Will Gene Be the Spoiler?

If nothing else, Eugene McCarthy is having a bit of fun running for the presidency as an independent. Earlier this month, for example, the former Democratic Senator from Minnesota did what no orthodox candidate ever does: he unveiled his prospective Cabinet.

McCarthy said he would name former North Carolina Governor Terry Sanford to head a combined State and Defense Department; Boston's Mayor Kevin White to oversee the Justice Department and the IRS; former Interior Secretary Walter Hickel, a Republican, to direct the Interior and Agriculture departments; Howard Stein, president of the Dreyfus Fund, to tackle the Treasury (minus, of course, the IRS); and Sam Shoen, president of the U-Haul company, to manage Commerce, Labor and Transportation. McCarthy said he would keep Housing and Urban Development Secretary Carla Hills and Transportation Secretary William Coleman in his Administration. For good measure, McCarthy said, he would name Harvard Sociologist David Riesman (The Lonely Crowd) to the Supreme Court and would hire former Senator J. William Fulbright "in some capacity."

Deepening Impact. McCarthy's puckish byplay, however, could not disguise the deepening impact of his campaign--especially for Democratic Nominee Jimmy Carter. McCarthy's name is now on the ballot in 30 states with a total of 356 electoral votes. National polls have placed his strength between 3% and 12%. TIME'S Yankelovich survey in early October gave McCarthy 7%, a significant figure in a close Ford-Carter finish. A Field survey made two weeks ago in California showed McCarthy winning 10% of the vote in that state on a write-in basis (he is not on the ballot).

McCarthy does not claim he is going to win the election. Even his professed hope of capturing four or five states is farfetched. Nonetheless he plans to spend the rest of the race concentrating on nine states where he has a substantial following among liberal Democrats and independents--Massachusetts, New York, Wisconsin, Oregon, Michigan, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine and California. That strategy looks as if it is designed to maximize the damage to Carter, and McCarthy seems almost to relish the role of wrecker. He says almost gleefully to applauding audiences: "I've been accused of being a spoiler. Well, how can you spoil this election when there's nothing to spoil?"

Tall and nattily dressed in conservative suits, the white-maned McCarthy, 60, insists that he has ignited a new kind of political movement in the nation. Since July 1974, when he helped found the Committee for a Constitution al Presidency, he has managed to raise some $300,000--mostly from his own lecture fees (at $1,000 a talk), private donations and several mail appeals. Most of the money, however, has been spent simply to get himself on various ballots.

McCarthy's election appearances, often at college campuses, are drawing increasingly enthusiastic audiences. At Boston College last week, some 600 students squeezed into a small auditorium to hear him. At the University of Wisconsin's Madison campus, 3,000 people gave him a standing ovation.

In his speeches, McCarthy calls for less powerful cars to reduce gas consumption, a shortening of overtime to increase the number of jobs, subjecting big corporations to social controls rather than breaking them up. He is suing to be included in this week's final debate between Ford and Carter (prospect: unlikely). Despite McCarthy's complaints that the U.S. press refuses to take an independent campaign seriously, the fact is that he is not an easy man to cover. Some reporters have tried to pursue him on his meandering trips and got lost at his rallies; TV correspondents have also discovered that he will not answer complicated questions with glib answers suitable for 30-sec. news spots.

McCarthy's biggest objection is to the Federal Election Campaign Act. The law, he claims, has crippled his ability to rent phone banks because they require a huge advance cash deposit. Last year, along with New York's Republican Senator James Buckley and ten others, he tried to overturn the law--with only partial success. Still, McCarthy places most of the blame for his plight on the two major parties. Having only Democratic and Republican candidates as realistic choices, he says, is "like saying we have two established religions. Pick one or the other. This is religious freedom?"

Even though McCarthy has no chance, his candidacy frightens many Democrats, who argue that a vote for him is a vote for Ford. McCarthy remains unfazed. He talks about how his independent challenge has already overturned 14 state election laws and opened up the election process for the future. Says he: "You don't really judge everything you do in politics by whether you win or not, you know." His battle may in the end play some role in reshaping election laws--but not, it seems, before roughing up Jimmy Carter's own drive for the presidency.

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