Word: westwoods
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...many Democrats, the big election did not take place on Nov. 7, when Richard Nixon faced George McGovern. They regarded the outcome as a foregone, forlorn conclusion. The dramatic confrontation came last week when Jean Westwood was challenged by Robert Strauss for the chairmanship of the Democratic National Committee. At stake was not just a top party post but the shape the party will assume in the years ahead...
...battle lines had been sharply drawn. On one side were the McGovern sympathizers, who still commanded a nominal majority on the committee-far out of proportion to their strength in the party at large. In the early skirmishing, they stuck with Westwood. On the other side was a combination of moderates, conservatives, Southerners, labor members and even liberal Democrats who had been shoved aside by the McGovern drive. They wanted to reassemble the coalition that had been so shattered in the election. For many of them, the most appealing candidate was a moderate, Robert Strauss...
...chosen party chairman, said Strauss, he would be scrupulously fair. Though he had argued against many of the McGovern reforms, he pledged that he would not try to repeal them. A caucus of Democratic Governors voted to endorse him, but McGovernites held out. Westwood offered to step down if Strauss did the same so that a compromise candidate could be accepted. Strauss's backers said that they would be delighted to have Westwood resign-but beyond that, no deal...
...party chairpersonship went first. The grand dragon of Democratic liberals--Jean Westwood--fell Saturday before the party's labor and oil forces, discreetly egged on by the senior Senator from Massachusetts. Westwood, who had reduced regular Democrats to fury in her pursuit of reformism, was replaced by Robert Strauss, a John Connally crony only loosely committed to quotes and other McGovern inventions. Strauss pointedly mentioned that his stewardship had Kennedy's approval...
...like McGovern he will enjoy the same success Kennedy thus must continue to play at campus fringe radicalism while maneuvering Democratic forces along pre-McGovern battlelines social security housing subsidies, welfare statism. He thinks he can win there, So Kennedy's side-burns go up the ducktail goes away, Westwood disappears beneath the boots of a Texas oilmen's lawyer and a tone of magnanimity enters criticism of Nixon...