And there are many things to be done. Among them, the poverty program must be expanded, the Alliance for Progress reevaluated. A Vietnam policy more adequately formulated. The Civil Rights Law enforced. Related problems of urban housing and education attacked. Long-range unemployment and technological change examined. Medicare passed. Facilities for higher education doubled. And, what will put the most stress on Johnson's resolve, both the tax structure and the organization of Congress must be reformed.
Johnson will never stir the nation with his words, will never invigorate it with his example. But there are reasons to believe that on matters of policy Johnson will not suffer from an absence of ideas or new programs. First, Johnson has retained a Kennedy tradition. Although they have scarcely been publicized for fear of causing overconfidence, eleven "task forces" composed of one hundred special Presidential advisors are studying such problems as economic and social welfare, government organization, federal-state relations, and civil rights in order to suggest new areas of legislation. To each group has gone the command: Don't worry about politics.
Second, Hubert Humphrey will be Johnson's Vice-President. And whatever charges Representative Miller may make against Humphrey, he can never accuse him of lacking imagination. Moreover, liberal fears to the contrary, the Minnesota Senator will probably exert considerable influence on new policy. Himself only months removed from the Vice-Presidency, Johnson is not about to take a man of unquestioned talent and energy and relegate him, in the words of Everett Dirksen, to "shuffle around the world eating camels' eyes at potentates' tables."
III
Even if Johnson and Humphrey were less able than they are, it is inconceivable that a vote could be cast for the Republican candidates. Goldwater's childish approach to foreign policy, simplistic criticism of "big government," irresponsible stand on civil rights and unconscionable vote on the Test Ban Treaty head the list of his disqualifications for the Presidency. His pious platitudes, vaulting contradictions, and historical blindness combined with his thinly veiled exploitation of fear and prejudice mark Goldwater as a thoroughly bankrupt candidate. And as Know-Nothingism incarnate ("In your heart you know he's right"), Goldwater has demonstrated his lack of intelligence with appalling frequency; his election would be nothing less than a catastrophe.
Putting Representative Miller a heart beat from the Presidency is even more unthinkable. Deficient in experience, performance, and ability, Miller is a despicable non-entity, a hack politician whose vicious campaign eminently qualifies him for the discredited obscurity he will find after November 3.
Johnson is of course the only sensible choice. But those words don't convey the latent excitement, the almost unprecedented potential which his election implies. In domestic affairs, Johnson and Humphrey give the promise of a new progressive era in American history. In foreign affairs, the new Administration will undoubtedly continue the sophisticated and successful foreign policy of the Kennedy men, Secretaries Rusk and McNamara.
Whether Johnson will join vision and political power, will extend the Kennedy tradition of shifting the country from the programs of the thirties to the policies necessary for the sixties and seventies must remain uncertain for the moment. But we believe he can and will. Johnson's motivation, like Kennedy's when he became President, is to make secure his place in history. Such ambition combined with talent and energy give hope for the next four years as a time of great fulfillment as the last four years were a time of great promise.