Part 36 (1/2)

Another bold move Nixon considered, then vetoed. In April the Supreme Court, 90, had issued its latest absolutely final ruling that the South's dual school systems were illegal, despite his solicitor general's arguments to the contrary, and Nixon had to choose his next move.

More than ever, it wasn't just a Southern issue. By the standards set by HEW, 18 percent of Southern blacks went to integrated schools in the 196869 school year and over 40 percent by 197172. But only 28 percent of black students in the rest rest of the country attended integrated schools. Nashville, Charlotte, Tampa-and Pontiac-were busing under court order. Almost a dozen cities in Pennsylvania were proceeding under tense voluntary agreements. The response was always the same, North, South, East, and West: panicked flight to the suburbs, private and parochial schools, and in the South, newly opened ”Christian academies.” Joe Kraft hoped the Ninety-second Congress would ”hold the line against the anti-busing fanatics.” But the ”fanatics” spoke for 76 percent of the country-including 47 percent of blacks. Nixon ordered Ehrlichman and Haldeman to work up some kind antibusing law or executive order or const.i.tutional amendment. of the country attended integrated schools. Nashville, Charlotte, Tampa-and Pontiac-were busing under court order. Almost a dozen cities in Pennsylvania were proceeding under tense voluntary agreements. The response was always the same, North, South, East, and West: panicked flight to the suburbs, private and parochial schools, and in the South, newly opened ”Christian academies.” Joe Kraft hoped the Ninety-second Congress would ”hold the line against the anti-busing fanatics.” But the ”fanatics” spoke for 76 percent of the country-including 47 percent of blacks. Nixon ordered Ehrlichman and Haldeman to work up some kind antibusing law or executive order or const.i.tutional amendment.

Then, he changed his mind.

He had breathed a sigh of relief when the 1968 Civil Rights Act had pa.s.sed; it released him from having to take a position on open housing. Now he realized judges had granted him the same favor. He could ruefully observe, I have consistently opposed the busing of our nation's schoolchildren to achieve a racial balance, but there is nothing I can do about it because the Supreme Court has tied my hands. I have consistently opposed the busing of our nation's schoolchildren to achieve a racial balance, but there is nothing I can do about it because the Supreme Court has tied my hands. Busing would give something to the Democrats to scratch each other's eyeb.a.l.l.s out over during the primaries. And provide all the more reason, if you hated it, to vote for Richard Nixon: he would nominate more conservative judges. Busing would give something to the Democrats to scratch each other's eyeb.a.l.l.s out over during the primaries. And provide all the more reason, if you hated it, to vote for Richard Nixon: he would nominate more conservative judges.

He soon had the chance. The day after that press conference where he tried to frame the thirty-fifth president of the United States for murder, as Americans absorbed the Attica ma.s.sacre, he received the resignation of eighty-five-year-old Supreme Court justice Hugo Black. Almost simultaneously, Justice John Marshall Harlan announced that he, too, would retire.

John Mitch.e.l.l proposed Richard Poff of Virginia, the ranking Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, who had offered an amendment to strip from the 1966 civil rights bill the power to sue for civil rights violations. Poff decided he didn't welcome the confirmation fight, so Nixon cast his eye over Democrat Robert Byrd: another thing for the Dems to scratch each other's eyeb.a.l.l.s out over. ”He's a real reactionary. The Democrats just made him their whip. And he was in the Ku Klux Klan when he was young. Send them a message.” (That was George Wallace's slogan.) A list of six candidates leaked to the American Bar a.s.sociation revealed the political opportunism: Byrd, who'd never been admitted to the bar or practiced law; three undistinguished women, a nod to the ERA ferment (one was a segregationist leader); an appeals court judge who'd built his reputation defending Mississippi governor Ross Barnett against contempt charges when he'd refused to let James Meredith attend Ole Miss. Chief Justice Burger said he'd resign if any of them were appointed. ”f.u.c.k him,” Nixon responded. ”f.u.c.k the ABA.” Which somehow made it into the New Republic. New Republic. Which received a prompt letter from John Ehrlichman: ”The simple fact is that in the many hours I have spent with the President I have never heard him use the word attributed to him in Mr. Osborne's piece.” Which received a prompt letter from John Ehrlichman: ”The simple fact is that in the many hours I have spent with the President I have never heard him use the word attributed to him in Mr. Osborne's piece.”

