The McGovern Issue

The primaries have begun to blur somewhat, like cities watched from a headlong cross-country train. But if the grueling and expensive system has any merit, it is that it at least determines which candidates travel well. Last week, as the sheer surprise of George McGovern's early primary successes was wearing off, the central questions of his candidacy emerged more clearly: Can he command a winning national constituency once his stands on the issues become widely known and debated? Can his coalition of the discontented widen its embrace sufficiently to win him a nomination? An election?

Those questions arose crucially in the final days of Nebraska's primary last week. McGovern had depended upon a solid victory in Nebraska, which adjoins his own South Dakota. Hubert Humphrey had all but conceded the state, but then, scenting the possibility of an upset, Humphrey plunged in with a major, if belated, campaign. Humphrey's camp fostered an impression that McGovern was too radical to be taken seriously for the nomination.

No one accused Humphrey of organizing a smear campaign, but he did set the theme: "The McGovern record speaks for itself. A candidate can't be quoted two ways." A more specific formulation: McGovern is pro-marijuana, pro-abortion and pro-amnesty for draft resisters. "This is the McGovern record," said an advertisement in the Roman Catholic archdiocesan newspaper in Omaha. The ad was placed by the Citizens Concerned for Preservation of Life. At the same time, McGovern's promise to cut the defense budget by $32 billion alarmed residents around the Offutt Air Force Base, headquarters of the Strategic Air Command.

McGovern understood the significance of the attack. He repeatedly and specifically explained himself. In doing so, he did not alter the substance of his previous stands, although he may have shifted his emphasis to placate more conservative Democrats. Previously McGovern had said that "abortion is a private matter which should be decided by a pregnant woman and her own doctor. Once the decision is made, I do not feel that the law should stand in the way of its implementation." But on a Nebraska television program he said that there should be some restrictions: "You can't let just anybody walk in and " request an abortion."

McGovern has never favored the legalization of marijuana. On the Nebraska TV show he opposed jail sentences for possessors. But he insisted that no penalty was too harsh in dealing with 5 "murderous, unprincipled" drug pushers. On amnesty, he explained that he was merely following the precedents set by Lincoln, Coolidge and Truman, all of whom declared postwar amnesties. "Nobody ever called Calvin Coolidge a dangerous radical," said McGovern. The Senator favors amnesty for conscientious objectors but not for deserters.

McGovern campaigned with former Nebraska Governor Frank Morrison, 66, who was imposingly dressed in white Stetson and cowboy boots. Asked Morrison: "Can you imagine anything more ridiculous than that old Frank Morrison is out advocating a dangerous left-winger?"

The war crisis played a problematic role. President Nixon's TV speech came on election eve, and no one could firmly fix its effect--if any. Though McGovern is well known as an antiwar candidate, the President's speech came so soon before the balloting that it may have made little difference.

In the end, McGovern emerged with 41% and Humphrey with 35%, McGovern scored in the university community of Lincoln, lost among the state's Irish Catholics in Omaha, and held the farmers remarkably well. Humphrey had missed his upset. McGovern's aides comforted themselves, perhaps overoptimistically, with the thought that they had set the "radical issue" to rest in the same way that John Kennedy overcame the Catholicism issue in West Virginia's primary in 1960.

Pollyannaism. Ironically, it was in West Virginia that Humphrey found infinitely greater satisfaction last week. He emerged with 67% of the vote in the preference poll there, against George Wallace, who won 33%. It may have been an important psychological victory for Humphrey, whose loss of the 1960 West Virginia primary to Kennedy has been credited with sending J.F.K. to the White House. In fact, as Humphrey watched the West Virginia returns on TV, he offered a characteristic Pollyannaism about that race twelve years ago: "I personally suffered a political defeat, but the nation gained a great President."

This time Humphrey gained more than just votes. He will take a healthy share of West Virginia's 35 delegates into the convention. In a state with one of the nation's highest per capita union memberships and minimal anxiety about busing (the black population is only 4%), Humphrey's ties to organized labor and the state's Democratic machinery were sufficient to reward him with a handsome victory.

Wallace gave only perfunctory attention to West Virginia, preferring to till more fertile ground in Maryland and Michigan. Both states have primaries this week, and in each his constituency is strong. Humphrey and McGovern, the principal contenders, were looking farther down the calendar, to Oregon on May 23 and, more important, to California on June 6. California, with its 271 delegate votes, winner take all, had become the Democrats' new political grail. Victory there might be enough to propel either McGovern or Humphrey to the nomination.

As of last week, the delegate scorecard stood: 338 for McGovern, 241 1/2 for Humphrey, 213 for Wallace.

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