Democrats: What Might Have Been

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Footnotes to history:

In 1964, Lyndon Johnson was seriously thinking of making amiable Mike Mansfield, majority leader of the Senate, his running mate instead of Hubert Humphrey. That way, the President reasoned, Humphrey could become majority leader, giving L.B.J. far more forceful Senate leadership and Humphrey a bigger reputation for an eventual presidential campaign of his own. It would also have spared Humphrey what was to become one of his most onerous burdens—his overly close association with an unpopular Administration. There were reports last week that Humphrey, too, had some unorthodox ideas this year about his own running mate: he wanted New York's Republican Governor Nelson Rockefeller to join him on a unity ticket. Humphrey aides denied it, insisted that the Vice President always wanted Maine's Senator Ed Muskie on his ticket.

Initially, Humphrey thought Richard Nixon would be an easy target. The Chicago debacle changed his mind. In retrospect, Humphrey believes that he might have made more headway with Eugene McCarthy's dissidents if he had spoken out sooner on Viet Nam. Even before the convention, he had a speech ready saying that he might try a bombing halt if elected. But he was persuaded to wait until the end of September by advice from Paris that an earlier announcement might have hampered the peace talks. Humphrey, unlike many supporters and pollsters, does not believe that a few more days of campaigning would have brought him the victory. He feels that he received nearly all the votes he was going to get.

Doubtless Humphrey will discuss these points in his memoirs, which Doubleday plans to publish next year. In the meantime, Humphrey will probably lecture at the University of Minnesota, lay plans to replace McCarthy in the Senate if the donnish dove does not run again in 1970, and spend the next two years helping Democratic National Chairman Larry O'Brien recoup the party's $5,000,000 to $7,000,000 campaign debt.