Weeding Out in Wisconsin

THE intricate, Rube Goldbergian system of primary elections clanked through its first three stages without doing fatal damage to any of the major Democratic candidates, though some were seriously hurt. How the American people were going to survive the endless spring--with 20 more primaries to go--was another question. Almost weekly, it seemed, with hurdy-gurdy and bugles, politicians were "front-running" and "slumping," buried one Tuesday to be disinterred the next week in the costly, chaotic exercise of democracy. The spectacle was beginning to give some point to Arizona Representative Morris Udall's suggestion that primaries be held only on three fixed dates, with the choice of date left to each state.

Next week's contest in Wisconsin, with twelve candidates on the ballot in a large state that is in many ways a microcosm of the U.S., will be the first real bloodletting of the year, the first primary in which candidates risk being eliminated. Rural and industrial, populated by blue-collar workers, farmers, ethnic minorities and students, Wisconsin is known for its independent, sophisticated and erratic voting behavior; it was the home of Senator Joe McCarthy, but also of Robert LaFollette. John Kennedy undercut Humphrey there in 1960, and it was on the eve of the 1968 Wisconsin primary that Lyndon Johnson withdrew from the race, just before Eugene McCarthy swept the state.

The voters' mood in Wisconsin this year remains unpredictable, oddly disengaged. "There is something sleeping, something going on under the surface in this state, and the candidates have not captured it yet," muses Harold Rohr, a painters'-union official in Madison. It is not apathy, reports TIME'S Gregory Wierzynski, "but something bordering on despair. People seem to suspect that the candidates are mere shadows--that if elected, they could not do much to change the rising prices, unemployment and heavy taxes." Says Mrs. Marguerite Wiegand, an Appleton housewife: "I watch television with a book in my hand, and when a political commercial comes along, I shut it off."

The chief issue, a pervasive discontent, is the economy. Says Mrs. Marion Guslek, a housewife in Milwaukee: "Last week I paid 49-c- for salad dressing; this week it's up to 53-c-. You don't know when you go to the grocery store whether you are going to have enough money." Old people complain about the dwindling buying power of their Social Security checks. Except on university campuses, Viet Nam is discussed not in terms of morality but of its costs. Says Carolyn Root, a Sheboygan sales clerk: "Lord knows how many kids we could send through school if we just cut out a few of those B-52 raids."

Boost. Edmund Muskie is going into Wisconsin with a psychological boost. Disappointed in New Hampshire and badly embarrassed in Florida, where Hubert Humphrey emerged a strong second behind George Wallace, Muskie captured 63% of the vote in a preferential poll against Eugene McCarthy last week in Illinois. Beating McCarthy was not exactly a triumph; Clean Gene was not taken seriously as a presidential contender, although he did campaign industriously. McCarthy's vote in part represented an informal coalition of "stop Muskie" voters, including supporters of Humphrey, George McGovern, John Lindsay and even Edward Kennedy, who has a hardcore following inside Chicago's Democratic organization.

Perhaps more important than the overall popularity contest were the races for convention delegates. McGovern, Muskie's sole opponent in those races, won only 14 seats, to Muskie's 59. Of the total, 87 delegates are "uncommitted"--almost all of them controlled by Chicago's Mayor Richard Daley. While Daley's bloc will make him a powerful force next July in Miami Beach, the primary demonstrated that the new Democratic Party reforms have almost halved his once total control of the Illinois delegation. At the same time, the primary results in contests for Governor and state's attorney revealed that Daley is otherwise losing his baronial grasp (see following story).

Through New Hampshire and much of the Florida race, Muskie ran a gingerly centrist campaign, ignoring issues and appealing vaguely for "trust" and "confidence." In Illinois, after his

Florida setback, he unveiled a "new Muskie"--fighting vigorously and taking the offensive on three fronts: the war, the economy and the Administration's ties to big business. His stance became distinctly populist.

Muskie is testing a new strategy. He has begun attacking his Democratic opponents on the right--not only Wallace but also Humphrey and Henry Jackson, whom he criticized last week for their support of the ABM system and the $8 billion space shuttle. But he has not attacked those to his left--Lindsay, McGovern and McCarthy. The reason, as Adviser Jack English says, is that he hopes to be "the surviving candidate on the left," while Humphrey emerges as the choice of the party's "establishment"--businessmen, old-line politicians and entrenched union leaders.

Diehards. In Wisconsin, the man to beat will be Humphrey. Because of his years as Senator from next-door Minnesota, Humphrey enjoys broad support from labor unions and farmers. A Public Broadcasting Service poll last week showed Humphrey with 18%, McGovern with 16% and Muskie with 13%. Says a Muskie organizer in Wisconsin: "Humphrey has diehard support. I myself won't watch him on TV for fear I'll weaken. For most of us here, Hubert is more than a candidate. He is a blood brother."

McGovern's camp, which is formidably organized in Wisconsin, always contended that the race would eventually narrow down to their man and Hubert. To staffers still preparing offensives against Muskie, McGovern Adviser Frank Mankiewicz scoffed last week with perhaps premature bravado: "You're firing torpedoes into the hulk of the Graf Spec."

Since busing is not a major issue in Wisconsin, Wallace has concentrated his campaign on high taxes and "liberal elitism." He won one-third of the Wisconsin vote in the 1964 Democratic primary, and 8% as the third-party candidate in the 1968 general election. After his victory in Florida, he is a potentially explosive factor in the Wisconsin voting this year.

For John Lindsay, Wisconsin is most crucial of all. Having won only 7% of the Florida vote, Lindsay has thrown all of his organizational resources into the state, although his budget is so threadbare now that he can only afford $12,000 for TV spots--v. $ 170,000 in Florida, where they did not do much good anyway. He suspended some staff salaries--as has Muskie--and tried to broaden his appeal. In a novel technique, he spent the night on the couch in a Milwaukee steelworker's house, after listening to the family's problems.

After Wisconsin, the field will narrow. Some of the candidates, contemplating the frenetic spring ahead, may be tempted by Adlai Stevenson's vision of an apolitical peace: "To sit in the shade with a glass of wine in my hand and watch the people dance."

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