New Hampshire and beyond

National Review, March 23, 1984

He campaigned hard, and his often young and usually up-scale supporters were energetic and enthusiastic. But he was also the accidental beneficiary of a weakness in the Democratic Party's own rules. In stripping power from the bosses after the 1968 convention, the Democrats conferred it, not on the people, but on the mobilizers of activists. George McGovern and Jimmy Carter discovered the formula as rebels; President Carter four years ago, and Mondale now, have brought it to establishmentarian perfection. The combined judgments of the AFL-CIO, NEA, NOW, and so forth are not that different from the sentiments of many Democratic voters (if the party does not stand for social envy and for economic and social dirigisme, what does it stand for?). But it would seem that, occasionally, the groundlings resent being shifted back and forth like so many checkers. Carter lost a handful of primaries in 1980, largely as a result of such sentiments, once it was clear he had beaten Teddy. This year the protest has come early.

Mondale suffered a similar surprise last summer when Alan Cranston purchased an upset in the Wisconsin straw poll. Mondale will probably recover from New Hampshire, as he recovered from Wisconsin. He will have to raise a sweat, though, for his personal appeal to the voters has been demonstrated to be surprisingly shallow.