Shooting from Left Center

Surrounded by his wife "Tiger," his brother Stewart, two of his six children and former Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox, elated Arizona Congressman and inveterate Punster Morris (Mo) Udall told his cheering supporters at the Sheraton-Boston Hotel that "with the results here in Massachusetts, we've got mo-men turn." Indeed, after second-place showings in New Hampshire and Massachusetts, the once obscure Representative and ex-pro basketball player now does have a strong surge of forward motion--at least among liberal Democrats. Senator Birch Bayh's followers in New York State, scene of Udall's next big primary on April 6, have already begun to coalesce around Udall's campaign. Says Ethan Geto, one of Bayh's New York leaders: "Based on some early soundings, the majority sentiment [among Bayh's delegate slates] so far is clearly for Mo Udall." Other liberals are planning to abandon Sargent Shriver and Senator Frank Church --due to enter the presidential race next week--to go with Udall. Having grabbed the liberal banner and proclaimed himself "the only horse to ride," Udall has already started to concentrate his efforts on wooing the minorities and the more conservative blue-collar and labor Democrats in New York.

All this represents a sharp change from Udall's relatively lonely position in 1974. That was when he started out for the presidency, a feat not accomplished from the House since James Garfield did it in 1880. Udall began campaigning around the country, mainly in the Northern primary states like New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New York and Wisconsin. He badly flubbed his organizing of Iowa, the first caucus state, and virtually ignored the South. Still, his early start, unflagging drive and shrewd campaigning attracted a good volunteer organization, the backing of Democratic intellectuals like Harvard Professor John Kenneth Galbraith, and many of the old McGovern-McCarthy liberal legions.

Udall comes from a highly political Arizona family, and he has won reelection seven times, with increasing majorities in a conservative state. No dogmatist in his views, he voted against repeal of the state right-to-work section of the Taft-Hartley Act in 1965 because his state fiercely favored the section--though today he says that as President, he would work for repeal. Just two weeks ago, he told a liberal Harvard Law School audience that he was against gun control. "I know I'm going to lose some of you on that one, but that's where I am." Then he added, "I don't claim total courage; I don't claim total wisdom." The hall exploded with applause.

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Udall is undeniably liberal on the basic economic issues. He enthusiastically endorses Government-guaranteed full employment and is willing to accept inflation as a side effect of such a policy. He thinks jawboning industries and a wage-price board that "yells like hell when steel companies raise prices" would help keep inflation under control. He wants to federalize the welfare system and enact national health insurance. He believes in keeping the energy growth rate down to 2% a year to conserve resources, a proposal he made in June 1975. He wants to save the country's land from the ravages of strip mining and unrestrained exploitation of its resources by carefully developing coal and publicly owned fossil fuel. He proposes breaking up oil companies both vertically and horizontally.

In foreign policy, he flatly opposes covert action by the CIA, though he does not mind "having spies in the Kremlin, in the P.L.O., and in the Portuguese army. We need a professional CIA and we should give back its dignity." He admires Pat Moynihan's tough approach to the Third World. He would focus foreign policy on a "few geographical areas that are important to our national interest and not get involved in brushfire wars." He advocates substantial cuts in the defense budget and wants a "lean and efficient" military.

Udall places most of his emphasis on restoring trust in American leadership. Polls during the Massachusetts primary rated him high among the voters on honesty and decency. But for all his attractive characteristics, he still faces an immense challenge. One old classmate at the University of Arizona recalls that whenever Udall, as captain of the college basketball team, "got his hands on the ball at center court, he'd shoot." He's still playing the long shot now, firing away from center-left court, hoping to sink it and win.

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