A Message of Discontent from Wisconsin

Like some metaphysical lottery, with hazards of sudden political death or prizes of resurrection, the American primary system ramshackled through Wisconsin last week to the end of its first phase--and a pause before the next series, starting April 25, in such crucial industrial states as Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan. The Wisconsin primary left the eventual outcome of the long spring campaign more enigmatic than ever, but some of the election results were startling:

> George McGovern, hitherto regarded as a one-issue antiwar champion of the liberal-left, exploited his own superb organization in the state, tapped deep wells of economic discontent and, by winning a 30% plurality, transformed himself at last into a major candidate. In Wisconsin his support was astonishingly broad, bracketing liberals, conservatives, blue-collar workers, farmers, suburbanites and the young.

> George Wallace, with the help of 35% of the G.O.P. voters who crossed over to vote Democratic, similarly appealed to a restive mood of "the little man." Although he campaigned for only eight days in Wisconsin, Wallace came in second, with 22% of the vote. Adding the Wallace and McGovern totals, 52% of the voters cast ballots for anti-Establishment candidates.

> Minnesota's Hubert Humphrey, who had counted on his longtime popularity in neighboring Wisconsin to catapult him into the Democratic lead, came in third, with 21%. It was a serious, though by no means fatal blow for Humphrey, who has yet to win a presidential primary.

> Edmund Muskie, limping into fourth place with only 10% of the vote, was the real loser. Once regarded as the front runner, Muskie's defeats in Florida and Wisconsin have deflated his "trust and confidence" campaign. In an almost breathtaking descent (see story, page 20), Muskie in a matter of weeks has become merely another contender.

At least one candidate did not survive Wisconsin at all. New York Mayor John Lindsay, with a dismal 7% showing on top of his 7% in Florida, declared himself out of the race. A Muskie aide who had earlier called Lindsay "the wild card in this campaign" remarked last week: "He turned out to be a deuce." Washington Senator Henry Jackson, who won 8% in Wisconsin, remained the darkest of horses, suffering from a massive problem of nonrecognition; on primary day last week, his workers were still distributing a leaflet headlined

"WHO IS SENATOR JACKSON?"

On the Republican ballot, Richard Nixon was opposed by Ohio's conservative Congressman John Ashbrook, who got 1% of the vote. California's liberal Republican Congressman Paul McCloskey, who had already withdrawn from the race, also got 1%. The President scored 97%.

The Wisconsin campaign was a furious montage of political styles. With mod glasses and carefully darkened hair, 61-year-old Humphrey bounced through 19-hour days. "We can sleep next year," he told his workers. Everywhere, except among college students, he found deep affection, but the warmth did not always convert to votes. At times, his campaign savored of last hurrah. In Milwaukee, a woman wearing a McGovern button told H.H.H.: "We love you." "But you're voting for McGovern," replied Humphrey. Said the woman: "Yes, but we love Hubert Humphrey."

George Wallace planned only a minimal campaign in Wisconsin, where busing was not an issue, and he had virtually no organization. But when he sensed the crowd's mood at his first rally in Milwaukee on March 23, Wallace abruptly changed his schedule. Suddenly all his earlier explanations about "our inability to rent halls because of basketball games" became academic. Wallace sought his "little man" with eleven rallies in eight days and a flurry of local television interviews. He repeatedly brought up busing as "a philosophical issue." He complained that the other candidates were horning in on his populist issues: "I dig the bone up and throw it out there, and the big dogs grab it. I'm just a little dog from Alabama."

McGovern's television commercials confirmed the Wallace complaint. "If you want lower property taxes, you want George McGovern," said one. "It's as simple as that." But McGovern emphasized direct campaigning. In oblique reference to Lindsay's stylish and futile TV campaigns in Florida and Wisconsin, one McGovern press release claimed: "The day of the media candidate is over. People have stopped watching television commercials and started listening to details."

Top-Heavy. Despite his efforts to sharpen his stand on issues, Muskie failed to come across clearly on any topic. His organization, top-heavy with endorsements and contributors, never took root on the local levels where primaries are won. He failed to define a constituency.

The overall message from Wisconsin is of a contrary mood, an impatience with more traditional candidates and a deep undercurrent of economic dismay. Most specifically, Wisconsin signaled a massive discontent with taxes and inflation--the pocketbook issues that McGovern and Wallace hit the hardest. In a study for TIME, the attitude research firm of Daniel Yankelovich Inc. found that four of the five top issues that influenced Wisconsin voters were economic. The sixth was the Viet Nam War, and McGovern made that into an economic issue as well, emphasizing its continuing costs. According to the survey, 82% of those interviewed said that the Administration's wage and price policies are not working. Fifty-two percent called for overall tax reform, with 41% complaining about high prices and 36% about high unemployment.

