For weeks, despite his self-imposed obligation to defend the Johnson Administration and its policies, the Vice President has sought assiduously to outline the prospect of an independent, innovative Humphrey regime. To date, however, the exuberant Minnesotan has had to take consolation from delegate arithmetic rather than the roar of the crowd.

Over the Wreckage. Last week's Gallup poll was no tonic for Humphrey. It showed fellow Minnesotan Eugene McCarthy holding thin leads over both Richard Nixon and Nelson Rockefeller. Against Nixon, reported the poll, Humphrey would also win, but he would merely tie with Rocky. Since last month, all of the candidates have been holding comparatively steady in the polls, except for Alabama's George Wallace, who has now inched as high as 21% in the standoff between Rockefeller and Humphrey.

Nor was the Vice President's eupepsia restored by Senator Edward Kennedy's hardening decision to stay out of this year's presidential race. Kennedy's lure as a running mate on the Humphrey ticket would attract several millions of the votes that might otherwise go to the Republican candidate, or not be cast, or even gravitate to a fourth party. Partly because of the Administration's war policies, partly also because at 36 he does not feel ready for the post, the last Kennedy brother will almost surely stay out of the race. His decision did not discourage Ohio's former Governor Mike DiSalle, however. Without having consulted the Kennedys, Di Salle announced that he plans to nominate Ted for President at the Democratic Convention.

Obligatory Cliche. Humphrey's plight for the moment seemed to be that of the lame duck's ugly duckling--although the President himself was not acting noticeably lame in such matters as Supreme Court appointments and foreign affairs.* Humphrey is hobbled by his identification with the Johnson regime and unable as yet to reassert the highly individual and creative style that marked his congressional career; he worries not so much about the August convention as about November, when a Republican candidate might foreseeably walk into the White House over the wreckage of the Democratic Party. Humphrey's dilemma lies not so much in any lack of credentials for the presidency as in the changed and changing context of American policies.

In the critical area of foreign policy where he has been most vulnerable to criticism from Democratic dissidents, Humphrey last week did start staking out his own independent positions. He was not so much challenging the Administration as acceding to a new view.

"We are not the world's policemen," said Humphrey, echoing what is fast becoming the year's obligatory political cliche. He emphasized reconciliation with Russia and closer ties with Europe

--East and West--instead of Asia. As for Viet Nam, he advocated a "political settlement," adding, "Our interest runs only to avoiding the kinds of violence which can transcend national frontiers and threaten the wider peace."

Telephone Revolution. Humphrey's changing position on foreign affairs will scarcely win over many McCarthyites, and was certainly not diminishing their activities. Since McCarthy's band of student volunteers first converged on New Hampshire's snowfields six months ago, a vociferous assault on the Johnson Administration has broadened, with the President's abdication, into an offensive against the traditional machinery of the Democratic Party. "Clean Gene's" partisans and many Robert Kennedy dissidents alike dismiss the entire process--the Old Politics--as tired and untrue. Last week, while McCarthy sunbathed on a Minnesota lake, his volunteers, left idle since the end of the primary campaigns, geared up their own New Politics machine.

Fifty-five organizers were dispatched across the nation. In New York City, People for McCarthy began a "Telephone Revolution" with newspaper ads inviting supporters to call up and leave their names for an unofficial referendum designed to document the depth of disenchantment with the party's Establishment. Meantime, the Senator's aides are negotiating with TV networks for at least three half-hour broadcast slots prior to the convention, when the candidate will discuss the democratic process, the war, foreign policy and the urban crisis.

McCarthy insists repeatedly that he will battle for political power within the structure of the Democratic Party--even though he might support, but not lead, a fourth-party movement should he lose at the convention. Yet throughout the ranks of the disaffected, among Republicans as well as Democrats, runs the frustrated outcry that the parties' traditional processes for choosing candidates are unrepresentative and unjust (see story opposite page).

*One of the President's old friends, Senate Minority Leader Everett Dirksen, objects to the lame-duck label. During Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on Johnson's Supreme Court nominations of Abe Fortas and Homer Thornberry, Dirksen fulminated: "I find that term lame duck as applied to the President of the U.S. an entirely improper and offensive term."

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