The Importance of Being Muskie

On the eve of this month's elections, Maine's Senator Edmund Sixtus Muskie, 56, delivered a coolly effective TV rebuttal to the Nixon-Agnew campaign. The speech thrust Muskie far ahead of half a dozen other Democratic possibilities for the 1972 nomination. TIME Correspondent Hays Gorey talked with the front runner:

A NEWSPAPER contains an editorial cartoon that shows him evolving into Abraham Lincoln. It is rather heady stuff. Over a cup of coffee, Ed Muskie laughs. The comparison is familiar now. and, as Muskie knows, mildly ridiculous. With a shy grin, he comments: "You know, after my election-eve speech, someone told me that what I had said was a combination of Lincoln, Roosevelt and Winston Churchill." Again the hearty but not totally self-deprecating laugh. "After all," he says, "it was a partisan political speech. How could it be considered a great state paper?" -

Razor-cut, trim, taut, essentially modest but nonetheless more self-confident than at any point in his political career, Muskie understands quite clearly where that speech has left him. There is nothing coy about his ambition. He wants to be President, and he is working hard at it. For months he has been assembling a broad group of advisers, experts in foreign policy, economics, weapons systems, budgets, social programs. In his shadow Cabinet. Cyrus Vance serves as Secretary of State, Walter Heller as chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, Paul Warnke as Secretary of Defense.

He plans to travel to Europe and perhaps to Asia early in the new year, with other trips to South America and Africa. He will also visit most states, solidifying his support. In the Senate, he will work at turning a Muskie program into a Democratic alternative to the President's.

Muskie senses a certain improbability in it all. "Why me?" he asks. "Four years ago you wouldn't have picked me. I'm low key. I'm from a small state. I did my work behind the scenes, and it was undramatic work." Still, in his new mood of self-assurance, Muskie finds the prospect of the presidency natural enough. "I think in the context of growth." he says. "I started at the local government level, went on to the legislature, became Governor, Senator, then a candidate for Vice President. Progression tends to build one's confidence that he can rise to the next level of responsibility."

With more than a year to go before the first primary of the 1972 campaign, a highly visible front runner might feel vulnerable to the dangers of peaking too early and of making mistakes. "Not at all," Muskie says. "Now I have an enormous sense of independence. Now I don't have to strive to get attention, to shout and resort to gimmicks. It's so much easier to be myself. It's a question of style. I like to do things in a quieter, more meaningful way. Now I can do things my way."

Muskie admits to no reservations about seeking the presidency. "I've lived with the idea too long. What really frustrates me is not the magnitude of the job but the nuts-and-bolts things--not the issues but the lack of sufficient research on them. I know as well as anyone that the people who emerge as candidates for President aren't necessarily the best people to be President. Candidates emerge out of the political process. None of us is ideal. But when you combine success in the political process with ambition, you get your candidate. Maybe there are men --or women--outside the political process who could do better."

Muskie inherited a certain optimism from his Polish immigrant father, who taught him that under the American system everything is possible, provided one perseveres. Muskie has persevered. His aspirations are, however, tempered by a refreshing candor. In private with his closest associates, he has been known to bellow: "I'm not God! Will you get that straight? You come charging in here and demand that I take a firm stand on this or that. Has it ever occurred to you that I don't know enough about it to know what position to take?"

Sometimes he exasperates those who would like to march with him but find his cadence too slow--and he knows it. He is, in fact, currently less ambiguous, terser, tougher than before. This encourages those close to him to urge him to move even faster, to declare himself ever more quickly and more sternly. It is then that Muskie reverts to type. "Hold on," he told an adviser who recently demanded that he speak out on an issue. "Let's never say anything that won't improve on silence."

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