POLITICS: No. 1 and No. 2 for the Democrats

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LOOKING as craggy as the coast of Maine, Edmund Sixtus Muskie last week spent eight minutes and $35,000 on national television to confirm what everyone already knew—that he was a candidate for his party's nomination for the presidency. A few days later Richard Nixon quietly followed suit. This week Hubert Humphrey was all set to end the non-suspense over his intentions with a speech in Philadelphia, thus formalizing the contest between the two 1968 Democratic running mates. In themselves, the declarations will have small effect on the relative positions of the candidates of either party; the President has a firm grip on the G.O.P., while Muskie remains the Democrats' No. 1 in the running with Humphrey a close No. 2. But the occasion offered a contrast in the styles and substance of the two leading Democrats.

No Smile. Muskie's talk was taped in the family's yellow-shingled house on Kennebunk Beach, and broadcast the following day on CBS during the final ten minutes of a shortened Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour. His performance was solid but unspectacular, flintily eloquent and unemotional; not once did he smile. If elected he promised "a new beginning," a phrase provided by his chief speechwriter, Robert Shrum, a former Lindsay aide. In inflection, tone, even phraseology, he evoked the refrain of John Kennedy's 1960 standard campaign speech: "We are going to have to do much better." Nine times Muskie started sentences with the words, "It is not good enough," as he recited a litany of national needs and failures. "We were promised an end to war," he said. "We were given a continuing war—with more American deaths, more American prisoners taken, and a resumption of massive bombing."

He charged that the Administration had broken promises to achieve price stability, prosperity and domestic peace. Although much of the criticism was aimed at the President, Muskie was curiously nonpartisan. He never mentioned the Democratic Party, and correctly, if somewhat naively, conceded that "it would be foolish to blame all the nation's ills on the present Administration," a statement that rubbed many Democrats the wrong way.

"The speech worried me," Muskie said afterward. He had reason to worry. With less than 24 hours remaining before the scheduled taping, Muskie was still without a final version, having considered and rejected four separate drafts from his speechwriters. That night he slept little; his wife Jane later told a staff aide that "Ed got up every ten minutes." The next day brought several more revisions, and not until 10 p.m., some five hours late, did the taping begin. The TV crew, hired by Muskie's TV consultant, Robert Squier, was the same that had filmed his successful 1970 election-eve speech.