The Durable Issue

He was a one-issue man, some once said, and his candidacy would fade the moment President Nixon carried out his 1968 campaign pledge to end U.S. involvement in the nation's longest war. But as U.S. bombs smashed into targets near Haiphong and Hanoi and Communist MIGs attacked American warships, Viet Nam was still very much alive as a national issue--and so were the presidential nomination hopes of South Dakota Senator George McGovern.

The one-issue label had never been quite accurate; he has long been far more than that. Indeed his position papers on tax reform and defense spending are the most carefully reasoned and detailed of any candidate. But McGovern's early (1963) and persistent all-out opposition to the U.S. role in Viet Nam gave him far more punch last week than the other Democratic contenders --nearly all of whom sharply assailed Nixon's re-escalation of the air war. Campaigning hard in Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, McGovern drew repeated ovations as he branded the Administration's new bombings "tragic and sickening events."

It was also once said that McGovern was too colorless a man to enlist the grass roots support necessary to make him a force at the Democratic National Convention. But last week McGovern continued to show surprising organizational strength as his enthusiastic, and mainly youthful, supporters dominated enough party caucuses in Idaho to win 45% of the district delegates, who will select the state's delegation to the National convention. Edmund Muskie got only 17.8% and Hubert Humphrey 5%. McGovern did almost as well in similar caucuses in Vermont, neighboring Muskie's Maine. He appeared to have won about 400 district delegates against nearly 250 for Muskie and only eight for Humphrey. The showing was all the more impressive because in both states top party leaders supported Muskie.

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