And Now, Looking Toward 1972

Winning isn't everything. It is the only thing.

--The late Vince Lombard!,

often quoted by Richard Nixon

IN politics, as in history, the past is prologue. On the morning after the midterm election, the party professionals --the men whose prime concern is how to fashion a presidential victory in 1972 rather than how to put the best public face on the instant returns--had no illusions about the outcome. An exuberant Democratic National Chairman Larry O'Brien declared: "We're back in business." Understandably reticent about being identified, an official of the Republican National Committee was bitter and angry. Said he: "I have never seen so much money, time and energy misspent in all my time in politics."

Despite White House claims that Republicans had scored "a tremendous success," G.O.P. defeats lay all about. Democratic leaders brandished numerous trophies of their victory. They had increased their control of the House of Representatives by nine votes. They had wrested at least twelve states out of the hands of Republican Governors while yielding only two, in the process turning back strong Republican challenges in the South and sealing the Midwest, the traditional Republican heartland. They had captured legislative chambers in at least eight states, while Republicans had lost ground in another 29. Only in the U.S. Senate could Republicans claim a gain--three seats at best, two if the undecided Indiana race goes against them. Yet even that gain was diminished by G.O.P. early assertions that the party's goal was nothing less than seven seats and the takeover of the Senate.

Vulnerable Retinue. Publicly, however, Richard Nixon maintained a pose of pleasure at the results (see box, following page). He certainly could take satisfaction in the defeat of liberal Democratic Senators Albert Gore in Tennessee and Joseph Tydings in Maryland, and the election of Republicans Robert Taft Jr. in Ohio and Lowell Weicker Jr. in Connecticut. Most spectacularly, Nixon had read New York's liberal Republican Charles Goodell out of the G.O.P. and helped conservatism triumph in the person of James Buckley. Republican Governors Nelson Rockefeller and Ronald Reagan had won handily in the nation's two largest states.

Yet the only basis for the Republicans' claims of overall success in the election was a negative one: they had held their losses below what a President's party normally loses in an off-year election. That historical pattern of mid-term defeats does exist, but it usually results after a President has won his own office so strongly two years previously that he has brought in marginal candidates; these then become vulnerable when they run on their own. Nixon had no such vulnerable retinue: he was the first incoming President since Zachary Taylor in 1848 to fail to bring with him a majority in either chamber.

Muskie Ahead. Before the election, the Democratic Party was $9.3 million in debt, leaderless and dispirited. Many Democrats wondered how they could put up any real resistance to the unprecedented off-year blitz undertaken by Nixon and Vice President Spiro Agnew. Now the party has a host of new stars that can attract crowds at fund-raising affairs. It has important patronage and organizational springboards in such key statehouses as those in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida, Wisconsin and Minnesota. Moreover, all the new Governors and the Democratic legislatures will have a voice in redrawing congressional district lines by 1972, thus influencing national politics for a decade.

Suddenly the Democratic presidential aspirants were looking at the 1972 nomination as an opportunity rather than a sacrifice. Working hardest was Maine Senator Edmund Muskie, whose selection as his party's TV spokesman on election eve, as well as his effective performance in that telecast, put him ahead of the pack. He hired a staff to send telegrams to Democratic candidates throughout the country, even some obscure losers, congratulating them on their campaign efforts.

Styling himself a "harmonizer," Freshman Senator-elect Hubert Humphrey nevertheless conceded that if the nomination were offered, "I'd take it." Re-elected impressively in Massachusetts, Senator Edward Kennedy said that he would serve a full term--but he vowed to oppose Nixon on the war, the economy and minority problems. South Dakota Senator George McGovern is expected to announce his candidacy first, possibly next month, while Indiana's Birch Bayh and Iowa's Harold Hughes are eager for the nomination.

All this optimism was premature. Hinging as it does on countless local issues and personalities, a mid-term election need not be considered a reflection of presidential strength. Yet Nixon, to an unusual degree, had shaped a national Republican strategy in this election, then gone out with Agnew to push it in a most personal and partisan way. Their plan was to exploit what they sensed as a conservative drift in the nation, caused by rising impatience with student unrest, crime, pornography and the bombs and bullets of revolutionaries. But Nixon has often before displayed a dangerous tendency to overdo and overstate what he considers a good thing, and he evidently did so again. The shrill pitch did not work. Democrats found it necessary to me-too the Republicans on the law-and-order issue, and millions of voters evidently did not believe that most Democratic candidates favored violence or rock throwers. Many voters seemed far more concerned about the state of the economy than about vaguely defined "permissivists" and "radic-libs" in government. Rising unemployment was the one issue that Democrats used effectively and sometimes unfairly against the White House.

Nixon risked much of the political reserve that a President possesses and created new problems for himself. Despite his claims of having achieved an ideological "working majority" in the Senate, few major issues have been close enough to be affected by a minor shift. An exception was the 50-50 tie by which an attempt to block ABM was defeated. The only major fight he lost by a narrow vote was the nomination of G. Harrold Carswell to the Supreme Court; the four appropriations bills Nixon vetoed had all been passed by overwhelming margins, and he was able to sustain the veto in two cases. The Democrats whom Nixon tried to defeat are now much less likely to work with him, and Republican moderates and liberals are incensed about the elimination of Goodell. "There're going to be fewer Pavlovian responses around here," predicted one senatorial assistant.

Partisan Rhetoric. Did Nixon and Agnew misread the conservative trend? Probably not. But they apparently underestimated the quality of American conservatism and held it cheap. A great many American voters who are determined to defend U.S. institutions and values against the attacks of the youthful counterculture seek effective programs rather than partisan rhetoric.

In stirring up the voters, Nixon seemed to forget that his is a minority party--and the high voter turnout worked against him. In several races, the Administration misgauged the independence of many voters, who picked and chose in an unusual display of ticket-splitting. Observes TIME Washington Bureau Chief Hugh Sidey: "Never has the American voter so totally thumbed his nose at outside interference, money, buncombe, hate and the lofty lamentations of the pious. Particularly in the last ten days, Nixon's campaign was an appeal to narrowness and selfishness and an insult to the American intelligence. He diminished the presidency."

Campaign wounds, of course, heal quickly, and a certain amount of rhetorical violence is accepted and forgiven in U.S. politics. By lowering his voice --as he surely will--and turning to the daily task of building a record on which he can run in 1972, the President can control many of the events that will shape his re-election chances. He must act to get the economy under control, and he must move back toward the center, where majority opinion in the nation lies. It would be surprising if he did not learn from this election that divisive politics do not work and that he must become the politician, as well as the President, of all the people.

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