Goldsmith, stressed that nomination of a woman from the floor
would be "a last resort." Mondale soothingly commented: "I
understand...that's politics."
</p>
<p> Jackson met with Mondale in Kansas City, where both had gone
to address the National Association for the Advancement of
Colored People, and at a press conference afterward the two
leaders were no more than stiffly correct. Jackson sounded
ambiguously conciliatory. He spoke both of "matters yet
unresolved" and of "a time to cooperate." He pledged "a lively
convention" but added, "Every debate does not mean division." The
Mondale camp's hopeful interpretation: While Jackson's forces
will wage floor fights in support of four amendments to the party
platform, there is a strong chance that the battles will be
conducted without great heat and that Jackson will urge his
legions of black followers to vote for the ticket in November.
</p>
<p> None of this means that Mondale's problems in organizing the
convention are necessarily over. He still risks giving the
appearance of having caved in to feminist pressure if he chooses
a woman vice-presidential candidate, or of grievously
disappointing many of his female followers if he does not. Until
the convention is over, Mondale's backers will be nervous about
what the mercurial Jackson might do; even if Jackson does climb
aboard the Mondale bandwagon, he might turn out to be more of a
liability than an asset on the campaign trail.
</p>
<p> The Democrats were working feverishly to make sure they put
on a ringing rather than a raucous show once the convention opens
in San Francisco next Monday night. For the first time in three
decades they will not be assured gavel-to-gavel coverage on
network TV. All three networks are abandoning their traditional
formats for a mixture of live action and taped highlights in
segments of varying length. On some nights, portions of the
proceedings on one network may be competing against entertainment
programming on another. Similar arrangements will be in effect
for the Republican Convention in Dallas in August. The networks'
reasoning is simple: gavel-to-gavel coverage is very expensive,
and the number of viewers it attracts, in the words of NBC Anchor
Tom Brokaw, "has been diminishing and diminishing."
</p>
<p> Mondale's forces have tentatively lined up a parade of some
of the party's best speakers to stir up interest. Monday night,
after the opening ceremonies, New York Governor Mario Cuomo will
deliver they keynote address. Cuomo has a reputation for
thoughtful as well as polished oratory; he is a New Deal liberal
who appeals to old-fashioned family values.
</p>
<p> Tuesday come the platform debates, five in all. Jackson's
forces will offer minority planks calling for the U.S. to adopt a
"no first use" policy on nuclear weapons, cut defense spending
sharply, commit itself to enforce affirmative-action goals in the
hiring of minorities, and end the second, or runoff, primaries
used in ten states when no candidate wins a majority of the vote.
(Jackson argues that runoffs are discriminatory because blacks
have a better chance of winning a plurality in a multicandidate
field than outpolling a white in a head-to-head race.) Gary Hart,
who commands roughly 1,250 of the 3,933 delegates and is still
under consideration for the second spot on the ticket, will push
a plan advocating that the nation seek remedies other than the
use of military force to resolve international conflicts; he will
specifically mention the Persian Gulf. That will renew a primary
debate in which Mondale successfully argued that the use of
force, while never desirable, is sometimes unavoidable.
</p>
<p> Convention planners are allowing roughly an hour for the
debate and vote on each of the five minority planks, which are
all virtually certain to be defeated. The planners' hope is to
get all the controversy settled in an atmosphere of reasonable
civility before Jackson mounts the podium on Tuesday night to
deliver what is certain to be a rousing and rhythmic speech. The
occasion will serve s a rare prime-time showcase for the free-
verse Jacksonian oratory that stirred predominantly black
audiences to near frenzy during the primary campaign.
</p>
<p> On Wednesday night, the featured speaker is Edward Kennedy,
who may place Mondale's name in nomination. The Massachusetts
Senator is an inconsistent orator, but he can soar when the
spirit moves him. Indeed, one of Mondale's minor problems is that
his own acceptance speech Thursday night might sound a bit tame
after the performances of Cuomo, Jackson and Kennedy. Mondale may
ask a woman to introduce him, especially if he has chosen a male
running mate and needs a show of solidarity from the women who
will constitute slightly fewer than half of all the convention
delegates.
