The Democrats Try to Get Organized

IT was possibly the worst head start of any campaign in American history. The Democrats held their convention a month early to give their nominee a chance to make some extra mileage, and ended up losing ground. From the selection of Tom Eagleton to Pierre Salinger's talks with the North Vietnamese in Paris, George McGovern stumbled steadily backward. He could hardly get started attacking Nixon, so busy was he fending off attacks on himself. But the approach of Labor Day jolted his sluggish campaign into action. As his campaign chairman Larry O'Brien ominously put it: "Labor Day is everybody's D-day." Last week, in quick succession, McGovern offered a new and more reasonable tax and welfare program, appealed to the Jewish vote by defending his record on Israel, and tried to cut through a Gordian knot of staff snarls.

Chaotic. Of all his problems, none is more treacherous than the deteriorating state of his staff. "Chaotic" is the word often used to describe it, especially by staffers. "People are spending half their time plotting against other people," says one of the workers. "It's every bit as bad as the Muskie campaign was." Instead of concentrating their fire on the Republican enemy, many of the staffers have been sniping at one another. One of those hit was Fred Dutton, a key strategist, who has been demoted to coffee and sandwich pusher; McGovern grew weary of his countless memos. Among the more aggressive in-fighters has been Jean Westwood, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee. She has occasionally informed her fellow staffers that she is in charge of everything, on McGovern's orders. That, of course, nettles Gary Hart, who has been supervising the grass-roots organization. While Hart has been chairing strategy meetings in his office on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, Westwood has presided over the sessions in her office on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Flying to Washington, McGovern assembled his squabbling advisers. No sooner had Westwood started to review the voter-registration drive than O'Brien broke in. "You're the nominee of the Democratic Party," he told McGovern. "It has millions of members and adherents, but here we are with Richard Nixon telling Democrats it isn't your party. You're being cast in the role of a third-party candidate. Maybe we ought to start saying that there is a Democratic Party and that, hopefully, you'll be moving it through the '70s." Replied McGovern: "You couldn't be more right."

Praising the tax and welfare speech, O'Brien said that the "themes you struck must be repeated again and again." McGovern nodded. Finally, O'Brien reported a widespread feeling around the country that the campaign lacks direction. Better coordination is a must, he said. He intimated that he might quit unless changes were made--a threat he made not to get the top job for himself but to bring some order to the campaign. O'Brien's ploy seems to have worked. After mulling the matter over for a day, McGovern emphasized that O'Brien is No. 1 in the campaign; he will serve as overall adviser and preside over weekly meetings attended by the staff as well as anyone he decides to invite. Hart will now be No. 2 in the pecking order, with control over day-to-day operations, including fund raising, media expenditures and voter registration. The lines of authority are relatively clear if the staff chooses to follow them.

The staff troubles could not have come at a less opportune time. The latest Gallup poll showed McGovern running even farther behind Nixon than before, 64% to 30%, with 6% undecided--just one point short of the gap that existed between Goldwater and Johnson at about the same point in the 1964 campaign. Adviser Frank Mankiewicz complained that the pollsters were "asking the wrong people the wrong questions." McGovern's own polls show that he is beginning to close the gap. Other staffers are less sanguine. "I'm not hoping for victory any longer," says one. "I just hope we can avoid a debacle."

Yet the candidate proved that he could be taken seriously in hostile territory last week. Before the New York Society of Security Analysts, he unveiled a less radical economic program (see following story), which did not have his audience cheering in the aisles but had them applauding politely.

From Wall Street, McGovern moved on to the New York Board of Rabbis, who listened intently to his every word on Israel, an area where he has been judged wanting. What he said impressed them, and well it should, since he tried to outhawk the President. "I was not part of an Administration that voted with the Soviet-Arab bloc to condemn Israel five times in the United Nations over the past four years. It was not I who tried to impose a big-power settlement on the Middle East."

Out in the field, the McGovern campaign is going better than events in Washington would suggest. Despite George Meany, McGovern is picking up labor support (see story on page 19). He has been getting large and warm crowds. A massive voter-registration drive is under way, concentrating on those counties across the nation that voted at least 50% Democratic in 1968. Anne Wexler, who runs the program, hopes to register between eight million and 10 million new voters, with emphasis on youth, blacks and Chicanes.

As for finances, small contributions are coming in briskly. Already $2.1 million has been received. Morris Dees, who heads the direct-mail fund drive, is confident that he will collect $14 million before the campaign is over. Big contributions, however, are skimpy. While he was in New York, McGovern met with 25 wealthy Democrats, and they were not in a giving mood. To try to cajole some cash out of millionaires, Hart has devised a speedy-repayment loan plan. One dollar out of every four that is lent to McGovern will be paid back at the end of each month.

Getting the campaign together is crucial, not only for raising money and excitement but for freeing the candidate to pursue the issues. To date, McGovern has been so tied up with his own campaign problems that he has been unable to take the offensive against Nixon. As organization-minded as he is, O'Brien concedes that organization counts for only 3% of a campaign. The other 97% is the candidate.

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