Scoop on the Road

By HP-Time

Senator Henry ("Scoop") Jackson admits that the Florida primary is crucial to his campaign for the presidency. TIME Senior Correspondent John Steele followed Jackson along the campaign trail to assess the man and listen to his cadences:

Steam from the huge mounds of spaghetti and meat sauce gently drifted toward the ceiling and softened the harsh fluorescent light in the crowded Lions Club in old Key West. The crowd chatter, much of it warmly spiced with Spanish-American syllabication, died. The speaker was a stumpy, smoothfaced man who was as far away from his home in Everett, Wash., as he could be. His Adlai Stevenson-era button-down blue shirt, neat striped tie, close-clipped sideburns and Trumanesque pungencies perhaps marked him as a man of the 1950s. "What I stand for," said Henry Jackson, "comes closer to your thinking than all of the other candidates. I'm the different candidate." The sponge fishermen, tradesmen, retired couples and the rest of the audience stood up and cheered.

Jackson's is a long-shot gamble, steeped in the assurance that many of the old verities--he calls them "realities"--remain. His deep conviction is that Edmund Muskie, Hubert Humphrey, George McGovern and the other Democratic candidates are running away from the great middle ground of American politics. As Florida's March 14 primary approaches, Jackson believes that he is getting his uniqueness across. He will spend nearly every 8-to-midnight working day stumping the state, though he has already visited every Florida district at least once, and been to many a small northern town where no other candidate has yet appeared.

Lousy Parent. Jackson brands as "hypocrites" those who advocate major cutbacks in U.S. military spending while at the same time pledging security for Israel. He favors embarking on new major weapons and space systems in order to meet a threat of Soviet lodgments in the Middle East and the Indian Ocean. Privately, he has warned President Nixon to send no Strategic Arms Limitation treaty to the Senate if it would curb only defensive weaponry while leaving unchecked the steady growth of Soviet offensive missiles. He regrets that the U.S. has failed to achieve a quick victory in Viet Nam. He advocates an even faster withdrawal of U.S. ground troops, but warns that war frustrations may lead to resurgent isolationism and the neglect of a credible defense posture.

Jackson categorically opposes the mandatory busing of schoolchildren for the sole purpose of achieving racial balance; he approves of busing only if "quality education is assured at the end of the bus ride." He never tires of reminding listeners that his own nine-year-old, Anna Marie, is the only presidential candidate's child who is attending public school. Forty percent of Anna Marie's schoolmates are black. Her principal and teacher are also black. While Jackson says that he welcomes black pupils who are bused to the school, "I'd be a lousy parent if I agreed to bus Anna Marie out of our neighborhood school to an inferior black one."

He characterizes as "outrageous nonsense" any equating of diligent crime prevention with racism and promises more federal funds for additional judges, prosecutors, public defenders and police. In return, he wants local jurisdictions to bring those charged with crime to trial within 60 days. On what he sees as the "overriding issue," the economy, Jackson's emphasis is on re-establishing a growing, expanding economy that is now operating at one-quarter less than its potential in new goods and services.

Square Stance. The Jackson campaign does not lack for funds. He expects to have raised and spent about $1,000,000 by early April, half of it in Florida. His television and press exposure in Florida is excellent; he has some strong labor backing, and important elements in Governor Reubin Askew's organization are supporting him. Jackson still stands at only 5% in the national polls, but in the last Quayle poll, taken in Florida in late December, he rose from 6% to 12%, only seven points behind Muskie (though the front runner, George Wallace, had a commanding 29% in the splintered field). Jackson men assert that their candidate continues to gain.

The question is whether he can establish his square stance with what he calls an "uncertain, uneasy, concerned America." He is trying to catch a political mood that he believes to be in the air--a centrist, have-faith-in-America mood that is not unlike the one that so often is evoked by President Nixon. Even in Key West the verities of home were not too far away. Grabbing Jackson by the shoulder, Navy Quartermaster Bill Morrison told him: "Look, Senator, Dad and I waterproofed your basement back home in Everett. I think you're coming through loud and clear."

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