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Inevitably, some Administration forces thought that McCarthy's move to unhorse Johnson might, in fact, confirm everyone's faith in American political fourflushing. "It's obviously Bobby," said one White House aide. "McCarthy has no burning conviction. He's not leading a peace movement." The remark reflected a widely held conspiracy theory that McCarthy's aim is to unite dissident Democratic support in the primaries and then throw that support to Robert Kennedy some time before next summer's Democratic Convention. Texas Governor John Connally, a close friend of Lyndon Johnson's, called McCarthy "a stalking horse, a catalyst for dissidents."
McCarthy, in fact, admitted somewhat wryly that he wishes Bobby had undertaken the challenge himself. "It was nothing like St. Paul being knocked off his horse," he said at the press conference. "I waited a decent period for someone else to do it."
"Count Me Out." McCarthy's challenge is fairly unusaul in American history. Teddy Roosevelt's Bull Moosers seceded from the Republican Party in 1912; in 1948, Strom Thurmond's Dixiecrats and Henry Wallace's Progressives both split entirely from the Democrats to run their own minority-party tickets. McCarthy is challenging the incumbent President from within his own party.
Nor is McCarthy alone. No fewer than nine major groups of Democrats are determined to dispossess the President, to reverse his Viet Nam policies, or both. Dissenting Democrats, an outfit headed by Actor Robert (The Man From U.N.C.L.E.) Vaughn, is placing ads in 25 newspapers to warn the President: "From this day on, our campaign funds, our energies and our votes go to those, and only those, who work for an end to the war in Viet Nam." In Chicago at week's end, the Conference of Concerned Democrats met to chart plans for slates opposed to Johnson in 15 states. Proclaimed California Congressman Don Edwards in a keynote speech: "We are not the dissenting minority. We are the voice of the American majority."
At least three Democratic Senators —Indiana's Vance Hartke, South Dakota's George McGovern and Ohio's Stephen Young—are thinking of entering primaries as favorite sons to show displeasure with the President's policies. In Michigan, Democratic State Chairman Zolton Ferency resigned, declaring: "If the convention is going to be wired for sound and the sound is 'Happy Birthday, L.B.J.,' then count me out."
Two Prospects. Eugene McCarthy stands to gain nothing personally from his almost quixotic venture. He has but two prospects: 1) to force the President to change his thinking and policies about the war some time between now and the Democratic Convention, or 2) to build an army of dissident Democrats for Bobby Kennedy to command eventually in a drive to deny Johnson a second full term.