Travels with Nixon and McGovern

TIME White House Correspondent Jerrold Schecter recently changed assignments for a week to cover George McGovern's campaign. This is his report on the candidates' contrasting styles of campaign travel:

RICHARD NIXON'S The Spirit of '76 is always the first plane to take off and land wherever he goes. On a crowded evening, George McGovern's Dakota Queen II may be 15th in line on the runway. When The Spirit of '76 lands, reporters hit the ground running for the U.S. Army helicopters waiting to ferry them to rallies or halls where the President is to speak. McGovern's entourage has to make do with buses and traffic jams. On one bad day recently, McGovern spent six unproductive hours on the highway. Time is important to Nixon. Unlike McGovern, he does not stop to sign autographs. Instead, an aide gives anyone requesting an autograph a 2-in. by 31-in. card bearing a facsimile of the President's signature.

Aboard the President's plane, the eight-man press pool sits in a rear compartment behind a closed door. No reporter may wander forward without a rare and specific invitation from Presidential Press Secretary Ron Ziegler. Even then, it is only for a quick "photo opportunity" to see the President in conference. With Nixon, the travel days are always predictable; bad scheduling is rare and mistakes never surface. The White House works overtime to show that they never occurred. The President moves at a careful pace, emphasizing his presidential duties, his larger responsibilities. On the stump, he never mentions McGovern or the Democratic Party, and only indirectly does he acknowledge that he even has an opponent.

Traveling with McGovern is like being with a road-show company. The 85 reporters in the McGovern assemblage are encouraged to compete for the "funniest pool report"; some compose songs like McGovernment, McGovernment, sung to the tune of America the Beautiful:

McGovernment, McGovernment, Where income is work-free.

We'll all smoke pot and love a lot When we get amnesty.

Meals on the chartered 727 Dakota Queen II are served without lettuce; McGovern supports the lettuce boycott. Sometimes the schedule is hectic. The candidate himself is often overlooked. Reporters complain that they have not enough time to file their stories. Aboard the Dakota Queen II there is greater informality, and each day has a quality of surprise that is not evident on the Nixon tour.

No doors separate the Democratic candidate from reporters, who are free to wander at will into his compartment in search of magazines or the airlines guide. In his striped, stylishly wide-collared shirts--always open at the neck when he relaxes--McGovern may chat with reporters about how the day went or answer questions. Unlike Nixon, McGovern is at ease when making small talk and is never aloof. He has none of Nixon's wariness of the press and is straightforward and direct. He is so direct that at one point when he wanted a moment of privacy with a staffer, he turned to a network camera crew and growled: "You gotta keep that goddam thing on me all the time?"

On the road McGovern divides his time furiously between straight politicking, interviews, rebuilding the fractured Democratic Party, and meetings with potential financial backers. Nixon, straight and stiff, shielded from critics and hecklers, launches into his stereotyped appeals that suggest personal discipline, patriotism and work. McGovern, the underdog, is looser and improvisational. Both men talk and move in different worlds. Nixon's is the White House and continuity--McGovern's is change and challenge.

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