Nixon was deferential enough to the ABA to change course: one of the eventual nominees was a former ABA president, the Virginian Lewis Powell. The other was the Justice Department's William Rehnquist. Both were received well by the experts. The White House heaved a sigh of relief: two conservatives had pa.s.sed the smell test. Powell was the author of a memo to the Chamber of Commerce arguing that ”the American economic system is under broad attack...from the college campus, the pulpit, the media, the intellectuals and literary journals, the arts and sciences, and from politicians.” He proposed a multipoint plan (”a long road and not one for the faint-hearted”) to ideologically monitor universities and the media, push for more aggressive pro-business intervention into the courts, and politically organize corporations. Rehnquist had reportedly called for law and order in times of domestic insurrection ”at whatever cost in individual liberties and rights.”

”Rehnquist is pretty far right, isn't he?” Kissinger asked Haldeman.

”Oh, Christ,” Haldeman replied. ”He's way to the right of Buchanan.”

Perhaps that was what restored Patrick Buchanan's faith in the president. In January 1971 he had written an angry seven-page memo about the White House's erratic ideological course. ”Conservatives,” he complained, ”are the n.i.g.g.e.rs of the Nixon administration.” (Nixon answered, ”You overlook RN's consistent hard line on foreign policy,” dissembling on the fact that he was about to sell out the ”n.i.g.g.e.rs” on China.) Buchanan had turned down a chance to lead the Plumbers, but was downright l.u.s.tful in strategizing for the 1972 election. He had been refining his ideas on the subject since March, when he wrote, proposing a ”Muskie Watch,” that the campaign goal should be to ”focus on those issues that divide the Democrats, not those that unite Republicans.” That, he said in July, must be their ”guiding political principle.”

He knew the Old Man's heart. Nixon had been working that angle since 1948.

Buchanan filed his masterpiece on the subject in October. ”Top level consideration should be given to ways and means to promote, a.s.sist, and fund a Fourth Party candidacy of the Left Democrats and/or the Black Democrats,” he wrote. ”There is nothing that can so advance the President's chances for reelection-not a trip to China, not four and a half percent unemployment.” Though they should also hedge their bets, and ”continue to champion the cause of the blacks within the Democratic Party”-promoting the message that ”the Power Elite within the Party is denying them effective partic.i.p.ation.” Keep a flow of letters full of damaging information on Democrats to journalists; fake a poll showing Humphrey ahead (he was third); keep the president out of everything-”the President and the Presidency” were ”quintessential political a.s.sets”-cut welfare, even though the president had already increased food stamps and food a.s.sistance by 500 percent-it would ”force a division within the Democratic Party.” Continue the ”positive polarization” formulation of Agnew in 1970-for if the presidential election ”cut the Democratic Party and country in half,” they would end up with ”far the bigger half.”

Sound political thinking, if a little bit coa.r.s.e, and also out-of-date. One of Buchanan's headings, ”Republican Praise for Any Democratic Support on Vietnam”-because it would go ”far toward making them 'Establishment' and driving a wedge between them and the ideological hard core of their party”-was mooted by the fact that there hardly was was any Democratic support on Vietnam anymore. Even the most conservative among the dozen or so politicians jockeying for the 1972 Democratic nomination, Henry ”Scoop” Jackson, was for setting a date for withdrawal from Vietnam. any Democratic support on Vietnam anymore. Even the most conservative among the dozen or so politicians jockeying for the 1972 Democratic nomination, Henry ”Scoop” Jackson, was for setting a date for withdrawal from Vietnam.

Fewer and fewer Republicans supported the president either. ”Vietnamization” was beginning to sound too refined. ”The sooner we get the h.e.l.l out of there, the better” was how Nixon's minority leader in the Senate, Hugh Scott, now stated it. ”Period.”

Nineteen seventy-two would tell.

CHAPTER THIRTY.

