OVER THE past two years, liberal Democrats have often toyed with the idea of a fourth party. Less than two weeks after the 1968 Democratic convention, the idea gained such momenturn that Sen. Eugene McCarthy reportedly met with Gov. Nelson A. Rockfeller to discuss its feasibility.

McCarthy's cool attitude toward politics this fall, however, and Rockefeller's near disappearance from the national scene, have left the liberals with a vacuum of leadership--which men like Allard Lowenstein are now trying to step into.

Along with other founders of the dump-Johnson movement, Lowenstein helped launch the New Democratic Coalition (NDC) following this summer's bloodbath in Chicago. Although a successor to the McCarthy movement, the NDC is seeking a wider, more impressive base of support than McCarthy ever did, and its goal is nothing less than the take-over of the Democratic Party by 1972.

Some of McCarthy's key supporters have thus far refrained from endorsing the NDC startegy. They hope to persuade the Minnesota Senator to remain active in politics, or at least repudiate the NDC, which they consider a Kennedy-dominated organization. But, from all indications, McCarthy is remaining oblivious to their entreades.

At the same time, however, the NDC has been building a broad voalition of white middle class suburbanites, academicians, and students from the old McCarthy movement with progressive Negroes (or less militant blacks, if you will), the Chicano (Mexican-American) community in the Southwest, leftish labour members, and Indians from the late Sen. Robert F. Kennedy's supporters. It is a highly decentralized operation--mostly on a state level, but often on a community level--which in some ways resembles the conservative Republican movement of the carly 1960s.

ALTHOUGH the groups primary goal is to win control of the National Democratic party, most elements of the NDC couple this with afar-reaching program of reform. Some of the leaders and many of the workers in the NDC have actually stated that they would rather not have control of the Party in 1972 if it did not come through instituting a program of reform. The Coalition has four essential reform goals:

(1) Starting extensive social projects which will cause greater involvement and influence of minority groups (including students) in the decision-making process. White members of the NDC in New Jersey hope to help Newark blacks to elect a black in the up-coming mayoralty elections.

(2) Forming the coatition on the concept of shared power. The Texas Coalition held an organizing convention in September which first split up into four caucuses--black, Chicano, student, and white--to draw up demands which they wanted the whole group to deal with. Later, they discussed these at a general meeting and voted on a program.

(3)Starting political action to change both the election laws and the Democratic Party. The Delaware New Democratic Coalition is campaigning for the primary system to choose local and state party candidates, instead of the present convention system, which goes back to the 1820s.

(4) Forming a new concept of the nature of personal commitment to the party--in other words, the right to speak on issues, and the right to with hold endorsement or funds--when that would be greater in achieving goats. This is a direct reaction to the "heavy-handed" Johnson and Humphrey supporters who have continuously claimed that being a Democrat involves a ban on attacks on the Administration or the war in Vietnam.

Arnold Kaufman, a University of Michigan professor who is also on the national executive committee of the NDC, distinguishes the type of liberals who have flooded to this new coalition, especially in labor as humanistic liberals who have flooded to this new coalition, especially in labor, as "humanistic liberals"-contrasted to those like Hubert Humphrey and George Meany, who he calls "custodial liberals." Though many of the "humanist liberals" disagree with Kaufman on the validity of using that particular term. most will admit that there is a wide divergence on both ideology and specific solutions-to the problems, for example, of the ghetto or the war in Vietnam-between the two groups.

This new coalition is still extremely fluid; the differences between the old and new shade of liberalism especially without the unifying pressure of a Presidential primary campaign, appear at some points almost as wide as between the moderate black demands and the suburban whites. But at state conferences, as in Connecticut last weekend, and at national conferences in Minneapolis and St. Louis earlier this fall, the specifics of priorities and programs began to emerge.

Kennedy's assassination brought many Mexican-Americans and Indians into the new group. There is some question, however, if the moderate black leadership-which has been noticeably hesitant about joining the coalition-will participate in the future. In Pennsylvania, for instance, the race gap appears too large to bridge.

Though mistakes hard to reverse later have been made in the coalition, the new alliance of liberals appears to have a much better chance of success in December of 1968 than it did at any time during the pre-convention Presidential battle. The political landscape was changed quite radically by campaigns (Kennedy, McCarthy, and McGovern) within the party and by the Democrats' defeat in the November elections. In Arizona, for instance, the Democrats hold no statewide offices (from U.S. Senator down) and are in a minority in both houses of the legislature. "In 1968 the conservatives kept telling us not to upset the applecart--Johnson would lose and we would be defeated on the state level," said Richard Wilks, a Pheonix lawyer who heads the Arizona NDC. "Well, after November, there's just no applecart left." The conservatives are weak in Arizona and are searching for attractive candidates for lower offices, which the new liberals can have almost for the asking if they appear to be winners.

In New Jersey, long famous for its country machines, the situation is much the same. In 1967 the Democrats suffered massive defeats in the legislative elections (leaving the formerly Democratic House with a 3-1 Republican edge). Coupled with Nixon's strong showing, this has made the country bosses weak and open to any Democrat who looks like he can win in the 1969 state elections. The New Jersey NDC, while spending much of 1963 fighting the bosses, will use the country bosses' support in 1969 before trying to oust them in later party fights.