The Odyssey of Hubert Humphrey

The day is already 15 hours old, with no end in sight. The chartered Jet-Star shudders in powerful headwinds. It will be midnight or after when you reach your destination, the national convention of the Young Democrats in Hot Springs, Ark. You were supposed to speak at noon, but the Senate was voting on campaign financing, and you could not get away. They put you over to the evening banquet, but you could not make that, either. Here you are, Hubert Humphrey, age 60, twice a mayor, a national political figure since 1948, four times a Senator, for four years Vice President, once your party's candidate for the presidency. You have been through all this before--the long days, luncheons, dinners, chartered flights, delays, hotel rooms, limousines, taxicabs, interviews, speeches, baby kissing, crowds big and small, jostling, jeers, small-time pols who have to be humored, contributors who think they own you because they gave to your last campaign. But you know, and others know, that you will go through it ail again--// you can.

SUCH were the reflections of TIME Correspondent Hays Gorey as he accompanied Humphrey on one more political swing not long ago. No question, Humphrey is back and running hard for the nomination. He is well down the road toward announcing his candidacy for 1972. So far this year he has traveled to 31 states, talking with trade associations, labor delegations, youth groups, and of course party politicians. Humphrey, who lost the presidency to Richard Nixon in 1968 by a mere half-million votes, insists that his chance for a second nomination is good. He eagerly points out that he has consistently been ranked "no worse" than third, and in the last Gallup poll, he was tied with Kennedy behind Muskie. He says that he is not alarmed by the competition. He explains: "I'm not so sure one man dominates the scene completely."

But can Humphrey himself come to dominate the race for the presidential nomination? Despite his relatively easy re-election to the Senate in 1970, he still carries the stigma of a loser who might not be able to win against a Nixon equipped with a series of presidential successes. Humphrey claims that on the Viet Nam issue he has as "good" a record since 1968 as any of the potential candidates. But there are those on the party's left who will never forgive him for not breaking with Lyndon Johnson over Viet Nam in the 1968 campaign. A Humphrey nomination could very possibly send them scurrying to a fourth-party movement. Besides, as Humphrey freely admits: "I'm not the new boy on the block. I'm not the prettiest face in town." Party leaders, nevertheless, give him more than an outside chance for the nomination.

As he is fond of asserting, he has risen, Nixon-like, from the ashes of defeat before. He lost the first time he ran for mayor of Minneapolis, and he lost the 1960 Democratic nomination to John Kennedy. Among high-level Democratic politicians, Humphrey is the best-liked personality of all the party's candidates, announced or not. He has access to an organization that stretches into almost every state and has been promised support from backers ready to shell out cash for a Humphrey campaign. Eugene Wyman, a former California Democratic chairman, can get Humphrey all the money he needs if he wants to go into the California primary. Marvin Rosenberg, a New York curtain manufacturer and another party money man, refuses to open his purse strings to any Democrat until H.H.H. gives the word.

Humphrey has strong support among labor leaders and blacks. I.W. Abel of the United Steelworkers of America, Floyd Smith of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, and Lane Kirkland, reputed to be George Meany's likely successor as head of the A.F.L.-C.I.O., are all ardent Humphrey men.

Georgia's Julian Bond has said that Humphrey has more black backing than any leading Democrat except Kennedy. Bond added, however, that most blacks feel Muskie will win the nomination.

After the debacle at the 1968 convention in Chicago, when Humphrey was jeered and ridiculed by college students, he started seriously wooing the young. He is still far from being the youthful voters' political guru, but most young voters rank him far ahead of Nixon.

For his part, Humphrey is unfailingly enthusiastic about himself and his past record. "Remember, I almost won a miraculous victory last time," he says. "In 1968, Nixon didn't win, we lost. Think back--the '67 riots, Martin Luther King's assassination, Bobby Kennedy's assassination, the convention itself. Even with that, all that we needed was time, just a little more."

He also believes that Nixon is vulnerable. "He's not trusted by blacks. He can't carry the Midwest again. He's a cosmetic candidate and it wears off. This Administration is like a machine headed by a mechanic. He is a hard fighter, a gut fighter. But we have him on the economy. This economy will not function under his leadership." All that, of course, remains to be seen between now and Election Day next year.

As always, Humphrey talks a good campaign; a longstanding joke among Washington wits is that H.H.H. speaks at 80 miles per hour with gusts up to 100. He frankly admits that those sometimes rambling monologues could prove damaging. He remains infectiously, indomitably ebullient. He laughs easily and frequently, even though his overeagerness to please everyone in the world seems a little pathetic. He dresses more carefully than he used to, and his graying hair still looks dyed to some; Humphrey's aides admit that he tinted it in 1968, but he insists that he does so no longer.

When the JetStar puts down in Hot Springs after midnight, Humphrey sees a small crowd of people waiting for him. Some carry signs that read: "You cared for us--we'll stay up all night for you." The reflective mood drops away. "I grabbed a clean shirt after the final vote and here I am," he yells, delighted with the show of affection. At the Arlington Hotel, he speaks for 40 minutes to some 700 young Democrats; they interrupt the talk with 25 standing ovations.

An hour later he appears at a reception for some older Democrats who also have waited up for him. After the reception, Humphrey meets with a small group of Young Democrats and talks politics over sandwiches and beer until 3:30 a.m. After only four hours' sleep, he is up and off again by 8--and running, running, running.

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