McGovern and Wallace both hammered away on the issue of tax reform, of giving the "little taxpayer" and "the working man" a fairer break. They shared the rewards: well over half of McGovern's voters and almost two-thirds of Wallace's assailed tax loopholes. The issue cut across both party and ideological grounds, attracting liberals as well as conservatives, Republicans as well as Democrats.

The Yankelovich pollsters found a surprising degree of "second-choice" support for McGovern among the Wallace voters--support rooted in McGovern's broad anti-Establishment campaign. It was not that Wisconsin voters were running to ideological extremes at the expense of centrist candidates, but rather that both McGovern and Wallace seem to have located an authentic area of concern that the other candidates failed to articulate. Significantly, the survey found that voters still saw Centrist Humphrey as the Democrat with the best chance to be nominated and, if nominated, to beat Nixon.

According to the TIME/Yankelovich survey, McGovern trailed both Wallace and Humphrey among blue-collar workers and union members, but he still got 25% of their votes. More than any other, McGovern came through as "someone you can trust." Improbably, he won the Fourth Congressional District, on the blue-collar and ethnic south side of Milwaukee, with the largest concentration of Poles in the state. Muskie, who had emphasized his Polish ancestry, finished fourth.

Cross-Overs. Wallace and McGovern worked the same vein of economic distress, but the McGovern vote was moderate-liberal, according to the survey, while the Wallace vote was essentially moderate-conservative. McGovern fared well with young voters (47%); Wallace did poorly. The final results were complicated, of course, by the fact that 26% of the votes cast in the Democratic primary came from Republicans and Independents. The crossovers cost Humphrey a second-place finish, since most of them went to Wallace. Yankelovich found, however, that most of the crossovers came not as spoilers but as voters anxious to make their views known on the economy and other issues.

Wisconsin served to prolong and compound the suspense of the race. It established the major Democratic theme--a profound economic disgruntlement--but not a party leader. "It's kind of a scramble now," Humphrey said last week. Coming out of Wisconsin, Muskie still led in committed delegate votes, with 961. McGovern, gaining 54 in Wisconsin, had a total of 891, trailed by Wallace with 75 and Humphrey with 19. With the delegate-rich primaries in Pennsylvania (182), Massachusetts (102), New York (278) and California (271) still to come, all the candidates are still far from the 1,509 needed for nomination in Miami Beach.

For the moment, Wisconsin seemed to have reduced it to a three-man contest among Muskie, Humphrey and McGovern. Although McGovern now ranks as a heavyweight contender, he must still establish that Wisconsin was not a fluke in which the candidate was secondary to the issues. McGovern displayed surprising strength among labor's rank and file in Wisconsin, but his comparative radicalism and long antiwar record have earned him the hostility of many labor leaders as well as Democratic professionals. If McGovern begins to seem a serious threat, many of the regulars might mount a counterattack in favor of Humphrey. Some Democrats fear that a McGovern candidacy might be the equivalent of Barry Goldwater's campaign in 1964--an ideological debacle--and they are already poor-mouthing his victory on the grounds that his excellent Wisconsin organization and Republican cross-over votes distorted the natural outcome.

Scenarios. "These primaries," said McGovern last week, "are going to go on from state to state, from battle to battle." His most optimistic scenario now is to win Massachusetts, where his liberal following is strong, on April 25, then Nebraska on May 9, run well enough (meaning third behind Humphrey and Wallace) in Michigan on May 16 and then go on to take Oregon, California and New York.

For Humphrey and Muskie, April 25 will be critical. That is the date of both the Massachusetts and Pennsylvania primaries. Humphrey, badly needing a victory, will count on his support among organized labor for a win in Pennsylvania. Despite Wisconsin, Humphrey's camp insists that McGovern is not really a factor--"This is a race between Humphrey and Muskie." McGovern's advisers, meantime, regard Muskie as a political corpse, seeing the race as a head-on collision between McGovern and Humphrey.

Muskie had planned to run in Pennsylvania against Humphrey and in Massachusetts against McGovern, to regain momentum. Last week, however, his advisers were discussing a stop Humphrey ploy with McGovern's forces--Muskie would concentrate on winning in Pennsylvania while leaving Massachusetts to McGovern.

With each future contest, the political equations will change and the pressures increase. It is now highly likely that after all the bloodshed of the primaries, no one will go to Miami Beach with a lock on the nomination. If so, it will be a fascinating week in July. A deadlock would probably eliminate McGovern as too leftward and experimental, even though that might provoke a fourth-party rebellion. Humphrey might also be unacceptable: "too much like 1968 ... a loser's image." That might leave Muskie as a "reconciliation" candidate. Or it is possible, as some politicians have already begun to fantasize, that stalemated delegates from all factions of the party will send up a cry from the floor: "Kennedy! Kennedy!"

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