THE CAMPAIGN: The democrats Begin Again

HIS blue eyes dimmed and his thinning hair awry, a tired George McGovern clearly showed the strain of his ordeal over finding a vice-presidential candidate. But after Sargent Shriver had been formally placed on the ticket at a miniconvention of the Democratic National Committee in Washington, McGovern was free to plunge eagerly into the formal debut of his presidential campaign. He deliberately chose New Hampshire, where five amazing months ago he won his first primary victory. In his two-day swing through three New England states, the crowd response was warm, and McGovern grew buoyant again in his quiet way.

This week, in Wisconsin, Ohio and Illinois, he planned to continue wooing the old Democratic chieftains, a process that had begun at the unprecedented committee meeting in the Capitol. Wisely controlled to minimize any new internal squabbles over procedures or credentials, the gathering was nevertheless a kind of public confessional as speakers talked frankly about the campaign's bad start, its lack of funds and party disunity. "Come home to your party where you belong," pleaded Hubert Humphrey to disaffected Democrats, adding with a touch of personal bitterness: "Richard Nixon is in the White House because too many Democrats didn't come home in 1968." Now some of them seemed to be returning. Chicago Mayor Richard Daley congratulated Shriver, and one of Daley's close associates, Congressman Dan Rostenkowski, made a nominating speech for the vice-presidential candidate.

The committee meeting was largely a gathering of old pros, contrasting with the more youthful convention in Miami Beach. It gave Tom Eagleton such an enthusiastic reception that he looked like a winner rather than a man bumped from the ticket because of his past mental-depression treatments. Yet there was an almost solid show of unity behind Shriver on the committee roll call. He got all of the 3,016 votes except Missouri's 73, which went sympathetically to Eagleton, and four in Oregon that went to former Senator Wayne Morse, who is seeking a comeback there this year. In introducing Shriver, McGovern's speech hit only one high point. He drew a standing ovation as he ridiculed charges that he is too radical. "What is right has always been called radical," he said, "by those with a stake in things that are wrong."