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Rage 2 THE BATTALION
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 9, 1976
Udall’s humor transcends frustrations
CLEVELAND — It has been a
long, long campaign for Morris K.
Udall. The weariness of the effort
that began almost two years ago
with those first exploratory trips to
New Hampshire and Wisconsin is
etched deep in his craggy face as he
slogs through these final days in the
wards of Cleveland.
Unfolding his long body from a
cramped seat on his campaign bus,
he rallies himself for another effort
by calling on his one resource not
limited by the federal campaign act
-— his humor. “Come on, you
Stop-Carter people,” he tells the re
porters, who are as tired as he is.
'It’s gonna be a grand rally of the
faithful. Hubert Humphrey will be
there — in spirit. Jerry Brown will
deliver the invocation. Frank
Church will read the minutes of the
last meeting. And I will give the
message.”
David S.
Broder
The Udall-for-President cam
paign is not one that will rank
among the classics. Unless there is a
miracle here in Ohio on Tuesday,
Udall will go back to Tucson and
Washington empty-handed — hav
ing failed to win a single primary of
the score he entered.
As the candidate would concede,
it has been a botched up campaign
in many respects. There were do
zens of tactical and strategic errors,
small and large, that diluted his ef
forts and diminished his returns.
Udall himself bears direct re
sponsibility for the failure to fit his
brother, Stewart, into a stable,
non-abrasive role in the campaign.
A procession of campaign managers
testifies to his inability to put his
own campaign house in order.
The frustrating series of second-
place finishes, studded with exam
ples of what-might-have-been, con
firmed the critical judgment of some
House colleagues. They said in ad
vance that Udall was a man of un
common ability who lacks the steely
determination and quick instincts
that spell the difference between
victory and defeat.
But if frustration was predictable
for a man whose efforts in Congress
have often been stymied, it was
equally predictable that Udall
would acquit himself with honor.
dignity and good humor in his quest
for worthy goals.
He communicated to a broad na
tional audience the convictions he
has voiced for 15 years in the House
and in his home district: a respect
for the human and physical envi
ronment; a commitment to social
justice; and a belief in institutional
reform and a strict standard of per
sonal political accountability.
All this he conveyed without con
descending or pandering to the pre
judices of a particular audience. No
one but Mo Udall would have re
minded the prideful voters in New
Hampshire, on the eve of their
primary, that “a week from tonight,
you won’t get a presidential candi
date to come within 100 miles of this
state.” And no one but Udall would
have made them laugh at them
selves and their inflated self-
importance.
Humor is his trademark, and it
offended some people to have a
presidential candidate try to be en
tertaining. But the humor was di
rected at himself and the foibles of
politics. It was his way of maintain
ing his own sense of proportion.
Long before he became a candidate
himself, he warned against the
power-seekers who pursue the pres-
idence with a grim, relentless, all-
consuming determination. Their
exercise of power will reflect their
pursuit of power, he said.
By staying funny, Udall stayed
true to his own nature and convic
tions. But he was also honest in
more important ways. He did not
back off from his support of school
desegregation in Boston or the De
troit suburbs, and he did not disown
40 years of Democratic programs in
an effort to become “anti
establishment. ”
So Udall can live with his
memories of this campaign. A more
interesting question concerns the
conscience of what used to be called
the liberal community.
Udall did not assert an inherent
claim to liberal support, even
though he was early in the contest.
“There was no obvious choice”
among the many liberal aspirants,
he said the other day. “But after
Massachusetts and surely after Wis
consin and New York, it was clear”
that he had defeated the other lib
eral contenders and emerged as
Jimmy Carter’s real rival.
But those he had defeated and
who shared his positions — Birch
Bayh, Fred Harris, Milton Shapp,
Sargent Shriver, among others —
either remained silent or endorsed
other candidates. So did many other
liberals.
Had the votes that went to a
single one of those candidates, Fred
Harris, been shifted to Udall, he
would have beaten Carter in New
Hampshire, Wisconsin and Michi
gan. It takes no genuis to calculate
how different the Democratic pic
ture would appear today.
But Udall is not given to recrimi
nations, even about Michigan,
where the leaders of the United
Auto Workers, the most liberal
union in the country, worked ac
tively to defeat the surviving liberal
candidate because he was “a loser. ”
All Udall will say about Michigan is
that “it was kind of poignant to read
in that post-primary poll that one
out of ten Carter voters said they
really preferred me, but thought I
had no chance to win.”
Udall lost Michigan by two-tenths
of one percent of the vote. He lost
Wisconsin and a lot of other states
by small margins. The political his
tories will show that record. One
hopes they will also record the re
spect Mo Udall won from those who
have watched his campaign.
(c) 1976, The Washington Post
Company
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