The Nation: Hart on How to Beat Nixon

• Share

The principal commander of McGovern's national campaign will be Gary Hart, 34, the attractive Denver lawyer who has been instrumental in winning his chief's amazing series of primary victories. In Miami Beach, he told TIME Correspondent Dean Fischer and a group of TIME editors the outline of his strategy to defeat Richard Nixon:

HART insists that McGovern will not write off any region.

"We're going to analyze each state independently. There are changes in mood taking place that are difficult to analyze. Where the mood is right—and it seems to vary almost state by state—we'll go in and try to win it."

The starting point for the strategy of concentration is the states that Hubert Humphrey won or narrowly lost in 1968, such as California and Pennsylvania. Then there are "second-and third-level states," as Hart describes them, where he believes Nixon is vulnerable and where McGovern could reverse Republican victories of 1968. Among them: Wisconsin and Oregon and possibly a couple of states in the South and in the Rocky Mountains. Hart professes to see hope for McGovern even in South Carolina. "I talked to Governor John West a couple of weeks ago, and he said that if we came in there and put together an organization like we've done elsewhere, we might even carry the state." In addition, Hart contends that McGovern's pollster, Pat Caddell, 22, has found evidence of McGovern popularity among supporters of George Wallace. "All of our analyses show that for a lot of Wallace voters, McGovern was their second choice," says Hart. "Given enough time, McGovern would begin to erode Wallace's populist support. The Senator goes a giant step forward in answering the concerns that Wallace has raised."

Hart acknowledges the problems of seeking a reconciliation with the Daleys and Meanys, but he hopes for a back-scratching kind of relationship eventually: "I'd guess that Daley will at least remain neutral, or else give us some cooperation." The situation with Meany is similar. One reason for Hart's optimism is that he perceives the Democratic opposition to McGovern to be psychological rather than ideological. "It's a struggle for power and control," he explains. "It's the old versus the new, the passing of an order. To a large degree, the opposition is transitional." Caddell's polls continue to show that "there are a tremendous number of people who don't know who George McGovern is."

Hart wants McGovern to start campaigning before Labor Day in a low-key August campaign, avoiding big rallies and meeting voters informally. "The idea is that McGovern doesn't drop out of sight and concede exposure for six weeks to Richard Nixon," says Hart.