</p>
<p> Some of the most intriguing TV pictures, however, are likely
to be flashed from outside the fortress-like George R. Moscone
Convention Center. (Named for the mayor who was shot and killed
by former Supervisor Dan White in 1978.) Street demonstrations
are an unofficial part of any national convention, and in San
Francisco every kind of group form Jerry Falwell's Moral Majority
to advocates of legalized marijuana seems to be planning a rally
of some sort.
</p>
<p> The big parades are scheduled for Sunday, when most
delegates and reporters are arriving. Police expect 100,000
homosexuals to join a march from the Castro Street gay
neighborhood to the Moscone Center, and an equal number of labor
demonstrators to parade along Market Street to an AFL-CIO rally.
Fortunately, the routes of the two groups will not cross. Police
have set aside four acres of a parking lot across the street from
the main entrance to the center, and 25 groups, ranging from the
Marijuana Initiative to anti-Reagan rock musicians, have filed to
use it more or less continuously. Even the Ku Klux Klan is said
to be planning a demonstration.
</p>
<p> Security will be tight for the roughly 5,300 delegates and
alternates (who will be heavily outnumbered by the 12,000 print
and TV journalists expected to attend). Delegates will be
escorted by the California Highway Patrol from San Francisco
International Airport to their hotels, and they will be hauled to
the Moscone Center aboard buses. Inside the mostly underground
and mostly windowless center, the delegates will be under
watchful eyes too. Taking no chances on a surprise insurrection,
the Mondale forces plan to put a staggering total of 600 to 700
whips on the floor, each relaying the word from Mondale
headquarters to a handful of delegates.
</p>
<p> Mondale's backers are counting on the convention hoopla,
which will be led by hundreds of delegates from organized labor,
to give their boss a badly needed boost in the opinion polls.
Says one Democratic national Committee official: "We have a real
opportunity to bring Mondale within five points of Reagan after
the convention." That may be wishful thinking, but a well-managed
convention could convey the take-charge image that Mondale has
failed to project so far.
</p>
<p> Since late June, Mondale's principal activity has been
interviewing a parade of possible running mates invited to his
$200,000, Frank Lloyd Wright-style home at the end of a winding
private drive off Thrush Lane in suburban North Oaks, Minn. The
meetings, now totaling seven, have settled into a routine. The
smiling candidate arrives, with spouse, by motorcade; Mondale
crosses the brick bridge, spanning a small hollow that separates
the house from its surroundings, to greet them and escort them
inside; after about two hours, the participants re-emerge for a
meeting with the press at which Mondale says very nearly the same
thing about each interviewee. Samples from last week: New York
Congresswoman Geraldine Ferraro has done a "superb job" as head
of the convention's platform committee; San Antonio Mayor Henry
Cisneros would make "a superb Vice President." Friday's talk with
Kentucky Governor Martha Layne Collins was "useful and wide-
ranging"--just like all six previous interviews.
</p>
<p> To many voters and some party leaders, the succession of
interviews seems less a display of thoughtful leadership than, to
use Jackson's words, "a p.r. parade." The charge is that Mondale
has been too obviously wooing party blocs: women (Ferraro,
Collins and San Francisco Mayor Dianne Feinstein); blacks (Mayors
Thomas Bradley of Los Angeles and Wilson Goode of Philadelphia);
Hispanics (Cisneros). Senator Lloyd Bentsen of Texas was the lone
white male. While some of those visiting North Oaks are
legitimate contenders, political pros cannot believe that others,
such as Cisneros and Collins, have enough experience or clout
outside their own constituencies to be under serious
consideration. Mondale heightened these misgivings by saying that
he might pick someone who had not come to North Oaks. Keynoter
Cuomo, meeting Mondale last week in Brookline, Mass., for a fund-
raising affair, pleaded with the about-to-be nominee to end the
parade and "make an early commitment." This might make Mondale
seem decisive, but it also could dissipate the convention's
remaining drama. Mondale is trying to arrange more interviews for
this week, though a leading prospective invitee to North Oaks,
Arkansas Senator Dale Bumpers, is putting on what Mondale aides
view as a Hamlet-like show of indecision about whether or not to
come.
