David S. Broder

McGovern Amateurs Vex Pros

WASHINGTON-At the Michigan Democratic convention last weekend a reporter attempting to interview a challenged "Wallace delegate," who was actually the woman leader of her district's liberal caucus, caught an elbow in the stomach from a burly, bearded McGovern backer who objected to the line of questioning. Several hundred miles away in Roanoke, Va., the young McGovern backers in charge of a congressional dis-

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BRODER

trict caucus rammed through a rule-based on an Orwellian interpretation of democracy-requiring the convention delegates in that district to sign their ballots on every vote that came before the caucus.

And up in Minneapolis that same weekend the McGovern-dominated liberal coalition overrode warnings from the Democratic governor that they were playing into the Republicans' hands, and passed through a resolution sanctioning homosexual "marriage."

AS WORD OF THESE and similar incidents, in recent weeks has filtered back to Washington, a shudder of apprehension has gone through Democratic ranks. For the first time there is beginning to be widespread concern that the Miami Beach convention hall may prove to be the disaster for the Democrats that the San Francisco Cow Palace was for the GOP in 1964.

At the Cow Palace the television cameras showed the most rabid of Goldwater's delegates the true believers who could not control their emotions in the hour of their triumph-drowning out opposition speakers with their boos, waving their fists at reporters and shouting obscenities at the Scranton and Rockefeller delegates. What the nation saw doomed Goldwater's candidacy even before it was launched.

George McGovern, like Barry Goldwater, is a decent, attractive human being, far too experienced in politics ever to sanction hoodlum tactics in a convention hall.

But like Goldwater, his nomination will be achieved-if it happens-by the organized invasion of the delegate-selection process by hundreds of fired-up (some would say fanatic) political amateurs, whose moods and actions McGovern himself may no longer be able to control.

THE PROSPECT OF THIS poses more of a clear and present danger to his candidacy against President Nixon than the cool-

ness of many elected Democratic officials or the leaders of organized labor.

In their usual methodical fashion McGovern's managers are moving to minimize the danger. Even as he scrounges for the last hundred votes needed to nominate McGovern, delegate-hunter Rick Stearns has outlined a "command and control" system for the convention floor.

The planning is a tribute to the McGovern men's foresight, and an earnest of their desire to keep the convention from turning ugly. But one recalls that F. Clifton White, Goldwater's political chief, had a similar communications network in the Cow Palace, and it did not stem the hysteria.

A convention is a disorienting experience even for professionals, and, as Stearns points out, 90% of the Miami Beach delegates will be newcomers to this environment. There will be few old pros, governors or party officials to impose discipline. Many of the new delegates-women, blacks. Chicanos, youths-are passionate advocates of causes peripheral to McGovern's own concern. They will come to do "their thing," which may or may not be in McGovern's interest.

ALL OF WHICH is undoubtedly true. But it is equally true that if George McGovern is the nominee of that convention, he will be held politically accountable for the actions of the delegates who nominate him.

He can no more avoid responsibility for what occurs in Miami Beach than Goldwater could escape the stigma of the Cow Palace or Hubert Humphrey (who actually had less control of the situation than either of the other two) could separate himself from the chaos in Chicago four years ago.

Stearns, who knows more of the McGovern delegates than anyone else in America today, says "the vast majority understand that the game doesn't end in July, that we have an election to win in November."

The Democrats can only hope that he is

right.

C Washington Post