Conventions ’72: The New Democratic Delegates

A TENSE, weary Edmund Muskie was making calls to his Iowa delegates. Though his presidential campaign was a shambles, Muskie was beseeching the delegates to stand fast at the state convention. One of them, David Zimansky, agreed, but he warned the Senator: “Of course, I’m going to be pretty tired at the convention. My high school senior prom is the night before.”

Something like a revolution is going on within the Democratic Party. Four years ago, the dispirited armies of Eugene McCarthy were lapsing into more private pursuits, persuaded that there could be no place for them in “the System” dominated by an older, entrenched political generation. Since then, the rules of the game have changed beyond easy recognition. The 26th Amendment gave the vote to 18-, 19-and 20-year-olds. At the same time, the Democratic Party’s reform commission, chipping away at the encrustations of decades, opened up the party to women, the young and racial minorities as never before.

Bruised. In 1968, 5.5% of the Democratic delegates were black. This year, blacks are expected to constitute 15% of the delegates. Four years ago, women constituted only 13% of the delegates; now they will probably be 36%—still below their percentage in the nation’s population (51%), but a 200% improvement nonetheless. Delegates under 30 were only 4% of the total in 1968; this year they will probably be 22%, even though only 20% of the population is 18 to 30 years old. Equally telling is the fact that 45% of the delegates in 1968 had had previous experience in that role. Next week in Miami Beach, 85% of the delegates will be attending their first convention.

Such radical change has been traumatic for many Democrats. The list of old party powers who will not be in Miami Beach as delegates reads like a page from the Democratic Who’s Who—men of the rank of longtime California Assembly Leader Jess Unruh, Ohio Governor John Gilligan and Boston Mayor Kevin White. Many leaders of organized labor, a key element of the Democrats’ national coalition, are bruised and a bit stunned. The AFL-CIO’s Committee on Political Education had hoped to have 25% of the total delegates at the convention, but seems likely to fall well short of the goal.

One irony of the reforms is that they opened the way for more effective use of the most ancient political techniques. George McGovern’s forces simply outorganized the party regulars in many states, leading to charges that county and state caucuses had been “packed.” The McGovern zealots were giving a demonstration of canny politics—getting out more of one’s own supporters than the other man. Of course it remains an unanswered question whether a convention with high percentages of activists—whether women, blacks or the young—is more truly democratic than a traditional gathering of Mayor Daley-style party men and labor representatives.

There have been some ironic problems. Days before the Illinois primary, for example, McGovern discovered that 14 of his 17 congressional district delegations were violating the rules: many simply had an overabundance of blacks, or of women. In addition, the new guidelines set off an avalanche of credentials challenges; at one point recently, 50% of the delegates selected had been questioned. The guidelines, for example, call for women and minorities to be in “reasonable relationship to the group’s presence in the population”; some women’s groups have taken the rule literally, down to the percentage point. There may be some bitter fights at the convention if potential delegates choose to contest the Credentials Committee’s recommendations.

The Humphrey and Muskie delegates are frequently more traditional Democrats, often with past party experience. Some of the other delegates are a fascinatingly assorted breed who display varying degrees of political sophistication and naivete. A sampling:

> Betty Ann Fender Cook, 22, barely out of Washington’s Howard University and now pursuing a master’s degree in sociology at Atlanta University, decided last fall to run for delegate in Georgia’s Fifth Congressional District.

Pledged to Shirley Chisholm, Betty Ann Cook won in a runoff because her supporters stayed around for the third ballot while more conservative white voters drifted home after the second ballot. The entire campaign cost her $40—including the price of a couple of pizzas for her husband and a college friend who served as her campaign manager.

> George Kane, 40, is a Perkins County, S. Dak., farmer-rancher who in 1952 became the first in his family to register as a Democrat. As Perkins County Democratic chairman for the past three years, Kane was more knowledgeable than most of the newcomers about how to get elected. Says Kane, “We may be a little green, but we know what we want and who we want, and it’s George McGovern.”

> For Betty Patrick, 41, it was all a happy accident. A divorced Phoenix, Ariz., housewife with four children, Mrs. Patrick—or Ms. Patrick, as she prefers—was looking around last winter for a project for an unhappy friend to get involved in, then decided to run for delegate herself.

At first, she says, “I was timid and scared to death.” But since her election as a delegate at the state convention, she has become more relaxed and gregarious. “You find out that they’re just people,” she says. “It’s amazing as you study politicians. They get so wrapped up in staying in office that they lose contact with the people.” A Shirley Chisholm supporter, Betty Patrick is now taking lessons in parliamentary procedure and throwing potluck dinners to raise the $500 she needs to go to Miami Beach.

> Dan Horgan, 41, is an ex-Marine and former mayor of the New Jersey town of South Brunswick. A bluff natural leader and organizer, Horgan took over as McGovern’s state campaign director in January. He knows his way around the rougher corners of New Jersey politics but established an easy working relationship with McGovern’s younger followers. Before the Wisconsin primary, he told his youthful co-workers that if McGovern won there, he would let his hair grow. McGovern won, and Horgan let his crew cut fill out by three-quarters of an inch.

> M.I.T. Graduate Student Christopher Arterton, 29, went to work for the National Youth Caucus and embraced the McGovern cause. Originally, he was recruiting other young people to run for delegate, but then decided to run himself. “This is a very pivotal year in American politics,” says Arterton. “It’s very important that we do have a pronounced choice put forward to the electorate in November.”