The Party of Jefferson, Jackson, and George Wallace THE CONVENTIONAL WISDOM HELD THAT THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION might be won with only 40 percent of the popular vote. There might be five serious parties on the ballot in November, Tom Wicker wrote on January 2: ”the two majors, Mr. Wallace's American Independents, another independent party deriving from the middle and the left headed by someone like Eugene McCarthy, and the even farther left group currently headed by Dr. Benjamin Spock.” Wicker's more sober colleague Scotty Reston estimated five days later that there would only be four, and that, given the political exhaustion sweeping the land, ”barely over one in four adult Americans will have voted for the winner in 1972.... The consequences of that kind of a minority Presidency are hard to foretell.” In 1960, 6 million voters claimed no allegiance to either of the two major political parties. Now the number was over four times that. Flux was the keynote of politics now. might be won with only 40 percent of the popular vote. There might be five serious parties on the ballot in November, Tom Wicker wrote on January 2: ”the two majors, Mr. Wallace's American Independents, another independent party deriving from the middle and the left headed by someone like Eugene McCarthy, and the even farther left group currently headed by Dr. Benjamin Spock.” Wicker's more sober colleague Scotty Reston estimated five days later that there would only be four, and that, given the political exhaustion sweeping the land, ”barely over one in four adult Americans will have voted for the winner in 1972.... The consequences of that kind of a minority Presidency are hard to foretell.” In 1960, 6 million voters claimed no allegiance to either of the two major political parties. Now the number was over four times that. Flux was the keynote of politics now.

The president's approval rating was 49 percent. The January 17 Harris poll showed him running only a point ahead of Edmund Muskie (Wallace pulled 11 percent). The day after the Harris poll, a Broadway musical version of The Selling of the President, The Selling of the President, Joe McGinniss's account of how smoke, mirrors, and Pan-Cake makeup swept Nixon to the White House in 1968, was announced. When the president sat down in the Oval Office for a live interview with Dan Rather the day after New Year's, the Joe McGinniss's account of how smoke, mirrors, and Pan-Cake makeup swept Nixon to the White House in 1968, was announced. When the president sat down in the Oval Office for a live interview with Dan Rather the day after New Year's, the Times Times did a humiliating behind-the-scenes report emphasizing his familiarity with ”7-N” (”a light pancake especially concocted for swarthy types like Mr. Nixon”) and the recommendation of a television consultant ”who still has Soupy Sales, the comic, among his clients” to refrigerate the set to thirty-five degrees; and the way Nixon angrily clenched his fist beneath his desk when asked if his diplomatic moves were timed for political effect. The ”Anderson papers” were lighting up the news: muckraker Jack Anderson had discovered evidence of the National Security Council's aid and comfort to General Agha Mohammad Yahya Khan in suppressing Banglades.h.i.+ independence. The did a humiliating behind-the-scenes report emphasizing his familiarity with ”7-N” (”a light pancake especially concocted for swarthy types like Mr. Nixon”) and the recommendation of a television consultant ”who still has Soupy Sales, the comic, among his clients” to refrigerate the set to thirty-five degrees; and the way Nixon angrily clenched his fist beneath his desk when asked if his diplomatic moves were timed for political effect. The ”Anderson papers” were lighting up the news: muckraker Jack Anderson had discovered evidence of the National Security Council's aid and comfort to General Agha Mohammad Yahya Khan in suppressing Banglades.h.i.+ independence. The New York Times New York Times editorialized, ”As the head of a minority party who has jettisoned much of the platform on which he once campaigned, he could solidly establish his leaders.h.i.+p only by winning public confidence on a broad scale.... Despite the initiatives and accomplishments of the last year, it cannot be said that President Nixon has gained that necessary public confidence.” editorialized, ”As the head of a minority party who has jettisoned much of the platform on which he once campaigned, he could solidly establish his leaders.h.i.+p only by winning public confidence on a broad scale.... Despite the initiatives and accomplishments of the last year, it cannot be said that President Nixon has gained that necessary public confidence.”

The public was not much confident in anything. The new movies told stories of crumbling inst.i.tutions: The Hospital, The Hospital, starring George C. Scott as an suicidal doctor in a big-city hospital where patients died from bureaucratic dysfunction; Pasolini's starring George C. Scott as an suicidal doctor in a big-city hospital where patients died from bureaucratic dysfunction; Pasolini's Decameron, Decameron, where the Catholic Church was swallowed up in l.u.s.ty amorality; where the Catholic Church was swallowed up in l.u.s.ty amorality; Slaughterhouse-Five, Slaughterhouse-Five, which revealed the Army Air Corps of the ”Good War” as slaughterers of innocents in Dresden. which revealed the Army Air Corps of the ”Good War” as slaughterers of innocents in Dresden. The Last Picture Show The Last Picture Show unmasked the teenagers of 1950s Middle America, and unmasked the teenagers of 1950s Middle America, and Harold and Maude Harold and Maude old ladies as no more s.e.xually continent than the Woodstock generation. In old ladies as no more s.e.xually continent than the Woodstock generation. In The French Connection The French Connection the forces of law and order proved powerless in keeping heroin from flooding New York. In the forces of law and order proved powerless in keeping heroin from flooding New York. In Dirty Harry, Dirty Harry, San Francisco police were no more effectual in stopping a maniacal hippie sniper (in real life, during its run, three family pets were found mutilated and hung from a tree on January 13 in the exclusive Forest Hills district of San Francisco, then a fourth with a note reading, ”I am not going to kill animals anymore. Just people”). San Francisco police were no more effectual in stopping a maniacal hippie sniper (in real life, during its run, three family pets were found mutilated and hung from a tree on January 13 in the exclusive Forest Hills district of San Francisco, then a fourth with a note reading, ”I am not going to kill animals anymore. Just people”).

