May 19, 1971
Page 16668
MUSKIE STRONG IN NEW HAMPSHIRE
HON. PETER N. KYROS OF MAINE IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
Wednesday, May 19, 1971
Mr. KYROS. Mr. Speaker, this past weekend I had the pleasure of speaking at an important function in Manchester, N.H., which brought together the leaders of the Democratic Party in Maine's neighboring State.
I was most encouraged by the continued and mutual good will which exists between the leaders of the Democratic Parties in our two States. A column by Robert Healy in the Boston Globe of May 17, 1971, confirms the views which were expressed to me personally: Residents of the Granite State know that Senator ED MUSKIE is one of their best friends. Mr. Healy's column follows:
NEW HAMPSHIREPOLL SHOWS MUSKIE STRONG
The Boston Globe's New Hampshire poll of possible Democratic candidates for President is one of the more solid pieces of information as to why Sen. Edmund Muskie must still be considered the front-runner for the nomination and why in the end next year he may be difficult to defeat.
Muskie's strength at this time in New Hampshire is awesome. There are, of course, certain local circumstances contributing to this. Muskie is well-known in New Hampshire. There is the New England identification with him there. And yet the same could be said for Kennedy and Muskie runs more than 2-1 ahead of Kennedy. When Democratic voters were polled, 45 percent said they would like to see Muskie win and 20 percent said they would want to see Kennedy win.
Not all the states which will have popular primaries next year have set a date. But it would appear now that New Hampshire once again will be the first in the nation. Because of this it again will have great impact. Muskie should win it big, and the poll shows today that he would, to change a number of things.
Muskie is having some difficulty raising money. This affects organization and the ability of a candidate to move around as freely as he might wish. A candidate must first raise his money. A big New Hampshire primary victory could change that considerably.
Second, the breakdown of Muskie's appeal to the independents and Republicans who would vote in the Democratic primary is quite striking: He runs in the New Hampshire poll almost 5-1 better than Kennedy among Republicans who say they will vote in the Democratic primary and better than 2-1 among independents who expect to vote in the Democratic primary.
Muskie has lost some strength in recent months among the Liberals in the party. One of the spokesmen at the meeting for Sen. George McGovern, at Harvard said last week Muskie isn't going to sell around here. And that is probably so. Muskie had made appearances there with mixed success. On the other hand. it must also be said that Adlai Stevenson was much more popular in 1960 in Cambridge than was John Kennedy, at least up to the point of the nominating convention.
One poll in one primary is not the entire presidential nominating process, of course. But when you talk to professional politicians in places such as Wisconsin, Virginia and Florida (Wisconsin and Florida will have presidential primaries), they tell you how strong Muskie is with centrists in the party.
The Gallup Poll in The Sunday Globe showed that Muskie slipped considerably in the Democratic poll race nationally in the last two months. Among Democrats Kennedy was favored, by 29 percent and Muskie by 21 percent.
But Kennedy has a problem. His problem is that he cannot run in a primary and the race for the presidency may well be settled before the end of next year's primary. Kennedy himself believes that this is a very distinct possibility.
Part of the difficulty in straightening out the presidential primary in Massachusetts lies in the fact that the senator would like to see an uncommitted delegation go to next year's convention. Of course, they would be his slate. It is also attributed to the opposition to the binding presidential primary:
The hazard for Kennedy in this kind of situation is that if McGovern, Muskie and several other presidential candidates come into Massachusetts and run against the uncommitted slate and win, the headlines the day after the primary will read that Kennedy has been defeated in his home state.
In other words there is no halfway about presidential primaries as former Gov. John Volpe found in 1968 when he ran as favorite son and lost to a write-in vote for Gov. Nelson Rockefeller.
The only way for Kennedy to emerge as the presidential candidate is for a candidate such as Muskie to win several presidential primaries and then get knocked over in the last two, Oregon, California, so that there is no clear primary decision.
That, of course, could happen. But Muskie now appears to be very strong for the start of the presidential primaries in New Hampshire.