</p>
<p> The V.P. procession has had one highly uncomfortable result
for Mondale: he and his advisers badly miscalculated how much
feminist pressure he would inspire with his overtures to
prospective women candidates. Not only did NOW threaten a floor
fight, Goldsmith went so far as to talk of winning one. The
realization spread that a pitched battle over Mondale's running
mate would create a disastrous impression of a presidential
candidate incapable of controlling his own party. The 23 women
who journeyed to Minnesota to meet Mondale last Wednesday assured
him they intended no such thing. They said their demand was that
Mondale choose someone dedicated to feminist principles, not
necessarily a woman. Mondale's aides nonetheless do not rule out
the possibility that a woman may be nominated from the floor if
the candidate does not choose one himself. Says one: "If it
happens, it's a diversion, and we don't need any more
diversions."
</p>
<p> Mondale's advisers are not yet totally convinced that a
woman on the ticket would be a plus. Georgia Democratic Chairman
Bert Lance, for one, thinks a woman might hurt Mondale in the
South and in blue-collar areas of the Midwest. But if Mondale
chooses a man, he risks dimming the enthusiasm of some of his
strongest followers, whose hopes have been raised very high. No
one expects feminist leaders to sit out a campaign against
Reagan, who is anathema to them. But one Mondale strategist
concedes there is a question about "the number of phone calls
that will be made, how many hours will be put in at the lower
levels." Mondale could also lose the chance of winning a new
constituency of women who are not political activists but might
vote for him if he were willing to take the unprecedented step of
putting a woman a heartbeat away from the White House.
</p>
<p> One ironic effect of the feminist enthusiasm may have been
to diminish the vice-presidential chances of Congresswoman
Ferraro, once thought to be leading the female half of the
procession. Before meeting with Mondale, she had said she might
allow her name to be offered from the floor as a symbolic
gesture. After that session, she asserted that she would not be
part of any challenge to his vice-presidential choice, but her
edgy, tightlipped demeanor indicated her earlier statement had
done her cause no good. The consensus among Mondale watchers was
that Feinstein had impressed him much more, though she has the
political liabilities of being Jewish and married three times
(she was divorced from her first husband; her second died). Among
the men invited to North Oaks, Mayor Bradley of Los Angeles
seemed to score best. Of those who did not go to North Oaks,
Cuomo might be at the top of Mondale's list if he could be talked
out of his 1982 pledge to serve a full term in the New York
Governor's mansion. Cuomo shows no signs of wavering.
</p>
<p> Then, of course, there is Gary Hart, who matched Mondale
almost vote for vote, though far from delegate for delegate, in
the primaries and caucuses. The Colorado Senator last week came
about as close as he could to saying he would take No. 2 without
formally abandoning his campaign for No. 1. Asked at a press
conference in Chicago what he thought of a Mondale-Hart ticket,
he replied, "I like the combination, but I would prefer the
reverse order." One reason Hart might take V.P. is that he has a
$3 million campaign debt. Says one adviser: "If he doesn't get on
the ticket, he won't get any help from the party on that debt. It
would take him at least a year to clear it. Then he would have to
raise a couple million more to run for the Senate again in 1986,
then $25 million more to run for President in '88--all from the
same people."
</p>
<p> Hart's vice-presidential chances, however, could hardly have
been helped by an article in Vanity Fair magazine quoting him as
saying that Marilyn Youngbird, an Indian woman described as a
"radiant divorcee," was his "spiritual adviser." The article,
written by Gail Sheehy, an experienced magazine journalist (New
York) and author (Passages), said that Hart and Youngbird had
attended an Indian ceremony that was, in Youngbird's words,
"sensual...they brushed the front and back of our bodies with
eagle feathers." Sheehy added that the Senator had accepted
Youngbird's assurance that he had been chosen by supernatural
forces to "save nature from destruction." Hart denied that
Youngbird was any kind of guru and said the ceremony had been an
innocuous dedication of a park. On top of that flap, Hart was
quoted in the Denver Post as calling Mondale's interviews in
North Oaks "something very close to pandering." His lame comment:
"I don't recall the context."
