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— Donna Eddy, 19, a black student at the University of Wisconsin, got her first taste of politics distributing Humphrey leaflets in 1968. Last September, she went to work for McGovern after she heard him address a local Young Democrats meeting. She began by writing letters and stuffing envelopes in the Milwaukee headquarters for the Wisconsin primary and soon found herself devoting at least 40 hours a week to the task. After Wisconsin, she decided to let her studies slide and followed the McGovern campaign across the country, to Ohio, to California, to New York. "In California," she says, "I slept in a church a few nights and then stayed with a Republican family in Whittier. That really was a blast—being right there in Nixon's homeland." This week, she was to be on the convention floor as a Wisconsin delegate-at-large.
>Maryellen Fleming, 28, is a seven-year veteran of political causes, especially women's rights in Cincinnati, where she is an officer of the local chapter of the National Organization of Women. She was elected as an Ohio delegate in May. She takes the McGovern phenomenon calmly, seeing it neither as a vindication of "the system" or its last chance to accomplish good. "The system," she says, "will be around for a long time. It's a dynamic, always changing thing. What's happening now is that the McGovern people have made the changes in it."
> Keith Thompson, at 18 the youngest Ohio delegate, disagrees. "If the nomination is stolen," he said last week, "then it may be the last chance for the system." At the same time, Thompson, who has been working in Ohio campaigns ever since he watched the Chicago debacle on television four years ago, would not object to McGovern's drifting to the right in order to build a larger constituency. "We want to elect a President," he said. He has nothing but contempt for Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman and their codes of manic anarchy. "Their philosophy of 'Do It!' is laughable. They are hypocrites." Thompson is finding that politics and love can produce explosions. "I'm trying to convince my girl friend that she is really no less important than George McGovern," he said. "It's just a matter of priorities right now."
> Sally Peil, 22, is a West Georgia College senior who went to Miami Beach as a delegate. Like her merchant parents, Sally was an ardent Nixon supporter four years ago. "The other day," she says, "I told my mother I've never been so disappointed with anything in my life as Nixon. She almost cried. She thinks I'm turning into a Communist." Since she became a politician, she says, "I'm watching every news program on TV, reading the papers every day." One problem after her election, Sally notes, is that "you get a lot of junk mail. You know, like, Peabody for Vice President, and from the Sanford people, and, uh, is there a Mills running? Yes, from somebody named Mills."