In the entertainment pages of every big-city daily moviegoers searching out the playing times of Disney's Fantasia Fantasia were also apprised of the latest X-rated movies: were also apprised of the latest X-rated movies: The Stewardesses The Stewardesses (”Presented in the most realistic film process ever developed”), (”Presented in the most realistic film process ever developed”), Gla.s.s Houses Gla.s.s Houses (”The Story of the Sensuous Family!”), (”The Story of the Sensuous Family!”), Boys in the Sand Boys in the Sand (”All male cast”); (”All male cast”); Together, Together, the notorious European orgy movie (”See what your children can show you about love”), showing on twenty screens in all five boroughs of New York. Rex Reed called the new western the notorious European orgy movie (”See what your children can show you about love”), showing on twenty screens in all five boroughs of New York. Rex Reed called the new western Straw Dogs Straw Dogs a ”blood bath for s.a.d.i.s.ts.” Clayton Riley of the a ”blood bath for s.a.d.i.s.ts.” Clayton Riley of the New York Times New York Times called another unpredecentedly violent feature, called another unpredecentedly violent feature, Clockwork Orange, Clockwork Orange, a ”criminally irresponsible horror show.” But that was just one man's opinion; the a ”criminally irresponsible horror show.” But that was just one man's opinion; the Times Times also ran a review by Vincent Canby that called it ”a disorienting but humane comedy.” also ran a review by Vincent Canby that called it ”a disorienting but humane comedy.”

The presidential election unfolded as a referendum on the meaning of the 1960s and its toll on inst.i.tutions. No inst.i.tution was more up for grabs than the party of Jefferson and Jackson: Chisholm, McGovern, Lindsay, McCarthy, Hartke, Harris, Hughes, and Mink on the left to Humphrey, Muskie and Jackson in center field; and in right, Sam Yorty and the dreaded George Corley Wallace; so many Democrats intended to take on a weakened Richard Nixon that Topps came out with a set of collectible trading cards. At least Wallace said said he would run as a Democrat. Democrats hoped he would not: when the DNC held their lottery for hotel a.s.signments for the convention in July in Miami Beach, he was deliberately snubbed. he would run as a Democrat. Democrats hoped he would not: when the DNC held their lottery for hotel a.s.signments for the convention in July in Miami Beach, he was deliberately snubbed.

Back in 1968, Humphrey could win the nomination without entering a single primary. But thanks to the McGovern Commission guidelines 60 percent of the delegates in 1972 would be selected in open primaries. The rest would be chosen in party caucuses that outlawed all the old, unreformed stratagems: unannounced meetings, boss-appointed delegates, automatic berths for elected officials, ”unit rules” by which a candidate favored by a mere majority of a delegation was automatically ”delivered” all the delegation's votes.

No one was sure what it would take to win; nor, most of all, what kind of monkey wrench the 10 million newly eligible voters between the ages of eighteen and twenty-one would introduce. Only one thing was certain: the chances for a Democrat standing on the inauguration stand on January 20, 1973, were not just favorable, Senator Edward M. Kennedy said at a much antic.i.p.ated address before the Was.h.i.+ngton Press Club on January 17, but ”extremely favorable.”

Ted Kennedy wasn't running, or was; it would become a quadrennial tradition, this Kennedy tea-leaf reading. California Democrats announced on January 11 he would be headlining their rally at the L.A. Convention Center, and surely that meant something something-then the next day Kennedy filed an affidavit affirming that he wouldn't be running in the second primary of the season, in Florida, a contest being watched more closely than New Hamps.h.i.+re (a shoo-in for Muskie from neighboring Maine). On the seventeenth, a forest of TV cameras at the Was.h.i.+ngton Press Club recorded another Kennedy disavowal-but also set off another round of Kennedyology: if he really really wouldn't run, why did he invoke JFK, asking America to embrace a leader ”who asks not what our country can do for us, but what we can do for our country”? wouldn't run, why did he invoke JFK, asking America to embrace a leader ”who asks not what our country can do for us, but what we can do for our country”?

