Manchester, N.H.—It was well after dark by the time the Candidate reached the Exeter Inn. This particular day in New Hampshire had begun poorly, shaking cold leather hands at a cold factory gate, but things had warmed up as the day went along. Now the Candidate faced the pleasant prospect of addressing students and faculty members who were at least putatively friendly to his views. George McGovern, having shaken the hands of the hostess, the bartender, the busboy, the chief cook and the waitress, salted his steak and looked at his watch. It was his 365th day on the campaign trail.
McGovern will be fifty on July 19. He stands an even six feet tall, in black buckled shoes and a grey-plaid suit; blue denim eyes; middle-sized ears; long sideburns, dark hair thinly combed on a balding head. The years have plowed a furrow between his bunkered eyebrows. McGovern is neither as handsome as Lindsay nor as happy as Humphrey; he offers the cartoonist none of Muskie’s rock-bound crags. In the game of guess the stranger’s occupation, you might hazard a guess not far from the mark: He is the new minister in town, the one who wants the congregation to try a couple of different hymns.
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