Democrats: The Nonconsensus

Having claimed an arsenal of 1,811 delegate votes — 499 more than he needs to capture the Democratic presidential nomination in August — Hubert Humphrey might understandably have been content to tend to his Washington chores or else to rusticate back home in Waverly, Minn. Instead, acting for all the world like a ravenous underdog, the Vice President scrambled through a grueling Midwestern campaign tour.

One reason for Humphrey's hyperactivity was psychological: if he stayed aloof for the final weeks before the Democratic Convention, Eugene McCarthy's supporters could claim all the more plausibly that the Administration had engineered a closed convention. Beyond that, Humphrey was still actively proselytizing among delegates and dissidents because he feared the long-range damage his candidacy might suffer if 1) a McCarthy-supported fourth party materialized, or 2) large numbers of disaffected Democrats decided to sit out the November election.

Through the Ranks. Humphrey aides reason that if anti-Administration Democrats form a splinter party or organize a massive write-in campaign for McCarthy, the Republican nominee might well walk into the White House through the Democrats' shattered ranks.

Everywhere last week Humphrey preached the politics of unity and consensus. Even Actress Ann-Margret failed to distract him from the theme during a Minneapolis celebration of Svenskar Dag (Day of the Swedes).

Sometimes he spoke with an excess of counterpoise. In St. Paul, he told an air-pollution conference that automobiles "are choking our cities and polluting our air" — but not before he had lavished praise upon the auto industry.

Later, when a listener complained that the military had too much control over the U.S. war effort, he declared: "You don't win wars with social workers"*#151;after which he went on to deliver a paean to social workers. Similarly, when he discussed the war, Humphrey followed a militant line to the effect that "the U.S. should fulfill its commitments" with a sentiment more congenial to doves: "We have tried to do maybe too much in the world." Treading gingerly but using backroom muscle on all factions of the party, Humphrey will hold meetings, inviting Democrats of all persuasions to help shape the platform. To counter charges that he was stacking the convention, the Vice President's forces agreed to cede some delegates to McCarthy — provided that their loss involved no danger to Humphrey's nomination.