The speech was featured in a major spread on the front page of the next day's Was.h.i.+ngton Post. Was.h.i.+ngton Post. Next to the jump was an ad for the February issue of Next to the jump was an ad for the February issue of Esquire Esquire with Teddy's face on the cover: ”Is This Man the 38th President of the United States?” Five days later his friend Mike Mansfield announced he would advocate for Secret Service protection for Kennedy-even though he was ”personally convinced that Senator Kennedy means it when he says he is not a candidate.” with Teddy's face on the cover: ”Is This Man the 38th President of the United States?” Five days later his friend Mike Mansfield announced he would advocate for Secret Service protection for Kennedy-even though he was ”personally convinced that Senator Kennedy means it when he says he is not a candidate.”

But then, they were handing out Secret Service protection like candy. Patsy Mink of Hawaii got to welcome burly men with police radios into her life for filing in a couple of primaries, though not the thirty-two-year-old poverty worker Edward T. Coll, who filed in New Hamps.h.i.+re even though he was too young to be inaugurated. Coll did get a spot on the podium for a televised debate. He exploited his fifteen minutes of fame by dangling a rubber rodent before the cameras and crying, ”We can't do anything in this country until we do something about the rat!” Sam Yorty, the Los Angeles mayor, tooled around New Hamps.h.i.+re in a ”Yortymobile” with the sponsors.h.i.+p of the right-wing publisher of the Manchester Union Leader, Manchester Union Leader, William Loeb, who called the front-runner ”Moscow Muskie.” Wilbur Mills, the powerful chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, was running even though a poll gave the pear-shaped solon 1 percent support; the rumor was that he had been put up as stalking horse for Teddy. Senator Vance Hartke made a last-minute entrance, the other Indiana senator, Birch Bayh, having already dipped his toe in the water and withdrawn, as had Wisconsin's William Proxmire. William Loeb, who called the front-runner ”Moscow Muskie.” Wilbur Mills, the powerful chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, was running even though a poll gave the pear-shaped solon 1 percent support; the rumor was that he had been put up as stalking horse for Teddy. Senator Vance Hartke made a last-minute entrance, the other Indiana senator, Birch Bayh, having already dipped his toe in the water and withdrawn, as had Wisconsin's William Proxmire.

There were even two Republicans. The former marine Pete McCloskey (”leaders.h.i.+p as tough as the problems”) said he'd gladly withdraw when Nixon withdrew from Vietnam. The other Republican, Ohio congressman John Ashbrook, spoke for conservatives disillusioned by the China opening, Nixon's supposed soft approach to Vietnam, and the heretical economic program Milton Friedman said in his Newsweek Newsweek column would ”end as all previous attempts to freeze prices and wages have ended, from the time of the Roman emperors to the present, in utter failure and the emergence into the open of the suppressed inflation.” Ashbrook's slogan was ”No Left Turns.” Nixon moved to buy off Ashbrook's supporters by making right turns-scuttling amendments to the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964 to extend aid for child care and create a national legal services corporation as ”truly a long leap into the dark for the United States government and the American people”; and appointing a forgotten right-wing martyr, Otto Otepka, a former State Department officer cas.h.i.+ered by President Kennedy as a McCarthyite, to the Subversive Activities Control Board. It worked: column would ”end as all previous attempts to freeze prices and wages have ended, from the time of the Roman emperors to the present, in utter failure and the emergence into the open of the suppressed inflation.” Ashbrook's slogan was ”No Left Turns.” Nixon moved to buy off Ashbrook's supporters by making right turns-scuttling amendments to the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964 to extend aid for child care and create a national legal services corporation as ”truly a long leap into the dark for the United States government and the American people”; and appointing a forgotten right-wing martyr, Otto Otepka, a former State Department officer cas.h.i.+ered by President Kennedy as a McCarthyite, to the Subversive Activities Control Board. It worked: National Review National Review endorsed Nixon. However, Herb Klein wasn't exactly raising expectations: he predicted a 70 percent showing in New Hamps.h.i.+re on March 7-eight points fewer than the president had received in 1968. endorsed Nixon. However, Herb Klein wasn't exactly raising expectations: he predicted a 70 percent showing in New Hamps.h.i.+re on March 7-eight points fewer than the president had received in 1968.

