Revolt from the Center?

"People tend to want to follow the beaten path. The difficulty is that the beaten path doesn't seem to be leading anywhere."

Slightly apologetic about his boldness, Republican Senator Charles McCurdy ("Mac") Mathias told a group of Washington reporters last week that he may run as a "third force" independent for President. Reason: he fears both parties are plodding along a "beaten path" that leads toward winning elections -- or losing them -- but not to solutions of national problems. To be sure, the Maryland moderate's greater concern is over the course his own party is taking. He is appalled at President Ford's skewing to the right to counter Ronald Reagan's appeal to conservatives. Moreover, he thinks Ford has done this in such a fumbling way that Reagan will probably win the nomination.

With only 21% of the voters identifying themselves as Republicans in the Gallup poll, Mac Mathias is concerned that the G.O.P. may so narrow its base as to "sign its own death warrant." He sees himself as a "centrist" able to appeal to independents and middle-of-the-road voters disenchanted with both parties. But why not fight from within his own party for the nomination? Because that, he believes, would only pour "water on Reagan's wheel." The entrance of any moderate or liberal Republican would undoubtedly draw more G.O.P. votes away from Ford than Reagan, thus increasing Reagan's chances of embarrassing Ford in the primaries.

In heavily Democratic Maryland, Mathias, 53, has won four terms to the House and two to the Senate by garnering votes from independents and moderates of both parties. But he is relatively unknown nationally. Before he decides whether to run, he plans to travel "to find out who the independents are." He doubts that most of them consider appealing either the negativism of a George Wallace or the left-wing populism of a Fred Harris, but he has yet to see a poll "sophisticated enough to say where the uncommitted voters are." Wherever they are, Mathias feels the independents will soon spurn both parties. Thus he predicts that a third force in 1976 or later "will bear fruit, and it is very important to measure the dimensions of it now."

Affable, witty and widely respected in Congress, Mathias was first elected to the House in 1960. He and F. Bradford Morse, then a Massachusetts Congressman, founded the Wednesday Club -- Republican moderates in the House -- in 1963. A group meeting regularly to exchange ideas, the club often antagonized the party leadership. Mathias led fights within his party for civil rights legislation, supported such welfare programs as the Job Corps and aid to Appalachia, and questioned the growth of defense budgets.

Public Jobs. Elected to the Senate in 1968, he helped to organize a similar Wednesday Club in that chamber. As early as 1969, he sent a prophetic message on behalf of Republican moderates to President Nixon, who had been ignoring them. Mathias warned, "You don't need us now, but you will later." Mathias was an early critic of the Viet Nam War. With Pennsylvania's Richard Schweiker, he was one of only two Republican Senators on Nixon's celebrated enemies list -- a point in which he now takes pride.

Mathias emphasizes the need to put more people to work, on public jobs if necessary. Fuller employment, he argues, is urgently needed to help cut welfare costs and ease racial problems. He defends busing to integrate schools as "a temporary need while we seek a solution."

Mathias recognizes that any quest for the presidency would be quixotic. He has no organization, no campaign fund, practically no support from other congressional Republican moderates. He would have to get on the 1976 ballot through the difficult petition requirements of each state. And if he did, he might simply siphon some votes away from whoever seemed the more moderate of the major-party candidates.

So is Mathias really serious? "Well," he replies, "what in the world is the use of spending your life fighting for a position of some influence and then abdicating? I have not tried to duck the hard ones." Mac Mathias could not have chosen a harder one than the fomenting of a political uprising from the middle.

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