ustxtxb_obs_1968_08_23_50_00002-00000_000.pdf

.}or the 6200d 0/ Part y and Countr y : McCarth y Austin Eugene McCarthy should be nominated for the presidency next week by the Democratic party. That he may well not get the nomination is a fact that sobers many Democrats and others who are concerned about the democratic process in America. McCarthy has demonstrated, in state after state, in opinion poll after opinion poll, that he is the man whom most Democrats and probably most Americans wish to occupy the White House in the coming crucial four years. McCarthy late last year began a campaign that was almost universally condemned as naive, challenging an incumbent president elected by his own party. The politically knowing smiled or paid no attention when the Minnesota senator announced his bid. Since the New Hampshire primary and President Johnson’s announced withdrawal in March the knowing are a bit less certain. Nonetheless McCarthy has been counted out several times this year only to return with some new triumph along the path to Chicago. Still, realistically, it seems too much to expect that McCarthy will climax his miraculous campaign with victory next week. Leaders of the Democratic party believe Richard Nixon can be beaten this November by either Hubert Humphrey or by McCarthy. They prefer Humphrey because he represents no change in the present structure of the Democratic party. It is to challenge that structure that was one major reason that McCarthy beian his campaign; he has succeeded in his other goals, as well: broadcasting more widely the deep-felt and widely-held questions about this nation’s Vietnam misadventure, questioning our set of national priorities, and restoring dignity, maturity, candidness, style and wit to the national political dialogue. The McCarthy campaign has challenged the assumptions that have been developed by the national two-party system. Not in this generation of American history has the party system been examined so closely as to its fidelity in expressing the democratic will. The unit rule, the convention system, the boss system all have been called seriously to account this year because of Senator ..McCarthy. They have been found wanting and ultimately they will be discarded, largely because of the McCarthy campaign. The delegates to the national convention next week must not take too lightly the potential threat that the Democratic party will be abandoned by literally millions of the people if the party itself abandons the people, ignores the clearly voiced repudiation of the Johnson-Humphrey administration and nominates the discredited and unwanted Humphrey. The party delegates must not think the threat idle that has often been made in recent Photo by Frank Armstrong Senator McCarthy in Houston weeks, that if it’s Nixon vs. Humphrey they cannot count on Democrats to vote against Nixon. A considerable segment of them will vote for Nixon, or not vote or will vote for a fourth party candidate. Ralph le eaJoni Senator Yarborough says he decided to endorse Eugene McCarthy for the presidency because he sees indications of a larger war unless a peace candidate is elected. He is one of the very few senators opposing the war who has shown the strength of character to publically support *McCarthy’s seemingly quixotic campaign, and the Observer is proud of him for it. The Texas senator repeatedly has mentioned at McCarthy gatherings that the military construction appropriations bill this year provides for permanent construction in South Vietnam at a rate 20% higher than the United States spent on such construction last year. His source is US Senate Report 1486, which explains on page six that the construction funds will provide additional airfield, storage, shallow-draft port, hospital, maintenance, troop housing facilities and utilities needed because of new deployments . . . which are even more essential because of increased activities and the broadening of the logistics base.” “If people saw what we see in the senate, they’d be much more aroused against the war than they are now,” Yarborough told the Observer. Seriou effo rt Texas Democrats for an Open Convention this week in Chicago are challenging both the unit rule and the Connally delegation to the national convention. Although McCarthy campaign leaders as well as the national press have ranked the Texas challenge among the most serious delegate fights, the Texas press, for the most part, has treated the TDOC as petulant children unwilling to accept an honest defeat at the hands of their elders. The calculated disenfranchisement of a significant portion of Texas Democrats is more than the political one-upmanship the state’s establishment papers would have us believe. If the unit rule is not abolished and if the TDOC is not granted the 50 convention votes it is demanding, liberal Democrats must remember the inequities the TDOC has pointed out and continue to oppose them until they are eradicated. The TDOC makes a fairly strong case. It could have been stronger had the brief included the affidavits TDOC workers took from precinct and county delegates describing repeated irregularities in delegate selection. The challenge delegation, by neccessity, was chosen through extralegal means. The TDOC attempted to include only those Democrats disenfranchised by the Connally-controlled party. While the Connally delegation discriminates against latinos, blacks and McCarthy supporters, the TDOC delegation is heavily overweight in favor of the big cities. Still, a coalition delegation unfettered by the unit rule, the kind of delegation recommended by the TDOC, would much better represent the sentiments of Texas Democrats than does the Connally delegation alone. Roy Orr, a Connally delegate from the 23rd district, was quoted recently in the Dallas Times Herald as saying, “The governor didn’t want anyon on this [delegate] list who was not 100% pro-Connally.” Being pro-Connally, however, does not necessarily make one a Democrat.