Some thought one of the Democratic aspirants resembled a Republican. Senator Henry ”Scoop” Jackson of Was.h.i.+ngton called himself a ”bread-and-b.u.t.ter shoe-leather” Democrat and proposed adding half a million new jobs to the public-sector payroll, but his standard stump speech emphasized the peril of the USSR's missile buildup, and President Nixon had twice invited Jackson to join his cabinet. The New York Times New York Times reported, ”He hopes for major financial support from defense contractors and other businessmen.” Jackson enjoyed a vogue among the chattering cla.s.ses: ”He stands where the majority of the voters presumably stand,” Richard Whalen, a onetime Nixon staffer, wrote in a profile of Jackson in the reported, ”He hopes for major financial support from defense contractors and other businessmen.” Jackson enjoyed a vogue among the chattering cla.s.ses: ”He stands where the majority of the voters presumably stand,” Richard Whalen, a onetime Nixon staffer, wrote in a profile of Jackson in the New York Times Magazine, New York Times Magazine, ”somewhat to the right on social issues, to the left on economic issues and, withal, astride the commanding center of American politics.” His campaign manager said his future would be determined by his showing in Florida. His itinerary there was in Dixiefied north Florida; his refrain, ”People on welfare should be put to work,” and, ”I'm opposed to this business of busing people all over the place.” ”somewhat to the right on social issues, to the left on economic issues and, withal, astride the commanding center of American politics.” His campaign manager said his future would be determined by his showing in Florida. His itinerary there was in Dixiefied north Florida; his refrain, ”People on welfare should be put to work,” and, ”I'm opposed to this business of busing people all over the place.”

Another Democratic aspirant had recently been been a Republican: John Lindsay. He was still a media darling, a regular on Johnny Carson's a Republican: John Lindsay. He was still a media darling, a regular on Johnny Carson's Tonight Show Tonight Show; dazzled by his charisma (and his opening campaign event at the Radio City Music Hall premiere of the Robert Redford movie The Hot Rock The Hot Rock), the media seemed not to be noticing that his New York was becoming the symbol for everything wearying and gross about the United States. He switched parties for a presidential run late in 1971-even as a New York Times New York Times op-ed described Central Park under his tenure as ”a combination of decadence and barbarism; a cut-rate op-ed described Central Park under his tenure as ”a combination of decadence and barbarism; a cut-rate Fellini Satyricon Fellini Satyricon”; even though the welfare population had doubled since his first election; even though the Knapp Commission, and its star witness, Frank Serpico, revealed that much of the New York City police force operated something like the mob. The month of Lindsay's presidential announcement was a typical one in Gotham. A survey by the Addicts Rehabilitation Center found that one out of six Harlem residents was hooked on heroin. (”One of the most demoralizing experiences I have ever had in Harlem was being panhandled by a 12-year-old junkie,” Congressman Charlie Rangel wrote in an op-ed.) ”City Restrooms May Be Razed,” one headline announced (too convenient for those junkies); ”1,625 Slayings Here in '71 as Rate Continues to Rise”; and-the story would later inspire a movie called Dog Day Afternoon Dog Day Afternoon-”42d Street Crowd Helps Robber Flee.” The headline below that was ”Widow, 69, Is Slain in Queens Project.” As if to keep the city sane, the Daily News Daily News ran a regular feature called ”What's Good About New York.” ran a regular feature called ”What's Good About New York.”

Meanwhile the city had realized it needed more low-income ”scatter site” public housing to conform to HUD guidelines. Lindsay chose to put some of it in Forest Hills, in Queens, where Brooklyn and Lower East Side Jews had moved from crowded tenements after World War II in their first step on the upward-mobility ladder. Jews, Lindsay thought, wouldn't protest the arrival of poor blacks; they were liberal. But Jews who had mortgaged everything they had to leave leave crime-ridden poor neighborhoods, it arrived, did not prove so obliging. crime-ridden poor neighborhoods, it arrived, did not prove so obliging.

