DEMOCRATS: The Penultimate Round

IN the penultimate week before the opening of the Democratic Convention, Hubert Humphrey was glancing ahead, behind and sideways at the dangers besetting him.

Ahead lay Chicago, where the divided party faces explosive demonstrations outside the convention hall and bitter factional warfare within. From be hind came the clamorous forces of Eugene McCarthy, flanked by a much smaller band of partisans for South Dakota's Senator George McGovern.

From the party's Southern conservative wing emerged Lester Maddox, who waited until last week to join the field. In his nationally televised announcement, the former fried-chicken entrepreneur paraphrased the George Wallace platform, extolling private enterprise and attacking crime, big government, racial violence and the Supreme Court. The Georgian will likely cost Humphrey no more than a scattering of votes in the South. Since Maddox regards the three other Democratic candidates as socialists or worse, some Southerners speculated that he was running so that, when rejected, he would have an argument for bolting the party and supporting Wallace.

Humphrey's campaign manager, Larry O'Brien, still calculates that the Vice President will collect some 1,600 delegate votes on the first ballot--or nearly 300 more than the 1,312 he will need for nomination. Indeed, a TIME survey of the states' delegations indicated that, as of last week, Humphrey could count on 1,524 probable delegate votes. McCarthy, the survey suggested, would get 626, and McGovern somewhere around 45.

Disrupted Arithmetic. The Vice President's convention strength could be reckoned unbeatable, except that as many as 16 states face credentials challenges involving some 1,000 delegates--a record number in the party's history.

These are certain to disrupt the arithmetic. The challenges could, theoretically, leave some states without any delegate representation. Said Walter Posen, counsel to the party's credentials committee: "The credibility of the entire convention is at stake." The three issues in the challenges are: 1) whether delegates were selected in violation of the spirit of the Supreme Court's one-man, one-vote decision, 2) whether Negroes or other minorities are adequately represented in the delegate selection, and 3) whether delegates, chiefly McCarthy supporters, should be required to take a loyalty oath, promising to support the convention's nominee even if McCarthy loses. McCarthy's forces alone will challenge perhaps a dozen delegations.

They are also planning a strong assault on the platform committee in order to get an unequivocal antiwar plank calling for an end to the bombing of North Viet Nam and a repudiation of past U.S. war policy. The committee will conduct morning-to-midnight hearings for six days this week in an effort to write the party doctrine.

Humphrey's apprehension over volatile Democratic loyalties on the eve of Chicago prompted him to provoke an ill-advised skirmish within the Ohio delegation last week. Humphrey operatives, irritated because Democratic Senatorial Can didate John J. Gilligan had not yet endorsed the Vice President, insisted upon a showdown caucus. Also, Humphrey wrote a letter to an A.F.L.-C.I.O. leader suggesting that Gilligan be pressured into making an endorsement. Immediately, union campaign contributions were withdrawn. In an angry caucus last week, Humphrey, who had counted on at least 100 of Ohio's 115 delegate votes, received only 60.

Though still confident of a first-ballot victory, Humphrey toured the Midwest and Northeast over the weekend to meet with party leaders and shore up his delegate strength. He delivered mild gibes at McCarthy, but concentrated most of his attacks on Nixon and the Republican nominee's Southern supporters. "Nixon called on the midnight of the South," said Humphrey. "I call on its dawn and high noon." On the same theme, Humphrey hopes to popularize the slogan "Clear it with Strom," suggesting that South Carolina's Strom Thurmond has veto power over Nixon's decisions. Meanwhile, Humphreyphobes on the West Coast have coined a sobriquet for the Vice President: "Hube the Cube."

McCarthy's final round of campaigning was his most successful yet. Iowa's Governor Harold Hughes withdrew his favorite-son candidacy and seemed on the brink of endorsing McCarthy. California Democratic Boss Jesse Unruh, whose delegation owns 174 votes, appeared likely to back him. Unruh hopes to run for Governor in 1970 and needs to win friends in the California party's liberal wing. McCarthy was also encouraged because virtually none of the delegates previously pledged to Robert Kennedy moved to back McGovern, who pinned his hopes on rallying the R.F.K. dissidents.

McCarthy's campaign seemed to be peaking exactly on time. In St. Louis, 12,500 supporters packed into Kiel Auditorium for a McCarthy rally while 2,000 more listened outside. They cheered so fervently that they even brought a tear to the unemotional Minnesotan's eye. In Manhattan's Madison Square Garden on what supporters called "M Night," another 20,000 gathered. Closed-circuit television piped his speech to 22 auditoriums through the country, where 160,000 more heard him. He faces heavy campaign debts--but the faithful that night alone pledged or contributed $2,000,000. "This is my real campaign style," said McCarthy. "I've just been giving lectures for the last six months."

Little Logic. George McGovern, by contrast, had inevitable difficulty in rousing a constituency. He blitzed New York City on radio and TV interviews, toured slums and allowed: "I regret not having started much earlier." His late candidacy aroused suspicions, especially in the McCarthy camp, that McGovern had actually entered the race to promote himself as a vice-presidential possibility on a Humphrey ticket. For the present, however, Humphrey is leaning more toward Sargent Shriver, New Jersey Governor Richard Hughes, Oklahoma Senator Fred Harris, former North Carolina Governor Terry Sanford, or San Francisco Mayor Joseph Alioto.

Or perhaps Eugene McCarthy. The big question is still whether McCarthy would accept. "It's highly unlikely," said one McCarthy aide. "Gene conceivably could take No. 2 to save the country--but to save Hubert Humphrey?" Several members of McCarthy's staff would probably resign in disgust if the Senator joined the H.H.H. ticket; the reaction of his youthful followers would be apoplectic.

McCarthy, logically, has little prospect of taking the presidential nomination away from Humphrey. But then, logically at least, he had no prospects at all when he began his campaign nearly nine months ago. As for Humphrey, he is uneasily aware that he does not inspire most Americans. However, he reasons that after the convention he will be the only wheel in town as far as the Democrats are concerned. And he is convinced that, faced with the alternative of voting for Nixon, the party will find him more and more attractive as time goes on.

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