POLITICS: McGovern Redux

Almost one year and $1,000,000 ago, George McGovern launched what looked like a quixotic run for the Democratic presidential nomination. Since then he has traveled some 250,000 miles on the campaign circuit—mostly sideways. For all his efforts, Senator McGovern has climbed a minuscule 1%, from 3% to 4%, in the polls of Democratic and independent voters. He remains unfalteringly optimistic. "If autumn and early winter polls meant anything," he said recently, "then George Romney would now be in his third year in the White House." However engaging, the point is not particularly persuasive. With the primary sweepstakes but three months away, McGovern appears more a Rosinante than a viable dark horse.

Tall and ruggedly handsome, McGovern, as a campaigner, is still the low-key prairie politician who won office in South Dakota by hopping out of his car to talk to farmers in the fields. Though charming and often witty in conversation, he can be downright dull on the hustings. In deference to the youth vote, McGovern's hair has crept down over his collar and he has taken to wearing flashy mod clothes, but his failure to create any sense of drama about himself and his convictions is the despair of his staff.

More Left Than Lindsay. McGovern first came to national prominence as an opponent of the Viet Nam War, and he continues to promise that if elected he will stop the bombing, announce a date for total withdrawal, and negotiate for the release of all prisoners. These are important and legitimate points. But with most voters, President Nixon has probably succeeded in outflanking McGovern through his own withdrawal policies, and McGovern certainly is no longer isolated on the war from the other serious Democratic contenders for the nomination. With the exception of Washington's Henry Jackson, they have all adopted McGovern's original position, with only minor variations.

It is no longer fair to call McGovern a one-issue candidate. His stance on nonwar issues still places him to the left of all the available Democrats, including New York City Mayor John Lindsay. McGovern supports a dividend freeze as well as a wage-price freeze, and a "guaranteed job" for every adult who wants one through government contracting with private industry for housing, transport and environmental projects. He advocates an "excess-war-profits tax" on corporations while the Viet Nam fighting lasts, a minimum income tax for the wealthy, a negative income tax for the poor, and reduced oil and gas depletion allowances. In foreign policy he takes the usual liberal positions: he is for selling planes to Israel, against aid to Rhodesia, sympathetic to Bengali independence.

Despite being in step with the party's left, McGovern has failed to excite it. "Right on" or not, he is unimpressive on many of the issues he addresses. He argues that he is qualified to see and solve urban problems because, as a country boy, he grew up "where the water is pure and the air is clean." That makes little dent on big city audiences of minority groups and impoverished whites. His view of the economy is largely that of a group of academic advisors, including Harvard's John Kenneth Galbraith, who are helping to bolster his grasp of the subject.