DEMOCRATS: Kansas City: Staging Platform for 1976

So recently the worst of times, it now seemed almost the best of times to be a Democrat for the 2,000 delegates who gathered last week in Kansas City for the first mid-term convention of its kind ever held by a U.S. political party. The swing had been manic: from corrosive division and humiliating defeat in 1972 to last month’s sweeping triumph in the off-year elections and the reasonable prospect of wresting the White House from Gerald Ford in 1976. And though some of the old intramural conflicts still struck sparks, the downs and ups seemed to have modulated the party: compromise, conciliation, even—for Democrats in conclave—an unwonted decorum dominated what in the end turned into a virtual love feast in Kansas City’s red, white-and blue-festooned Municipal Auditorium.

A Pride of Hopefuls. In three days of seminars and debate, of caucusing and roll calls, the delegates 1) approved a tough economic program shaped by the party’s leaders in Congress to counter that offered by President Ford, 2) endorsed, not without challenge, the first formal constitution to govern their affairs and the first ever to be adopted by either major party and 3) did a powerful and pleasant lot of offstage politicking looking to 1976, as a pride of Democratic hopefuls moved around constantly, trying to win friends and influence delegates. The tone was set by the party captains, led by Chairman Robert Strauss, the chief architect of the convention and engineer of compromise (see box next page). They agreed with Baltimore’s Barbara Mikulski, who declared: “We must return to the policy of coalition; the new coalition of the 1960s must combine with the old coalition of the 1930s.”

The economic program adopted by the delegates was less reminiscent of the social-action plans of the ’60s than it was of the bread-and-butter reforms of the ’30s, when Franklin D. Roosevelt pulled together North and South, laborers, farmers and white collar workers.

Declaring that the Republicans had caused “the worst recession since the Great Depression and the most serious inflation ever experienced in peacetime,” the policy statement chided the Administration for inaction and proposed the following points:

> Establishing across the board economic controls to govern prices, wages, profits and rents.

> Passing a national health-insurance plan.

> Reducing taxes for middle-and lower-income families.

> Creating a mandatory system of energy conservation that would include as a last resort the rationing of gasoline and fuel oil.

> Making credit easier and re-establishing the Depression-era Reconstruction Finance Corporation to help faltering businesses.

Approval of this program as the party’s policy was by simple and enthusiastic voice vote. Harmony was not so easily attained in the matter of adopting the party charter for 1980 and be yond. As the convention gathered mo mentum and delegates of like mind began to caucus, Strauss started worrying that the compromises that he had so laboriously and skillfully put together for the party charter would come apart at the last moment. The most ex plosive issue in what Strauss called “a political minefield” was how explicitly the party charter should guarantee the representation and vote of individual groups, mainly women and blacks, in the party’s decisionmaking.

Affirmative Action. The party left wanted a system of specific quotas, as in 1972; the party right — notably the AFL-CIO — desired no hint of quotas that might dilute its traditional power in par ty affairs. Going into Kansas City, Strauss had managed to get both sides to agree to a compromise that had been worked out by a commission headed by Mikulski in drawing up the 1976 rules.

While forbidding mandatory quotas, the provision required the party to take “affirmative action to encourage full participation by all Democrats, with particular concern for minority groups, native Americans [i.e., Indians], women and youth in the delegate selection process and in all party affairs.”

The proposed rule would have made challenges difficult for any group that felt cheated in a state-delegation selection process: the burden of proof would have been on the accuser who charged that the state party had not honestly tak en affirmative action. Some blacks, whose position was supported by the women’s caucus, threatened to walk out of the convention if the rule was not changed to make challenge easier. After some tense bargaining and caucusing, it was changed to tighten the monitoring of affirmative action and remove the burden of proof.

The compromise was overwhelmingly approved by the delegates, who clearly delighted in their new peacemaking image. Even Mayor Richard Daley, who had been excluded by McGovernites from the 1972 convention, and the Illinois delegation voted aye, producing a standing ovation from the delegates, including a group of blacks only a few feet from the beaming Daley. But approval was not unanimous, particularly in the labor ranks.

For a handful of participants in the conference, the most important part was the unparalleled opportunity to campaign for the party’s wide-open 1976 presidential nomination. The styles were different, but the arm was the same.

Thus, talking of party unity, Alabama Governor George Wallace held court in his suite at the Holiday Inn, receiving visits from a dozen state delegations and some 20 Congressmen. Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter, who is due to announce his candidacy this week, expertly worked the lobbies, smiling his down-home peanut-farmer grin, and Texas Senator Lloyd Bentsen, a millionaire, threw the biggest blast: a cocktail party attended by 4,000 people.

Doughnuts. In contrast, Arizona’s Congressman Morris (“Mo”) Udall, the only declared candidate in the herd, served coffee and doughnuts while they lasted but had 85 volunteers—the largest contingent at the convention—hand ing out his low-budget literature. Senator Henry Jackson, the present front runner by the measure of zeal if not appeal, mounted the best-organized campaign. Sitting in a trailer on the floor beneath the auditorium, Jackson played host to a stream of delegates selected by his 35 coordinators. Jackson, who already has $500,000 in his war chest, was the guest of honor at a fund-raising dinner that collected $40,000.

The Democrats left Kansas City with their party strengthened and unified. Contrary to earlier fears, the mini-convention proved to be not an arena for further fratricidal combat but a solid staging platform for preparing to take on Ford in 1976. Whether that newfound unity can hold up when it comes down to choosing one candidate to represent the party’s diverse factions two years from now remains to be seen.