The Campaign Blur

After a whirlwind tour of the West with Campaigner Lyndon B. Johnson, CBS Correspondent Dan Rather got back to Washington for a breather. There, his boss, News Director William Small, wanted to know how the campaign seemed to be going. Rather could not say. At today's pace, he explained, "you don't have time to get the sense, the smell of the campaign. You whip in and whip out."

That pace is up to 550 m.p.h., or the cruising speed at which jetliners carry the candidate to his next crowd. If he is willing to sacrifice enough sleep, the candidate can race the sun westward. The day is usually 20 hours long. And to newsmen chasing two jets called Air Force One (Johnson) and Yia Bi Kin (Goldwater), the two prop jets Niagaran (Miller) and Happy Warrior (Humphrey), the campaign day is usually a 20-hour blur.

Steaks for Breakfast. There are compensations, to be sure. The campaign reporter's creature comforts are looked after with a nanny's loving care. Shepherded by working staffs from the Republican or Democratic Committee, his luggage travels unassisted from airport to hotel--where it is often deposited in the wrong room. The food looks delicious, at least at first; but now, even the reporters chasing Humphrey blanch at the sight of yet another dinner steak. Newsmen with Johnson get steak for breakfast--and Bloody Marys before breakfast if they desire. In the affluent society, the rubber chicken of the banquet circuit has been replaced by the rich diet of the campaign.

At every stop, efficient campaign staffs reduce the journalist's duty to a minimum. Jack Valenti, President Johnson's aide, relieves newsmen of one chore by counting the times a Johnson speech is interrupted by applause. There are telephones in the press pool cars--vehicles reserved for a few correspondents chosen to represent the many, which thrust as near the candidate's limousine as safety permits. Speech texts are usually available in advance.

The No-No Tree. But there are as many vexations as blessings along the trail. Bill Miller sticks more or less faithfully to the same set speech--tempting his press coterie, who have heard it a few dozen times before, to catch up on lost sleep. In contrast, Humphrey's tongue drifts freely from the predistributed text. Having already sent their stories to meet some immutable deadline, the correspondents listen in helpless frustration to these often-quotable embroideries. (The speech text: "And what did Senator Goldwater say? He said no." The Humphrey departure: "And where was Senator Goldwater? He was under the no-no tree in the shadow of his own indifference.")

Worst of all, the campaign's pell-mell pace prevents the newsman from pausing a while to ponder what he has seen and heard. There is scarcely time enough to keep up with the candidate. Last week Barry Goldwater's party, traveling by train for a spell, pulled so abruptly out of the station in Athens, Ohio, that about 30 newsmen were stranded on the platform.

Thus one of the journalist's favorite pastimes--injecting his own judgments of the campaign oratory (TIME, Oct. 2) --has become a casualty of the jet age. Says New York Timesman Ned Kenworthy, traveling with Humphrey: "There's enough going on that it would be pretty hard not to be objective. You stick pretty much to the speeches."

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