</p>
<p> The eagle-feather episode was merely a minor diversion in
comparison with what one Mondale strategist says "is still the
No. 1 problem around the convention": Jackson's role. Mondale
Campaign Manager Robert Beckel detected a cooperative mood during
a three-hour private dinner over ribs with Jackson in Kansas City
Monday night, and after the two candidates met for two hours the
next day, they sounded warily friendly. Jackson handed Mondale a
list of black and Hispanic women, who, he said, should be
considered as potential Vice Presidents. More substantive,
Jackson pledged that "together we will prevail in November" and
even conceded that runoff primaries do not invariably
discriminate against black office seekers. That indicated that
Jackson might accept defeat gracefully on his minority planks and
concentrate his incandescent oratory at the convention, and
during the campaign, against Reagan.
</p>
<p> Some Jackson supporters continue to talk a hard line about
what Mondale must do to win their man's enthusiastic backing.
They say Jackson will demand that Mondale appoint key members of
Jackson's staff to top campaign posts, grant Jackson considerable
influence over how the party spends its voter-registration funds,
and give him a voice in appointments to the party commission that
will study changes in the rules for selecting Democratic
convention delegates in 1988. Above all, they say, Mondale must
make a public concession of some kind to Jackson--never mindit that further troubles Mondale's Jewish supporters, not to mention other white voters. Says one Jackson adviser:
"Mondale better realize that in November, 50% of Jews are going
to vote Republican anyway." (In 1980, only 39% did so, and in
1976 only 34%.)
</p>
<p> Speaking to the N.A.A.C.P. last week, Mondale called
Jackson's campaign "a victory for all Americans." But he also
insisted to reporters that his private talk with Jackson in
Kansas City was a "discussion" and "not a negotiation,"
indicating that he wants to preserve some distance while still
enlisting Jackson's support--a delicate task indeed. For all
Jackson's unquestionable success at pulling black voters to the
polls, he turns off many white voters, and presumably some blacks
too, by inappropriate effusions like his praise for Fidel Castro
and the Nicaraguan Sandinistas on his Latin American tour two
weeks ago. Reagan last week foreshadowed the likely Republican
attack on such ventures by asserting in a TV interview: "There is
a law, the Logan Act, with regard to unauthorized personnel going
to other countries and in effect negotiating with foreign
governments." (Enacted in 1799 after a U.S. doctor, George Logan,
went to Paris to urge French officials to seek better relations
with the U.S. Only one person, Kentucky Farmer Francis Flournoy,
has ever been indicted under the act. He was charged in 1803 with
violating the law by advocating that a new nation allied with
France be created in the American west. The Louisiana Purchase
rendered the issue obsolete, and Flournoy was never brought to
trial.) Noting that Jackson had airily talked of following up his
success in winning release of some Cuban prisoners by journeying
to the Soviet Union to talk about freedom for Dissident Physicist
Andrei Sakharov, the President said such a trip could complicate
"things that might be going on in quiet diplomacy channels."
</p>
<p> In the end, the avowed hope of Mondale aides for a "boring"
convention is unlikely to be fulfilled. Some suspense, certainly
over Jackson's role, is likely to linger until the opening bell
sounds, and probably beyond that point. Democrats being
Democrats, there will almost surely be enough spirited debate, if
not acrimonious division, to make interesting theater.
</p>
<p> It will take far more than a socko show in prime time,
however, to give Mondale much chance against Reagan in November.
Somehow he must simultaneously keep the support of his Jewish
backers, attract the votes of blacks, particularly the younger
ones who have been moved to register by Jackson, and appeal to
women who think it is time that one of the parties put a female
on the ticket. Even if he can perform that intricate balancing
act, he faces the unenviable task of campaigning at a time of
dropping unemployment, low inflation and no urgent foreign
crisis, against a President who has proved remarkably adroit at
claiming credit for all the visible successes and avoiding blame
for any of the policy failures. Even to shorten the odds, Mondale
must pull together in a united effort all the multiple
constituencies and showy personalities of his fractious party.
