Humphrey: How to Succeed Without Really Trying

While a crowded field of candidates began to zero in on the New Hampshire primary, the man who many think has the best chance to win the Democratic presidential nomination, Veteran Campaigner Hubert Humphrey, watched from the sidelines. TIME'S national political correspondent Robert Ajemian visited Humphrey at his home in Waverly, Minn., and sent this report:

"I've learned that I don't have to be President to be happy," says Hubert Humphrey. It's an extraordinary irony to hear him say that after all those years of struggling to get the job. Sitting in his brown clapboard home on the icy edge of Minnesota's Lake Waverly, he adds: "I don't hunger for it like I used to. I've got my pride back, and I'm not going to lose it again."

In his unaccustomed role as a noncandidate, Humphrey is so popular he can scarcely believe it. Democrats rate him far ahead of the field, and his political support is already extremely powerful. Big labor wants him. So do many Congressmen and Governors. Even some of the liberals who showed contempt for him in 1968 and 1972 now point out carefully that they never were really comfortable being against him. He has renewed his ties to Chicago Boss Richard Daley. "People are happy to see me wherever I go," he says. "I've never had it this way before." He seems almost incredulous as he adds: "They ask me to run."

If that prospect brings a groan from voters who are tired of windy old Hubert, it's surely understandable. Even by 1968, Humphrey seemed an exhausted, overexposed candidate, a veritable Swiss cheese of political wounds. John Kennedy had riddled him through and through in the 1960 Democratic primaries, and Lyndon Johnson had mauled him for four years as Vice President. He had become an outcast to youth and liberals, two of his natural constituencies. He remembers people spitting on him and his wife during the 1968 campaign.

Far from all that now in Waverly, Humphrey rises restlessly from his chair to pull a few dead leaves from a bouquet of flowers on the table. His face is somewhat puffy, his sensitive eyes watery at times, his neck baggy now under the thrusting jaw. But at 64, he looks fit --surprisingly so. Three years ago, Humphrey underwent a series of debilitating X-ray treatments for a bladder tumor that seemed precancerous. He had a severe reaction to the treatments and was flown from Waverly back to the Bethesda Naval Hospital. One staffer says he thought Humphrey was surely going to die. Blood transfusions and rest brought him back fast, and his doctors told him he was fully recovered. Today his step is springy and his mind swift. "I'm still a workaholic," he says. "I'm still vital."

Birch and Evergreens. Humphrey's illness reordered his life. He looks out over his four acres of waterfront land, dotted with birch and ash and evergreens that he planted as long as 20 years ago. His four children all live within 50 miles. "Why does a man stay in politics?" Humphrey asks.

"Power, yes. But the real reward is acceptance."

There it was--acceptance: a key word in any conversation with Humphrey and a disturbing one. He has always worked hard for acceptance and approval. When fellow Senator Walter Mondale took himself out of the presidential running in 1974, he told Humphrey that wherever he had traveled he found affection for him. The news gladdened Humphrey. "Affection--I like that feeling," he says. For a man so decisive on issues, Humphrey is often but-terhearted in his dealings with people.

"I've been accused of not being tough enough," he says, "and it's partly true. I've always had a little lack of confidence."

These days he shows no lack of confidence. He is far less inclined to run around trying to please people, more inclined to disagree, even sharply. A Humphrey autobiography to be published in April is uncharacteristically harsh on associates like Lyndon Johnson, Senator Abraham Ribicoff and Political Operator Jesse Unruh. He continues to defend big government, even though his aides warn him that such a position leaves him far out of step with the mood of the country. Last week at a Minneapolis luncheon for retired federal employees, the Senator pounded away at his theme. "Any politician who tells you we need less government is lying," he told them. "More efficient government, more responsive government, yes. But let's not junk everything we've built. That's cheap talk."

Prefers Home. In the next room, in a huge parlor with a cathedral ceiling, Muriel Humphrey reflects on her husband's new self-acceptance and happiness. "Now they want him," she says with a smile and soft voice. "People actually get mad at me when I say we aren't eager. They resent it. Before, we always had to fight our way uphill."

Muriel, 63, has supervised the improvements to the Waverly home: a new kitchen, a closed-in patio, an outdoor pool. "The irony of people wanting him is that our life is so good now," she says.

"The home is finished. Our nine grandchildren are close by, we're finally coming out of our money problems. Hubert has never been happier. On Christmas Day one of the kids said to me, 'Dad is much calmer. He listens better.' " Muriel Humphrey has changed too.

She no longer responds obediently to Humphrey's political needs. In the past few years she has spent so much time in Minnesota that people have wondered if she was having trouble with her husband. She just prefers to be home near her big family. On a local TV show a few weeks ago, she said she hoped her husband would not get the nomination --a stand that she never would have taken publicly in the past.

"It's a demanding life," she says, recalling her days as the Vice President's wife. "All those guest lists and functions and parties. Lady Bird and I used to sneak off and bowl together before some of those parties."

The thought of presidential primaries unsettles her. "Never again," she says. "I've had enough. I remember sitting alone in some Ramada Inn one night in 1972 waiting for Hubert. It was my birthday. He couldn't make it, never got there, and I just started to cry." Of course, if Humphrey is nominated, she will campaign with him as she has for 33 years. But she mostly wishes it would go away. "I go back and forth. He'd make a good President. He's such a decent man. Honestly, we don't know how to handle this thing. You're looking at a confused person."

Humphrey gets lots of advice. A memo from Mondale sits on Humphrey's Waverly desk. It emphasizes that if he does decide to run, Humphrey must get into at least a few big-state primaries to be nominated. Some 75% of the convention delegates will be selected in the primaries this year, and Mondale argues that Humphrey would have to start raising money and building an organization by late February. "I'm not going to do it," says Humphrey, much as he would grasp the presidency if he could get it some other way.

Not A Hater. He recognizes that his present advantages as a non-candidate will dissolve fast if he jumps into the race. "I'll become the immediate target," he says. There is another possible consequence Humphrey does not mention: his present appealing confidence and coolness might dissolve in the heat of a campaign.

Reassured of Senate re-election this fall, unburdened by strategies, basking in his new acceptance, Humphrey nonetheless is saddened by the cynicism he sees everywhere. He says he cannot remember a time when the country was so full of fear. He recalls how people sneered at his call for the "politics of joy" in 1968 and concedes that it probably did not suit the climate. He was struck by a remark British Prime Minister Harold Wilson made to him a few years ago, that sometimes a country needs a leader who can seem more like a family doctor. It helps Humphrey understand why people receive him so cheerfully now. He says, "I'm not a hater."

On the lake in Waverly, it is almost dark now. Humphrey bursts into the kitchen to tell Muriel that he has just received a phone call from Washington. "Mother, rumors are wafting all across the country," he says, a tone of mock drama in his voice. "The first one is that I'm dying of throat cancer." He clutches his neck. "The second one is that you're dying." "And the third is that you and I are getting a divorce." He stops for a moment. Then Muriel and Hubert Humphrey, the shrewd old family doctor who knows a bad diagnosis when he hears one, grin at each other.

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