Lindsay had ignored the existing racial tensions in Forest Hills schools. The meetings to explain how most of the new public housing residents would be senior citizens, how families would be carefully screened, that the development would bring a slew of new social service amenities, were scheduled on Friday nights, when elderly refugees from Hitler's Germany-the most scared and vulnerable members of the community-attended synagogue. Jack Newfield tagged along at a damage-control session at the Forest Hills Jewish Community Center and heard them ”call Lindsay redneck names under the shadow of the Torah.” His Village Voice Village Voice colleague Paul Cowan heard one anti-Lindsay picketer boast, ”If Lindsay ever gets to be president, I'll kill him. I'll do just what Oswald did to John Kennedy.” His companion replied, ”You won't get the chance. Lindsay is going to get shot right here in New York.” colleague Paul Cowan heard one anti-Lindsay picketer boast, ”If Lindsay ever gets to be president, I'll kill him. I'll do just what Oswald did to John Kennedy.” His companion replied, ”You won't get the chance. Lindsay is going to get shot right here in New York.”

Lindsay's presidential strategy was to pour all his energy into a ma.s.sive canva.s.sing effort among Miami's huge population of liberal erstwhile New York Jews, pledging them ”an undying fight against the kind of right-wing extremism that always eventually settled on Jews as its object.” He pledged a ”new national effort to rescue our cities.” But South Florida Jews had fled those cities for the same reason their less well-off landsmen had left the Lower East Side for Forest Hills. ”That b.u.m,” one bubbe bubbe huffed at a shopping center. ”He can't run New York and now he wants to run the country.” huffed at a shopping center. ”He can't run New York and now he wants to run the country.”

Old warhorse Humphrey was also pus.h.i.+ng hard in the Suns.h.i.+ne State. He hoped to carry the black vote. But he was also courting backlash hero Frank Rizzo, who had been sworn in as the 120th mayor of the City of Brotherly Love on January 3 before an audience of three thousand pledging, ”I will not tolerate gang rule or anarchy in the street.” Humphrey promised to kick off his general election campaign in Philadelphia if Rizzo would endorse him-ignoring that the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights was begging the city to stop stonewalling an investigation into abuses in his police department. But Rizzo was already committed to another candidate. The mayor was one of only three politicians-the others were Ronald Reagan and Nelson Rockefeller-on a regular calling schedule with top White House aides. Nixon received Rizzo in the Oval Office on January 24, the day before a big Vietnam speech-despite, or possibly because of, an aide's advice that ”in dealing with Mayor Rizzo of Philadelphia, representatives of the Administration should be particularly conscious of the strong anti-black overtones which characterized his campaign.” The leader of the ”Rizzocrats” promised the president to do anything in his power to help a.s.sure his reelection.

Nixon and Humphrey's simultaneous courting of Rizzo, Lindsay's stand against imminent anti-Jewish pogroms, Scoop Jackson's traipsing across the rural precincts where George Smathers once beat Claude Pepper for a Senate seat by calling him a ”s.e.xagenarian”: it all paid silent tribute to the strangest Democratic aspirant of all.

Tom Turnipseed had been busy organizing to get George Wallace on the ballot of all fifty states as a third-party candidate when his boss casually drawled, ”I'm tired of those kooks in the third-party business. It's crazy. I'm thinking about going back into the Democratic Party.” Wallace traveled to Tallaha.s.see in January to announce he was entering primaries. Soon, he was ahead in the Florida polls, where he had adjusted his rhetoric for upwardly mobile professionals who'd moved from city to suburb for a better and safer life for their children; he wasn't just for rednecks anymore. A beautiful new, young wife by his side, he explained that blacks had the same right to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps as anyone else, buy a nice home, a car or two in the garage, send their kids to nice suburban schools. The problem was forced forced desegregation, which let folks jump the queue: ”Now, on this busing, I said many years ago, if we don't stop the federal takeover of the schools, there'd be chaos. Well, what've we got? Chaos.” Apparently, upward of 40 percent of Florida Democratic voters agreed. The ”serious” contenders stopped scheduling big outdoor rallies. It only embarra.s.sed them when they could only pull in a quarter of Wallace's crowds. desegregation, which let folks jump the queue: ”Now, on this busing, I said many years ago, if we don't stop the federal takeover of the schools, there'd be chaos. Well, what've we got? Chaos.” Apparently, upward of 40 percent of Florida Democratic voters agreed. The ”serious” contenders stopped scheduling big outdoor rallies. It only embarra.s.sed them when they could only pull in a quarter of Wallace's crowds.

