Where Are the Liberals?

With the intellectual force of their ideas and their skill in publicizing them, Democratic liberals have in the past dominated the party. But they have often been overzealous and self-destructive. The liberals tore Hubert Humphrey apart in 1968 because of his prolonged support of the Viet Nam War and largely caused his defeat. Their single-minded ferocity inspired George McGovern's disastrous 1972 campaign and split the party. Who are the liberals today? Which candidate do they support in 1976? What is their influence? TIME National Political Correspondent Robert Ajemian surveyed the field and reports:

Professor Daniel Patrick Moynihan, back at Harvard from his job as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, stretched his long legs down the tavern booth. His two cheeseburgers and draft beer sat untouched in front of him. He was, with characteristic gusto, into his subject. "These goddam elitist liberals," he said, "almost succeeded in running the workingman out of the Democratic Party." He spotted a passing bus through the window and began pumping his finger toward it. "They made that bus driver out there feel illiberal; they turned him into a caricature.

"Liberals make sure to insulate themselves from all these drastic social changes," he went on, "but they expect the masses to make them work. It's so intolerant. In their eyes, if you're not a cultural liberal, then you're not a political liberal." Moynihan himself once had liberal credentials but now is considered something of a renegade.

In Retreat. It is not an easy time to be a liberal. The criticism, like Pat Moynihan's, is fierce. Today liberals are in retreat, or, as Social Scientist Moynihan puts it, fading back into the culture. They are unmoored and fragmented, a variegated group that has traditionally coalesced around a strong leader and a compelling cause--and now has neither. None of the presidential candidates stirs them the way past heroes like Adlai Stevenson or Eugene McCarthy did. No issue even faintly matches the emotion of their stand against the Viet Nam War. On top of that, they are blamed--by fellow Democrats, no less--for the growth of Big Government. In the background, there is the now familiar conviction that liberal remedies have not worked: problems did not get solved simply by "throwing money" at them.

The message of the first five primaries seems to confirm the liberals' plight. All but one of their candidates have dropped out. The survivor around whom they are gathering, Morris Udall, still has not won a primary. Even Udall has poured salt on their wounds: he has taken to dropping their label. Udall prefers to call himself a progressive, a description he says sounds less negative.

In foreign affairs, says Moynihan, there is something almost Orwellian about the transformation of the word liberal to mean the opposite of what it meant a decade or so ago. John Kennedy's inaugural address, which declared that the U.S. would defend freedom around the globe, was celebrated at the time. Now liberals oppose intervention.

In domestic affairs, the increasing hostility between labor unions and the blacks made liberals, who long supported both as underdogs, even more insecure. Social and cultural issues like drugs, amnesty and abortion, which shook the country in the '60s, split the bread-and-butter liberals from the counterculturists of the McCarthy- McGovern era. The divisions still are there.

The liberal label has always been ambiguous. When Democratic National Committee Chairman Robert Strauss is asked whether he is a liberal, he answers with a question: On what issue? The answer can be measured, public opinion experts believe, by putting people to a test. If you agree with at least five of the following six questions, you are entitled to consider yourself a present-day liberal: 1) It is more important to create jobs than to balance the budget; 2) Too little attention is being paid to the needs of minority groups; 3) The defense budget should be decreased; 4) Forced busing should be continued; 5) There should be no censorship of pornography for adults; and 6) The death penalty should not be reinstated.

The test is far from conclusive. Says Congressman Don Eraser, head of the Americans for Democratic Action: "We're more realistic now. We want someone who can win rather than simply pass a liberal litmus test. We learned that lesson."

Still, liberals are an amorphous, leaderless fraternity in this year's nominating process. "Almost every day," says Historian Richard Wade of the City University of New York and a former McGovern strategist, "liberals call me and say: 'What shall I do? Who shall I be for?' They don't want to work for any of the candidates."

Dangerous Man. Issues aside, the liberal community would come alive in a second, say members of the left, if Ted Kennedy were to snap his fingers. Says Joe Rauh, former head of A.D.A.: "People keep forgetting we have our second team on the field. I'm for Mo Udall, and so are many others, but it's a nothing-else-to-do kind of thing."

Liberals almost uniformly speak of Udall as not being forceful enough; they like him as a man but not as a leader. He has not been able to collect key Democratic groups--blacks, organized labor, Jews. His main source of support--the intellectuals--is a slim constituency. He warns liberals that if they sit on their wallets waiting for a brokered convention, they'll be stuck with a conservative nominee--Scoop Jackson or Jimmy Carter. So far they have not paid much attention.

The liberals, nonetheless, are nearly apoplectic about Jackson. They describe him as a dangerous man--despite his almost perfect A.D.A. record on domestic issues--because of his reservations about detente and his hawkish stands on national defense. Historian Arthur Schlesinger, for example, contends that if Jackson becomes President, the Brezhnev regime might fall, so wholly is it committed to detente. Jackson also fails the social-cultural test; liberals see him as a paralyzing square. "If people think liberals sat on their hands with Humphrey in 1968," predicts Alan Baron, a top McGovern aide, "they'll abandon Jackson in droves." Says Anne Wexler, associate publisher of Rolling Stone: "Jackson's the best issue we have. He drives us together."

Jackson shrugs off their ire. "They are wishy-washy," he scoffs. "They can't stampede me. My domestic voting record is almost perfect. That's what bugs them." Jackson last week took to bugging them in another way: he now boasts to audiences that he is the only candidate in the race who is willing to call himself a liberal.

Ironically, the fanaticism toward Jackson plays right into the hands of Carter, whom the liberals are now eying with growing acceptance. If the choice gets down to Jackson and Carter, they will fly to Carter; quite a few activists around the country have already signed up with him. His large black vote in the primaries and his criticisms of the defense budget make him appealing to some liberals. Says a top Democratic strategist: "The liberals are an easy pickup for Carter. A few key words and he's got them."

Perfect Foil. The left is still unable to figure out exactly how conservative Carter really is, but that puzzlement shrinks next to the threat of Jackson. Even within big labor, which is still mostly opposed to Carter, there are several liberal unions that take a favorable view of him. Bill Welsh, political director for the American Federation of State, County & Municipal Employees Union, believes that while Carter still has not passed the liberal test, he has found the perfect foil in Jackson.

For many liberals the preferred candidate is Hubert Humphrey. The marvelous irony of that is not lost on Humphrey. Last month he accepted an invitation to speak for New York Congressman Herman Badillo, who was one of his most vicious attackers a few years ago. In 1968, Joe Rauh, who now describes Humphrey as a first-teamer, was part of the crowd outside the Chicago convention hall screaming: "Dump the Hump." Liberals have forgiven Humphrey, mostly because they have to.

The final liberal dilemma, therefore, is how to get the nomination for non-candidate Humphrey. They have no convenient way to stop Jackson, or even the unknown Carter. "If you put the top 50 liberals inside a room to stop Jackson," says Richard Wade, "they'd have no troops for the job. Liberals have influence but no power." Then he stops for a moment and raises his hand. "But the liberal presence is out there. It can be neglected only so far. If it comes together, it can haunt you."

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