James J. Kilpatrick

McGovern and the Political Art

WASHINGTON Thousands of college seniors will take their degrees next month in "political science," thus certifying their mastery of a contradiction in terms. Politics is an art

not a science, as George McGovern belatedly recognized last week.

The senator from South Dakota, it will be recalled, once was a full-time professor in his arcane field. He was a prime mover in he effort, a couple of years ago, to bring scientism to the Democratic party. This was, in its way. like asking the Rolling Stones to play Chopin, but the professor is a dauntless man.

KILPATRICK

As a result of his labors, last year's Democratic National Convention was a marvel to behold. Veterans in the press gallery were struck dumb.

THE DEMOCRATIC National Committee fed us with fact sheets. Of the 3,194 elected delegates, 1,275, or 39.9%, were women. Another 688, or 21.5%, were youths. Still another 488, or 15.2%, were black. The rolls also numbered 142 Latinos, 27 Indians, 12 Orientals and 2 Eskimos, whose percentages, respectively, were 4.44, 0.845, 0.375, and 0.062. The fact sheets failed to classify the remaining 560 delegates, who presumably were old males not otherwise attached.

We stared at these statistics in alarm, wondering whether a young Indian girl had been counted once, twice or three times, and we sighed at the symmetrical perfection of the egg carton from New York142 males and 136 females, the whole numbers being further subdivided into 70 youths, 35 blacks, 17 Latinos, 1 Indian, and 1 Ms., name of Abzug.

The underlying theory, of course, was

that the state delegations should reflect the state populations. The theory was halfbaked. It provided no pigeonholes labeled Jew, Catholic. Protestant, farmer, veteran, Polish, Italian, student, housewife, homosexual, or union man. The reformers, pleading the necessity to take one step at a time, promised in the platform to do better next time.

Not so. At last week's meeting of the Democratic Charter Commission, Prof. McGovern manfully confessed error. He recommeneded that language be deleted that had created the quota system for women and young people. "I believe," he said, "that delegates should represent people, not types of people."

THIS IS PRECISELY what critics of the new rule were saying last summer. The plan, for all its pretty percentage marks, did not provide demonstrably better representation. The Illinois contingent that finally was seated was a triumph of political science; the delegation came from the reformers' laundromat free of soil or stain, smelling of soap and starch, but it gave no account to the Hon. Richard Daley, mayor of Chicago. In November, as one consequence, Cook County went for Nixon by nearly a quarter of a million votes.

McGovern would correct that situation also. He told the Charter Commission that new guidelines should assure that "senior party leaders" are promised a place at future conventions. Organizations that run independent slates, such as Daley's in Chicago, should be permitted to put together their delegations as they please.

By thus concentrating on politics and forgetting political science, party leaders may regain some lost ground. As McGovern knows better than most men, a party that in November lost 49 of the 50 states has a lot of lost ground to regain.

Washington Star-News Syndicate, Inc.