The final group of contenders, meanwhile, believed Americans had never been more ready for an appeal to their better angels.

s.h.i.+rley Chisholm, the first black woman to win a seat in Congress, gave her candidacy announcement at Concord Baptist Church in Brooklyn: ”I am not the candidate of black America, although I am black black and and proud. proud.

”I am not a candidate of the women's movement of this country, although I am a woman, woman, and equally proud of that. and equally proud of that.

”I am the candidate of the people people of America.... Americans all over are demanding a new sensibility, a new philosophy of government in Was.h.i.+ngton. Our will can create a of America.... Americans all over are demanding a new sensibility, a new philosophy of government in Was.h.i.+ngton. Our will can create a new new America in 1972, one where there's freedom from violence and war at home and abroad, where there's freedom from poverty and discrimination...ensuring for everyone medical care, employment, and decent housing. Those of you who can vote for the first time, those of you who believe that the inst.i.tutions of government belong to all the people who inhabit it, those of you who have been neglected, left out, ignored, forgotten, or shunted aside for any reason, America in 1972, one where there's freedom from violence and war at home and abroad, where there's freedom from poverty and discrimination...ensuring for everyone medical care, employment, and decent housing. Those of you who can vote for the first time, those of you who believe that the inst.i.tutions of government belong to all the people who inhabit it, those of you who have been neglected, left out, ignored, forgotten, or shunted aside for any reason, give me your help give me your help at this hour.” at this hour.”

And even if s.h.i.+rley Chisholm was the longest of the long shots, a slew of New Politics candidates were telling the exact same story-that, as no less than Teddy Kennedy said at the Was.h.i.+ngton Press Club, America's problems stem ”not so much from the fact that people mistrust their government as from the fact that the government so obviously mistrusts the people.”

The New Politics Democrats' logic came down to a chain of antinomies. Americans were turning against Nixon in the polls, angry at his embrace of secrecy; so the candidate who could beat Nixon in November would be the one to most credibly embrace openness. Nixon dripped cynicism from every pore; so the candidate to beat Nixon would have to exude idealism. Nixon was all insincerity; the anti-Nixon had to be genuine, an antipolitician. Nixon attracted the alienated old. The anti-Nixon would have to be a magnet for the authenticity-seeking young. Nixon was a creature of the system. His vanquisher would have to come from the gra.s.s roots. Nixon was unprincipled and unpopular; the Democratic nominee would have to be principled to be popular. Nixon asked citizens to be spectators; a politics to oppose him would have to be based on partic.i.p.atory democracy. partic.i.p.atory democracy.

Most of all, Richard Nixon was dragging out an evil, awful, unpopular war. The candidate to beat him would be the one who pledged to end it the fastest. Such as George McGovern, who said in an August 1971 interview, ”I would announce on Inauguration Day that we were simply leaving on such and such a date-lock, stock, and barrel. Perhaps I'd take a couple of days to notify the interested governments, but no longer.” He called My Lai ”just a tiny pimple on the surface of a raging boil. The whole war is a ma.s.sacre of innocent people and we all share in the guilt for it. Probably one million innocent people have been slaughtered or maimed by American bombs and artillery. Another four or five million have been systematically driven out of their homes and herded into miserable refugee centers.”

Theorists such as Fred Dutton, in Changing Sources of Power, Changing Sources of Power, argued that the people who resonated to this message were America's ascendant political coalition: newly enfranchised students, highly educated professionals, dispossessed minorities, women coming into feminist consciousness. Even the Wallace surge fit into the theory: his followers were a subspecies of the argued that the people who resonated to this message were America's ascendant political coalition: newly enfranchised students, highly educated professionals, dispossessed minorities, women coming into feminist consciousness. Even the Wallace surge fit into the theory: his followers were a subspecies of the alienated American, alienated American, angry because they were shut out from the Establishment. Dutton insisted that ”some of the younger voters who were for Wallace in '68 were concerned less with his racial connotations than his stance as a fighter and his role as the most anti-establishment candidate available that year.” Speaking to those yearning for reform was not just a matter of right. The new path to power for the ambitious politician, Dutton argued, ”the growing edge of the present,” was the rising ”coalition of conscience and decency.” angry because they were shut out from the Establishment. Dutton insisted that ”some of the younger voters who were for Wallace in '68 were concerned less with his racial connotations than his stance as a fighter and his role as the most anti-establishment candidate available that year.” Speaking to those yearning for reform was not just a matter of right. The new path to power for the ambitious politician, Dutton argued, ”the growing edge of the present,” was the rising ”coalition of conscience and decency.”