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Kennedy has been running into problems in the East. Even in his old and new home states of Massachusetts and New York, efforts to chip away at his support will probably deprive him of some votes. The situation in Vermont seems symptomatic of his slowing momentum. After Governor Philip Hoff declared for Kennedy, a pro-Humphrey revolt almost cost the Governor his own seat at the state convention that will select national delegates. "I'm quite surprised," Hoff said, "at the lack of support Kennedy has generated in Vermont and in the nation."
In most of the Southern and border states, Humphrey is the man to beat—but neither Kennedy nor McCarthy can do it. The Vice President may come out of that region alone with 600 votes or more, nearly half of the 1,312 required to win in Chicago.
Sudden Centrist. The base of his strength is impressively wide, in terms of factions as well as geography. He maintains good relations with farmers and mayors. Organized labor has already begun missionary work on Humphrey's behalf through the A.F.L-C.I.O.'s Committee on Political Education, and many big businessmen are friendly to the Humphrey cause. For the first time in his political life, it appears that campaign funds will not be a problem. And if Kennedy has captured the imagination and allegiance of many younger, relatively militant Negroes, Humphrey is still warmly regarded by their elders, who remember that his crusade for their cause has been unqualified for a full generation.
Though there is really little to choose from among the three candidates on fundamental issues, Humphrey by his tone and his loyalty to the Administration finds himself the sudden centrist; able to seek a Democratic coalition potentially as broad as F.D.R.'s. He is doing so, moreover, without any disavowal of the libertarian lodestar that led him into politics in the first place. "The nation needs to be calmed and unified," he says. "It needs steady social progress with a minimum of disorder. I offer leadership based not just on idealism but on a pragmatic approach to government. I offer the capacity to blend the different factors of American life into a national mosaic."
That many Southern Democratic leaders and Northern businessmen should want to become part of Humphrey's design astounds those who remember him as the symbol of ultra-liberal factionalism. But Humphrey has been more accommodated than accommodating. Son of a small-town South Dakota pharmacist who loved politics, people and poetry, he grew up in farm country where the Depression came early and stayed long. Hubert Horatio Sr., the "town rebel," the Democratic chairman of Republican Spink County who joshed about his wife's being "politically unreliable" (she voted for Harding and Coolidge), the kind of father who sat Junior on his knee to hear Wilson's Fourteen Points and who read Bryan's cross-of-gold speech to the family "at least twice a year," did not bring up his son to espouse pliable convictions.