ustxtxb_obs_1968_09_20_50_00004-00000_000.pdf

ly-oriented person who cannot see that the Democratic party and its nominees this year offer the better prospect for realizing the goals of liberalism ought to give .up any claim to rationality in politics. Dugger’s fourth alternative, which he rejects, is support for the HumphreyMuskie ticket. I strongly disagree with his emotions, because there is nothing reasoned about his conclusion that Humphrey is unworthy of support. Surely, a liberal Democrat has only to ask which of the twoHumphrey or Nixonhas the better intellect, the better record, the better grasp of political needs and realities, to know what the answer is. Dugger should be able to visualize as well as the rest of us the differences in Humphrey and Nixon appointments to such positions as attorney general, head of the Selective Service System, director of the FBI, the US Supreme Court and lower federal courts, not to mention secretary of state and secretary of defense. One has to consider as well the impact of the presidential race on the outcome of congressional and state elections. Make no mistake about it: If you gut Hubert Humphrey, you are also gutting Democratic candidates everywhere. \(Surely the Republican party’s losses in congress and at the state level in 1964 should make this is of no consequence in Texas, but it most assuredly is in other parts of the nation. With a Republican house, what chances are there for social legisation? What sort of taxation and appropriations can you honestly expect/ And what kind of legislative committee investigations are likely to be forthcoming with Republican control? \(Remember that that other McCarthy reached his peak after the Eisenhower coattails had produced a ReNOW FOR THE Olds essay. As I read it, his major concern is that “the administration which most Democrats have repudiated in primaries across the land this year has been chosen to carry the party banner in November.” He concludes, therefore, that “the Democratic party has richly earned defeat in 1968 by foisting off Humphrey on us when he clearly is not the choice of the party’s rank and file.” Even if his assumptions were true, the conclusion by no means follows, but in any case it simply is not correct to say that rank and file Democrats did not prefer Humphrey. The only evidence that supports Olds’ assertion is the showing of McCarthy and Kennedy in the presidential primaries. But primaries in half a dozen states are not necessarily very good indicators of sentiment in the other 44 states. Too, voting in presidential primaries is notoriously 4 The Texas Observer unreliable either as an indication of party choice or of the nation’s mood \(remember that George Wallace in 1964 polled 43% of the Democratic primary vote in Maryland, 34% in Wisconsin and 30% in Indiana, states which LBJ carried in 1964. Wallace ran as well in Indiana in 1964 as McCarthy did in 1968. Remember too that Goldwater in 1964 won the Republican presidential primaries in California, Nebraska, Illinois and Indiana, states he lost to LBJ that fall. We liberals in Texas should know better than anyone else that primary results are not necessarily valid indicators of popular sentiment within or without the party. Against the shaky argument that the confused and contradictory primary results constitute a repudiation of a candidate who was not entered in them, there is the solid evidence of every national poll I have seen showing that Hubert Humphrey was indeed the frontrunner among Democratic voters. The opposition to Humphrey, very understandably, has not seen fit to publicize these figures, but they provide conclusive evidence that the convention ratified the party rank-and-file choice when it nominated Humphrey: Candidates 1 April 14 Late May July 8 August 7 Humphrey 48% 49% 48% 53% McCarthy … . 37% 37% 4000 39% Undecided .. .. 15% 14% 12g; 8% Never at any point was McCarthy the choice of Democratic voters. It seems to me an inescapable conclusion that Humphrey was entitled to the nomination on the basis of his support by party rankand-file, and that McCarthy was not deprived of a nomination rightfully his. I also find in Olds’ essay a complaint that Humphrey isn’t aware of the “surging, relentless tide of opposition to social injustice . . . ” I believe Humphrey is more aware of these forces than any major figure on the political scene today, but in any case Olds and others are being curiously blind. There maye be a “tide” ning in opposition to social injustice, but what all of us had better recognize is the engulfing tidal wave taking shape on the right. It may be, as Olds says, that the Democratic party is sick. I personally am tired of seeing that term applied indiscriminately to whatever one happens not to like; it is a poor substitute for analysis and reasoned judgment. But, if the Democratic party is sick, then so am I and so is Olds, and so is the GOP, George Wallace, the ADA, Eugene McCarthy, Dick Daley, and all the infantile protesters at ‘Source: Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report for May 10, July 19, 1968. In the April 14 poll, Democratic voters were also asked their preferences in a three-way race between McCarthy, Humphrey and Robert Kennedy. The results: Kennedy 35%, Humphrey 31%, McCarthy 23%. By May 6, a Harris poll showed Humphrey ahead: Humphrey 38%, Kennedy 27%, McCarthy 25%. Chicago. We are all suffering from the same malady: Being human, which means being fallible, foolish, self-righteous, posturing, true believing, irrational mortals. The only remedy I know of is less emotion and more reasons in politics, and yet here is the Observer touting just the opposite. LET ME CONCLUDE with a few general observations. I wish something could be done to convince the Observer and a great many other liberal commentators that Vietnam is a difficult, complex isue and that reasonable men like Clark Kerr, Paul Douglas, Eugene McCarthy, Max Ascoli, Hubert Humphrey and the late Robert Kennedy may reasonable disagree on how it should have been handled yesterday or how it should be handled tomorrow. Undoubtedly we have made mistakes there, but the solution has never been as easy as clear as some would have us believe. I wish something could be done, too, to convince some of the minority at Chicago that democratic a n d Democratic politics always involve an element of compromise. I am not at all sure that I want a Democratic party composed entirely of 100%, dyed-in-the-wool, certified by-the-Observer liberals, but I am confident that such a party would never see the inside of the White House. \(Lyndon Johnsonyes, and John Connallyalong with Richard Daley and some other alleged bosses, helped to make John F. Kennedy president, or don’t you remempolitics is not to see who can take the most liberal position on every conceivable issue, for that dubious distinction will always go to the people who have the least chance of being elected. The real challenge for a liberal candidate instead is to bring in enough moderates and conservatives to win and to govern while moving the party and the nation along the generally liberal course that is needed. Finally, let me suggest that it would be well for the Observer, as for each of us, to re-examine the basic premises of the liberal presuasion; there is an all too human propensity to lose sight of ultimate goals and fundamental values. We all know how easy it is for a public official or a candidate even a Gene Mc Carthyto become the captive in thought of those who surround him and cut him off from opposing viewpoints. Neither editors nor academics are immune to that danger. I challenge the Observer to break out of the radical and pseudo-liberal circle that has been closing in, and to regain that independence, that perspective and that judiciousness which mark the truly liberal mind. When that has been done, the necessity of actively supporting Hubert Humphrey will be obvious.