The story that still nags at me - Edward S. Muskie

Washington Monthly, Feb, 1987 by David Broder

THE STORY THAT STILL NAGS AT ME

The snow was cascading down thatSaturday morning in Manchester, New Hampshire, when Senator Edmund S. Muskie headed toward the offices of the Manchester Union Leader for his first scheduled event of the day. Like much in modern campaigning, this "event' was designed more for the press and cameras than for the citizenry. Fewer than a hundred hardy campaign workers and casual passersby, stamping their feet in the snow, joined the newspaper's employees watching from windows.

Ed Muskie was the front-runner in the 1972New Hampshire presidential primary, so when his press aides alerted reporters staying at the Sheraton-Wayfarer in nearby Bedford that Muskie would go to the Union Leader to reply to attacks by publisher William Loeb, they were guaranteed that this was one "media event' that would draw heavy coverage.

Hands jammed into his overcoat pockets andhis head bent against the snow, Muskie looked as if he might be having second thoughts. But for us reporters trailing him, the setting and timing were perfect. It was early in the day; we would have plenty of time to file for the early Sunday deadlines. The event would be a natural lead-in to our Sunday wrap-up pieces that would summarize the New Hampshire situation nine days before the primary. Loeb had been giving Muskie the same brutal front-page editorial "treatment' he had given other moderates and liberals in both parties who appeared to threaten the publisher's favored right-wing candidates. In confronting him, the senator from Maine was symbolically confronting the frustrations that had turned New Hampshire from an expected easy triumph into an exhausting, embittering struggle.

The human factor is always the least predictableelement in covering politics. That is why the beat is so fascinating. Under the pressure of campaigns for high office, people react in ways that are always revealing and often unexpected. In this case, Muskie's strategists wanted him to show indignation and righteous wrath to regain the offensive in what they saw as an eroding effort to hold off the challenge of his major rival, Senator George McGovern. They focused on the impact of two Union Leader editorials: one concerned an alleged derogatory comment by Muskie about the important French-Canadian voting bloc, the other impugned the behavior and character of the candidate's wife.

I described Muskie's dramatic reaction:

With tears streaming down his face andhis voice choked with emotion, Senator Edmund S. Muskie (D-Maine) stood in the snow outside the Manchester Union Leader this morning and accused its publisher of making vicious attacks on him and his wife, Jane.

The Democratic presidential candidatecalled publisher William Loeb "a gutless coward' for involving Mrs. Muskie in the campaign and said four times that Loeb had lied in charging that Muskie had condoned a slur on Americans of French-Canadian descent.

In defending his wife, Muskie brokedown three times in as many minutes-- uttering a few words and then standing silent in the near blizzard, rubbing at his face, his shoulders heaving, while he attempted to regaim his composure sufficiently to speak.

The story--accompanied by a photo--ranunder a four-column headline as the off-lead of the Sunday Washington Post and continued for 23 paragraphs inside. David Nyhan's story, which described Muskie as "weeping silently,' was played even more prominently on the front page of the Boston Globe. The New York Times ran a photograph on page one but relegated the story to page 54, perhaps because reporter James M. Naughton cast his story around Muskie's denunciation of Loeb and mentioned the tears and broken speech only once, in the sixth paragraph. The Washington Star used a UPI story on page two that noted in the eighth paragraph that Muskie was "visibly shaken,' but offered no further details.

Saturday night, CBS News had an arrestingclip of the event, which Roger Mudd introduced by saying that Muskie, after denouncing Loeb, "suddenly became emotional and found it difficult to continue.' The screen was filled with Muskie's face, his features contorted.

Watching it on a weekend visit home inWashington, political reporter Jack Germond, then with Gannett's Washington bureau, instantly decided to fly back to New Hampshire because, he said, "I knew something was happening.'

Indeed it was. Within 24 hours, Muskie's weepingbecame the focus of political talk, not just in New Hampshire, but everywhere the pattern of the developing presidential race was discussed. His tears were generally described as one of the contributing causes of his disappointing showing in the March 7 primary. Muskie beat McGovern by a margin of 46 to 37 percent, but his managers had publicized their goal of winning at least 50 percent of the New Hampshire Democratic vote. Underdog McGovern claimed that the results showed Muskie's weakness and his own growing strength. Muskie never recovered from that Saturday in the snow.

In retrospect, though, there were a few problemswith the Muskie story. First, it is unclear whether Muskie did cry. He insists he never shed the tears we thought we saw. Melting snow from his hatless head filled his eyes, he said, and made him wipe his face. While admitting that exhaustion and emotion got the better of him that morning, the senator believes that he was damaged more by the press and television coverage of the event than by his own actions.