George McGovern Makes His Case

The Democratic presidential candidate met with TIME editors last week for a wide-ranging interview on his prospects and problems, presenting the most favorable case for himself as he prepares to take it to the voters. Excerpts:

FENCE MENDING. We'll have some difficulty there. We've already had a little, but I think that most of the original constituency that got us the nomination have enough pragmatism to know that if I'm going to be elected President we have to reach out beyond the groups that got us the nomination. That doesn't mean that I have to betray my principles, but it does mean that in dealing with people I've got to make a deliberate effort to ask for support from party regulars. I did call Mayor Daley, and he's going to meet me at the state fair in Illinois next Wednesday. We'll be touring the fairgrounds together. Some people with tender skin are going to be offended by that. But the fact remains that Mayor Daley is a power in Illinois. If we want to carry that state, it's helpful to have his support. Anybody with a little common sense who wants to see me elected will see that as a wise move, not as a betrayal of principle. [As for George Wallace], I don't know whether he will endorse me. I would like to have his support.

THE JEWISH VOTE. I think that my position on Israel over the years has been stronger than has been the case with Mr. Nixon. I've been a very strong supporter for U.S. assistance to Israel. I think there are some other factors that may be behind what I hope will be a temporary defection of the Jewish vote (see story on page 12). I've been a leader, for example, in the reform movement in the Democratic Party which calls for fairer representation of various minority groups in the Democratic Convention process. This has resulted in more blacks coming in, more Mexican Americans, more women, more young people, and I think some Jewish voters may have seen that as a kind of threat to their position within the councils of the Democratic Party. They may have seen in that the possibility of quotas in Government itself that would be a threat to talented Jews who feel positions in the Government ought to be on the basis of merit, not on the basis of any kind of quota system.

Also I suspect that we may be getting some of the same kind of backlash among Jewish voters that we saw earlier among white voters in general when efforts were made to deal with the problems of poverty and the problems of blacks. But as we move toward the election, those Jewish voters who have traditionally voted for the Democratic nominee will start coming home again.

UNEMPLOYMENT. I have businessmen stopping me all the time asking, "Why are you against business?" I'm not against business, but I don't think that it's in the interest of business to have 5,000,000 or 6,000,000 people unemployed. I don't think that it's in the interest of business to have 2,000,000 or 3,000,000 added to the welfare rolls as they have been in the past 31 years. There's a curious thing going on in this issue. As late as yesterday, the President's campaign manager, Mr. [Clark] MacGregor, was saying that I wanted to divide the country into welfare recipients and workers. Actually, that charge could more correctly be leveled against the Administration. They built up the welfare rolls to an all-time high, they've added to the number of unemployed in the country.

I don't see anything in the record of the Nixon Administration that entitles President Nixon to the confidence of the business community or the confidence of leading economists in the country. He's going to finish this four-year term with a cumulative deficit of somewhere around $100 billion. My guess is that if any Democratic President had been in that position at the end of four years, he would have been ridiculed out of office. I think that business will do better in the long run under a full-employment economy and under a fair tax structure than they're doing today. [As for the specifics of the tax program], I want to reserve final judgment until we have completed some studies. I do not want to be dug in for any figures at this point. I think that business will do better than we're doing today if we end the war [and] if we spend less on the military sector.

NIXON AS A CAMPAIGNER. We're probably in trouble if we can't get him out. We've got to get him out. I would love to get him into televised debates. I don't claim to be a great debater, but I do think that in open exchanges with the President we'll come off better. Whether or not we can get him into that situation, I don't know. We're not really counting on it, but we're going to press him. The more we can get him out across the country, the better we're going to do.

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