University of Virginia Library

Hang On Snoopy

If elections were won by
bumper stickers, a quick survey
would put Humphrey, Nixon,
Wallace, Snoopy and the Esso Tiger
all neck and neck — but none of
them near beating Eugene
McCarthy.

It's a part of that "McCarthy
phenomenon" that no one wants to
remove his stickers. McCarthy
daisies are still seen everywhere;
and whereas bumper stickers may
sound trivial, the resilience they
reflect is not-at least not to the
Humphrey forces. The nominee
himself is saying that McCarthy
support is essential to victory, and
he pleads for "rationality" to
prevail.

But will it? In New York, the
state's Democratic party chairman,
John J. Burns, is worried about
winning his critical state for
Humphrey. He said that
Humphrey's strongest issue was the
negative one of who he was running
against, much like Johnson's
anti-Goldwater appeal in 1964.

"When the McCarthy people
see what Wallace and Nixon and
Agnew have to say," he hopes
aloud, "they will come around."

In many camps there is doubt
that even passive support by the
McCarthyites (all Humphrey could
expect) would be sufficient to put
him over in November. What is
becoming evident as the campaign
develops is that the delegates in
Chicago did more than make a
policy decision in choosing
Humphrey. In the process they
forfeited the energy and enthusiasm
of the one Democratic "machine"
which might outdo both Nixon and
Wallace.

It has been known that the
"bright, wild-eyed liberals" in this
country were equally matched — in
numbers — by the hard-lines
conservatives, but the liberal forces
had held the balance through their
dedication, hard work and energy.
Its leadership had been better and
the basically conservative blue
collar block had been kept within
the liberal coalition.

This year the delegates at both
the Republican and Democratic
conventions (more, of course, at
the latter) had opted for party
loyalty over popular appeal. In this
way, the Democrats in particular
defaulted. The result was that only
Wallace and the forces of
conservative had rewarded and
nourished the most active,
enthusiastic and outgoing of their
followers to develop the type of
bandwagon which draws others.
People are attracted to the
dedication and enthusiasm of
others.

What hurts Humphrey the most
about his failure to draw McCarthy
supporters is their "irrational"
indifference to stop-Nixon appeals.
Sam Smith, a District of Columbia
Democratic Central Committee
member, explains his indifference
by saying, "I prefer milk of
magnesia to castor oil, but I try to
keep away from them both."

Other McCarthy supporters are
saying they prefer Nixon to
Humphrey on the grounds that
since both of them support a war
which bankrupts domestic
programs, it is better to have the
candidate who is at least not going
to raise unfulfilled frustrations in
the process.

Since most McCarthy supporters
share the feeling that Humphrey
cannot win anyway, they are less
inclined to share the role of
"funeral director." Seeing nothing
to gain, then, by rewarding
Humphrey for copping the
nomination, they are content to
await his repudiation in November
and pick up the pieces along their
own lines in December.

A deeper explanation of
Humphrey's difficulties in making
"good losers" of the McCarthy
camp might be that they don't feel
they lost.

The party and not McCarthy,
they insist, lost in Chicago. The
bumper stickers remain primarily
because the movement remains,
quite separate from the Democratic
party.

Humphrey might well recall that
Robert Kennedy had the same
problem in March of extracting
McCarthy supporters. What
Kennedy distressingly discovered
was that people who are won to a
candidate on principle as solely as
they were to McCarthy (who lacked
charisma at first) will only leave
that candidate on principle. Past
record, good looks and "stopping
Johnson" were suddenly no longer
and the McCarthyites bore that
tenacity proudly.

Now Humphrey faces the same
challenge. And the McCarthyites
are waiting, just waiting. They are
restless in their political
mononucleosis, but proud of their
efforts — and their bumper stickers.