The Hairline Fracture

Now that "Front Runner" Edmund Muskie has fallen to the rear, much of the campaign's pre-primary political reportage reads in retrospect as if it were about some other election. Through midwinter, most print journalists and TV commentators declined to take Hubert Humphrey seriously, gave George McGovern relatively spare coverage and underestimated George Wallace's strength. The press consensus until New Hampshire strongly implied that Muskie already had it made.

There were caveats, of course --there always are--but the reportorial thrust was plain. Joseph Kraft in November found Muskie "still in commanding position." In December, New York Times Political Correspondent R.W. Apple Jr. wrote that "all the information at hand suggests Muskie will be hard to stop," and was "in a good position to clinch his party's nomination early." The Washington Post's David Broder labeled Muskie "the most popular Democrat who will actually be in the primaries," and added: "That situation, as John Kennedy showed, can be converted into victory."

A CBS News nationwide sampling of political reporters and local politicians indicated as late as mid-January that Muskie would go to Miami Beach with 1,199 first-ballot delegate votes --only 310 short of victory. Newsweek noted with pride in January that it had pinpointed Muskie in a cover story more than a year earlier as "the man to beat." A TIME election survey in the Feb. 7 issue had Muskie leading in every region except the South and concluded: "He looks increasingly like the man who will grab the brass ring at Miami Beach." Other publications and pundits said roughly the same thing.

What clouded the crystal ball? With the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, it seems that political reporters looked too hard at the candidates and their strategies and not hard enough at the changing mood of the electorate. "The press," concedes Editor John Seigenthaler of the Nashville Tennessean, "missed the depths of voter disenchantment." To his credit, the Post's Broder identified a general malaise among voters that might hurt Muskie, and with a colleague sniffed out the Senator's problems in New Hampshire just before the voting there. But these findings had little impact until primary results began to accumulate. Columnists Rowland Evans and Robert Novak wrote repeatedly of Muskie's "remarkable popularity," though they also criticized the wisdom of his tactics. Said Evans last week: "No one took Humphrey seriously, God knows I didn't, and McGovern's was a joke candidacy. Novak and I both thought that despite the mistakes he made, Muskie was still a 90% probable winner."

TIME Correspondent John Austin, who has been covering Muskie and the other candidates since early last year, now believes that he and many other reporters were deceived by the string of Muskie endorsements from prominent Democrats. There was not enough questioning as to what this support would mean in terms of votes. "I absolutely did not foresee McGovern's strength," says Editorial Page Editor Reg Murphy of the Atlanta Constitution, "and I don't understand it now."

Many political writers were swayed by polls that showed Muskie with wide national popularity in trial heats against both his Democratic competitors and Richard Nixon. Local polls in primary states proved more revealing, but only when conducted on the eve of a primary vote. California Pollster Mervin Field likens the misreading of Muskie strength to "a surgeon taking a close look at a bone and missing a hairline fracture. That fracture was in the body politic this time, and at first everyone missed it--even with X rays."

To Humorist Art Buchwald last week, Muskie's breakdown seemed more like an automobile recall. Citing "engineering difficulties and lack of consumer acceptance" for withdrawal of "the Muskie" from the market, Buchwald noted the faint hope for final victory as a compromise candidate: "While the 'Muskie' will not be sold in Ohio, Michigan, New York or California this year, it will be on display in the showroom at the Miami Convention Center in case anyone still wants to buy it."

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