In McCarthy's Tribe

Eugene McCarthy possesses a deeply cultivated sense of poetic political whimsy. Last week on the Op-Ed page of the New York Times, he addressed himself to the much-debated question of how parties should select their vice-presidential candidates. After a flatly serious and closely reasoned discussion of the office itself, McCarthy proposed an intriguing new system: "Have the party convention choose the vice-presidential candidate and let him name the presidential candidate."

McCarthy reasoned that this method "would test the humility of the person who would accept the vice-presidential nomination knowing that by doing so he had eliminated himself from direct consideration for the presidency." McCarthy had tossed out much the same idea in a radio interview at the peak of vice-presidential speculation during the Democratic Convention. Said he: "You know, in some tribes they pick the purest man in the tribe and then have him pick the chief." The Swiftian modesty of proposing the Vice President as kingmaker is resonant with possibilities: What if the choice were left to Spiro Agnew? Or, for that matter, to Thomas Eagleton?

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