Picnic among the ruins
David Blundy
New York A picnic in a small field next to a large graveyard in Nashua, New Hampshire, last Sunday marked a crucial moment for the American Democratic Party. As Jerry Brown, a Presidential 'hopeful' and Governor of California, put it, 'This is really the beginning, the beginning of the Democratic Primary.' Democrats sat in the sunshine sustained by hot dogs and stirring talk about now they should 'toil in the vineyards of the Party' and the importance of 'unity and cohesiveness in the 1980 campaign — sentiments belied by stickers plastered over the wall of a barn which told the true story. 'Viva Jerry Brown', said one. 'We love Miz Lillian,' and 'Support Kennedy in 1980' said the others, The three rival factions, Brown, the President's mother Miz Lillian and the supporters of Senator Edward Kennedy, sat on the dais together smiling tightly at each other as men in stetson hats played rousing country-and-western tunes. It was supposed to be Brown's big day, his first political offensive in the state which has the first Primary next February and where, he hopes, his anti-nuclear stand and his campaign for a constitutional amendment to balance the Federal budget might touch the hearts of liberals and fiscal conservatives alike. He has yet to make much headway with the extremely conservative New Hampshire newspaper the Manchester UnionLeader which described him last Sunday as the 'Californian snowflake'. Although Brown's political organisation in the north-east is reputedly meagre, he had drummed up a small but vociferous contingent from the farm workers' union, most of them very pretty girls in their late teens and early twenties, who waved banners and chanted his name with the zeal of Hare Krishnas as he arrived at Logan airport in Boston.
The large press corps indulged in heavy speculation about whether he would bring his close personal friend, the rock star Linda Ronstadt, with him or perhaps appear on roller skates but the Governor appeared alone and on foot, a small, lean figure dressed in a black suit, white shirt and striped tie. His visit began to go downhill almost immediately. He was enveloped by press and supporters and shoved up against the airport wall, his microphone worked only spasmodically, a girl supporter was hit on the head by a TV camera and burst into tears. Within earshot of the Governor a network TV reporter began his live faceto-camera report with the words: 'This is not so much a campaign as a circus.' The media interest in Brown is intense, not so much in his policies but in the fine personal detail. On Sunday morning before the picnic he went to Mass at a Catholic church in Nashua, and afterwards a group of reporters grilled him on how much he had dropped into the collection plate. Brown, who has a reputation for being frugal, refused to reveal exactly how much: '1 can tell you it was paper and it was more than one,' said Brown, 'Two dollars', said a reporter promptly. But whatever thunder there might have been in his arrival in the north-east was stolen by the more pressing issue of what Mrs Rose Kennedy was thinking out at the family compound in Hyannisport, a subject which dominated the press. The day before Brown came east the New York Times carried a story without sources, names or quotes which said that Edward Kennedy's mother, Rose, had changed her mind about not letting her son run in 1980 and had told him to go ahead. This is a pretty insubstan tial story by any standards. The Senator himself had no comment to make about it and his aides said, 'Much is being made of very little.' It was enough, though, to take Brown off the front pages and put Kennedy in his place.
The Democratic Party seemed last weekend to be in the grip of mothers in their eighties. First Rose, 891 then Lillian, 82, who turned up to represent 'My Jimmy who y'all might know is President of the United States.' Her white hair cut in pudding basin style, she was led onto the podium by her secret service agents to make a speech which `her Jimmy' will regret for many months to come. Lillian is normally adroit at the soft, folksy utterly innocuous speech and she started off true to form: 'I know each and every one of you know what Jimmy is doing and what he has done and what he will do,' and then came the gaffe:As for Mr Kennedy he assures us that he is not going to run, and if he does run I wish him all the luck in the world and 1 hope to goodness nothing happens to him. I really do.' If ever a remark ruined a Democratic picnic that was it.
There was a shocked silence then the sound of booing mixed with the groans of Carter supporters. Lillian made a quick recovery and tried to change the mood by talking about beagles, but the damage was done. The next day the New York Post devoted its entire front page to the headline `Miz Lillian's Ted Shocker'. Carter's mother 'screwed up and 1 mean really screwed up', as one Carter supporter put it. The President himself was making a barely visible appearance in some sort of promo tional film being screened under a tree by a hot-dog stand. His only audience was one small boy. Suddenly our own Mr Callaghan flickered onto the screen and urged the President 'to carry your responsibilities with spirit'. The small boy wandered off.
Exactly on schedule the Brown group dashed across the state to another Democ ratic picnic in a wood just near Dover on the New Hampshire coast. He spoke about MX missiles which he opposes, the environment which he supports, about 'the psychology of inflation' and he urged Americans to wake up and stop being prisoners of their past perceptions. A small audience listened sil ently and applauded tepidly. Most of the Democrats wandered off out of earshot, but in one corner of the leafy glade a group was having an animated discussion, not about Jerry Brown or the psychology of inflation but the burning question of whether Edward Kennedy had stopped eating ice cream — another New York Times exclusive — in order to slim down for the 1980 campaign. 'You know what', said a Washington reporter, 'I'm not so sure he's ever eaten goddamned ice cream, so how can he stop?'
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