That is fitting enough. Such an effort, exercised in the nation
as a whole, goes by the name of presidential leadership.
</p>
<list>
<l>July 16, 1984</l>
<l>NATION</l>
<l>A Party in Search of Itself</l>
</list>
<p>Still tethered to the past, the heirs of F.D.R. are groping for
the future
</p>
<p>By Evan Thomas. Reported by Sam Allis/Washington, Richard
Hornik/Boston and Christopher Ogden/Chicago.
</p>
<p> The band will strike up Happy Days Are Here Again, the party
leaders will claps hands in the traditional victory salute.
Banners will wave, rhetoric will flow. When the Democrats meet
next week in San Francisco to nominate a ticket for the 1984
election, they will strive mightily to stage a tableau of unity
and shared purpose.
</p>
<p> The hoopla will be a facade. Even if Walter Mondale manages
to smooth over his rifts with Jesse Jackson and the feisty
women's movement, even if he somehow upsets Ronald Reagan in the
fall, deep divisions will remain within the party. The Democrats
are groping for a fresh identity and a modern agenda. They are
badly split between old New Dealers, as embodied by Mondale, and
a large and restless group of "new generation" Democrats,
championed vocally if so far unsuccessfully by Gary Hart. The
party is in the midst of a prolonged mid-life crisis, no longer
able to rely on the formulas of the past, not yet able to
articulate a clear vision of the future.
</p>
<p> The party's collective confusion is on display from the
campaign stump to Congress. Mondale preaches compassion, Hart
calls for "new ideas." Old liberals like Tip O'Neill support
massive jobs bills, while young reformers vote to freeze spending
on all domestic programs. Southern Democrats seek to contain
Communism in Central America, while northern Democrats look at El
Salvador and see Viet Nam. No center holds. "The party is
floundering because it lacks a vision of where it is going," says
Duke University Political Scientist James David Barber. "Where
there is no vision, the parties perish."
</p>
<p> For almost half a century, the Democratic Party derived its
power from what it could give away. It was the party of
benevolent Government, offering help for the disadvantaged and
services for everyone. "In the postwar era," observes Harvard
Political Economist Robert Reich, "it was possible to dispense
(Government largesse) and pump (the economy) at the same time."
but in the '70s and '80s, the demand for Government goodies began
to outstrip the growth of the economy. Lyndon Johnson, and by
extension the Democratic Party, was wrong: the U.S. was not "an
endless cornucopia."
</p>
<p> With this rude awakening, the Government bureaucracy came to
be seen as inflated and wasteful. The Viet Nam War made the U.S.
seem weak abroad. Then Watergate soiled the presidency. The
public began to lose faith in Government--and in the Democrats'
activism.
</p>
<p> At the same time, paradoxically, the Democrats fell victim
to their accumulated success. "The New Deal and Great Society
programs worked a lot better than people think," says Democratic
Senator Dale Bumpers of Arkansas. "A lot of people left poverty
and joined the middle class. We lost a lot of traditional
coalition Democrats in the process." Says former Senator Adlai
Stevenson III of Illinois: "We cannot win any more with just the
old core constituencies. There aren't enough of them. They've
moved on."
</p>
<p> The party, to be sure, is far from moribund. Some 43% of all
voters still call themselves Democrats, only 30% Republicans and
27% Independents. The Democrats have a majority in the House and
hold 35 of 50 governorships. But to recapture the presidency and
to control the national debate, the party will have to appeal to
the middle class, particularly the so-called Yuppies, the baby-
boom generation. This requires a more hardheaded approach to
economic problems, which in turn risks alienating the party's
traditional supporters. "Defining the role of Government is the
central philosophical dilemma Democrats have to confront," says
Tennessee Congressman Albert Gore.
</p>
<p> Historically, Democrats won by embracing disparate and even
warring factions. The New Deal coalition included urban ethnics,
