Nation: Limited Candidate

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In 1964, Hubert Humphrey was not the only Minnesotan Lyndon Johnson was seriously considering as his running mate. The junior Senator, Eugene McCarthy, was also, Johnson observed fondly, "the kind of man who will go to the well with you." Humphrey, of course, won No. 2 place at the well, but Johnson's regard for McCarthy—and vice versa—was apparent. Last week, with little residue of that regard left on either side, McCarthy began his own campaign for the presidency as the Democratic peace candidate.

Speaking on campuses in four states—at Minnesota's Macalester College (where Humphrey once taught), Harvard, and the universities of Michigan and Chicago—McCarthy reiterated his own oft-voiced objections to the war and his prescription for its end: gradual withdrawal. Beyond that, he repeated his major complaint that the U.S. is overextended around the world and must recognize "the limits of power," a phrase he used as the title for his latest book.

Cultivated, quick-witted and possessed of the saturnine good looks of a Ray Milland, McCarthy would seem to be the ideal candidate for those who oppose the war. Yet there is little indication that he is, and, judging from his reception last week, there is little indication that he will be. In his initial exposures as a presidential hopeful, Gene McCarthy seemed too sophisticated and too much a man of formula (his speeches were largely extracted verbatim from his book) to ignite his audiences. The crowds last week received him cordially but without excitement.

In 19 years in Congress—ten in the House and nine in the Senate—McCarthy has placed his stamp on very little legislation. To some of his colleagues, his sardonic humor is cynicism; his casualness, indifference. Though McCarthy has scant chance of winning the nomination himself, he might, by attracting a sizable antiwar and anti-Johnson vote in the primaries, focus attention on Johnson's weakness and open the way for another candidate—his friend and colleague Robert Kennedy, for example.

It is easy for Democrats these days to recall Kefauver's embarrassing 1952 victory over President Harry Truman in the New Hampshire primary. With that painfully in mind, the White House is not laughing off Gene McCarthy's campaign.