distant rumble of a groundswell

FEBRUARY
---------------- [campaign '72, H.S. Thompson] ----------- The Exeter stop was not a happy one for McGovern, because word had just come in from Frank Mankiewicz, his "political director" in Washington, that McGovern's old friend and staunch liberal ally from Iowa -- Senator Harold Hughes -- had just announced he was endorsing Ed Muskie.

This news hit the campaign caravan like a dung-bomb.  Hughes had been one of the few Senators that McGovern was counting on to hang tough.  The Hughes / McGovern / Fred Harris (D-Okla.) axis has been the closest thing in the Senate to a Populist power bloc for the past two years.  Even the Muskie endorsement-hustlers who were criss-crossing the nation putting pressure on local politicians to come out for Big Ed hadn't bothered with Hughes, because they considered him "un-touchable."  If anything, he was thought to be more radical and intransigent than McGovern himself.

Hughes had grown a beard; he didn't mind admitting that he talked to trees now and then -- and a few months earlier he had challenged the party hierarchy by forcing a public showdown between himself and Larry O'Brien's personal choice for the chairmanship of the all-important Credentials Committee at the national convention.

Dick Dougherty, a former Los Angeles Times newsman who is handling McGovern's national press action in New Hampshire, was so shaken by the news of Hughes' defection that he didn't even try to explain it when reporters began asking Why?  Dougherty had just gotten the word when the crowded press limo left Dover for Exeter, and he did his best to fend off our questions until he could talk to the candidate and agree on what to say.  But in terms of campaign morale, it was as if somebody had slashed all the tires on every car in the caravan, including the candidate's.  When we got to the Exeter Inn I half expected to see a filthy bearded raven perched over the entrance, croaking "Nevermore. . . ."

..."Why do you think he did it?" I said.

He [McGovern] was washing his hands, staring down at the sink.  "Well . . . ," he said finally.  "I guess I shouldn't say this, Hunter, but I honestly don't know.  I'm surprised; we're all surprised."

He looked very tired....

A lot has been written about McGovern's difficulties on the campaign trail, but most of it is far off the point.  The career pols and press wizards say he simply lacks "charisma," but that's a cheap and simplistic idea that is more an insult to the electorate than to McGovern.  The assholes who run politics in this country have become so mesmerized by the Madison Avenue school of campaigning that they actually believe, now, that all it takes to become a Congressman or a Senator -- or even a President -- is a nice set of teeth, a big wad of money, and a half-dozen Media Specialists.

McGovern, they say, doesn't make it on this level.  Which is probably true.  But McCarthy was worse.  His '68 campaign had none of the surface necessities.  He had no money, no press, no endorsements, no camera-presence . . . his only asset was a good eye for the opening, and a good enough ear to pick up the distant rumble of a groundswell with nobody riding it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Everybody's trying to say I'm wrong
I just wanna be
back where I belong
World turning.....
I gotta get my feet back on the ground
World turning......
Everybody's got me down
Maybe I'm wrong, but
Who's to say what's right?
I need somebody
to help me through the night --------------

======================
{book excerpt:  Fear And Loathing:  On The Campaign Trail '72.  Written by Hunter S. Thompson.  Copyright 1973.}
{song:  "World Turning."  Written by Lindsey Buckingham and Christine McVie.  Fleetwood Mac, 1975, Reprise.}

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