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10 CRUSADE AND CATASTROPHE Gary Hart,who in 1968 had been a campaign organizer in Colorado for Robert Kennedy, was serving as director of George McGovern’s presidential nominating campaign.His campaign experience,however,had been almost wholly at the local level. McGovern and his wife, Eleanor, had aªection for Hart and appreciated his early commitment to the McGovern presidential candidacy . But both were concerned that his marriage was being strained by his absence from Colorado and that he lacked experience in national politics. After I oªered McGovern my volunteer services,he asked that,as a first task, I meet with Hart and assess what was going on at the campaign headquarters .McGovern wanted me to help build a full campaign structure.He hoped Hart would concentrate on national organizing. Frank Mankiewicz, Robert Kennedy’s 1968 campaign press secretary, would come aboard in a few days and would serve as principal campaign spokesman.I told McGovern I wanted to receive no financial compensation. I would continue to conduct my consulting business in downtown Washington in the mornings and would spend afternoons and evenings at the campaign headquarters on Capitol Hill.Hart and Mankiewicz, I knew, would be working for modest campaign-staª salaries. I arrived the next morning at the McGovern headquarters, situated in low-rent quarters on 1st Street N.E.,to begin my situation analysis.Hart kept me waiting forty-five minutes in the tiny reception room. I had not known or met him before. He greeted me with the same enthusiasm with which he might have greeted news of a diagnosis of Hansen’s disease. I found good news and bad news.Two excellent campaign coordinators, Joe Grandmaison and Gene Pokorny, were on the scene in the key primary states of New Hampshire and Wisconsin.The bare-bones headquarters organization was fortunately anchored by Rick Stearns, a former Rhodes Scholar and McCarthy volunteer who kept watch on state-by-state activities.No priorities had been set among primary and caucus states. No broad fundraising organization was in place.No policy research or media eªorts had been organ122 ized. No formal scheduling or advance operation existed. The campaign was largely existential,mainly focused around McGovern’s out-of-town trips and speeches and networking among 1968 peace activists. His Senate o‹ce continued to function as his central base of operations, with Gordon Weil, legislative assistant John Holum, and others providing him excellent staª support. If you believe that national candidacies spring spontaneously into being, you are mistaken.Winning campaigns typically are the result of careful planning ; losing campaigns most often are improvisational and harum-scarum. Candidates usually seek the presidency only after having spent many years of their lives thinking about it. Just as a successful commercial product must have a comparative advantage over competitors, so must a successful national candidacy. Humphrey, in seeking the 1964 vice presidential nomination, had had the advantage of seeming the party leader best prepared to succeed to the presidency on short notice,should that be required.McGovern,in 1971,had the advantage of being the candidate for the presidential nomination most identified with opposition to the Vietnam War. Other Democrats, in varying degree, opposed the war. But, if you were a Democrat committed to ending the war, McGovern was your man. Because antiwar Democrats then were the most intense participants in the party nominating process,they were a potentially potent base from which to launch a candidacy.There also were a number of independent antiwar groups that could collaborate with the campaign. One was Vietnam Veterans against theWar,cofounded by a former Navy Swift Boat commander, John Kerry.Kerry,wearing combat fatigues,was a familiar figure around campaign headquarters.To ensure that he got first claim on this key constituency, McGovern had taken the unprecedented step of declaring his candidacy in the middle of the year preceding the national election. There is a sound rule in politics: nail down your base and keep it nailed. McGovern, as his campaign proceeded, never strayed from his base on the central issue of Vietnam. But many of his core supporters, it would turn out, had agendas beyond the war which he would never be able to satisfy. That would become apparent only later,after his nomination,during the party platform process. McGovern’s antiwar base also would serve him well in fundraising.Directmail appeals,coordinated by Morris Dees (head of the Southern Poverty Law Center) and Jeª Smith of McGovern...

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