A Letter from Gene

Clean Gene McCarthy is nothing if not unconventional. "It might just be one of those things that people wake up and discover," he said recently of his possible candidacy for President in 1972. And lo, two days later, some 150,000 friends and former supporters received letters outlining practically everything but a date for a formal announcement of candidacy. Not that there is any doubt that he is off and running.

McCarthy's calendar for the coming weeks is a campaign shishkebab of speeches, interviews, poetry readings and huddles with politicians and financial angels. Already hinted at on the lecture circuit and in talks with the press is a campaign strategy worthy of the arcane politician-poet. Among other things, McCarthy speaks of backing John Lindsay and George McGovern in areas where they could win convention delegates whose views are compatible with his own. Party regulars take a generally dim view of such unorthodoxy and because of it, few consider him a serious threat. Yet a Harris poll of the national electorate shows that as a fourth-party candidate McCarthy could pick up 10% of the vote, exactly the divisive probability that could cost the Democrats the White House.

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