THE SPECTRE of four more years followed close behind me as a friend and I looked for a T.V. set on which to watch the election returns. It seemed like a long time since 1968, that year of exploding convention and the hairsbreadth election. So many things had changed, so many things had happened.

I would not trust the polis this time. Sure, McGovern would probably loss. But still, there was a chance, somewhere. There was still that element of "voters unpredictability." I hoped that the election would at least still be close. I expected--or wanted--the outcome to be indefinite until the morning.

When I turned on the set, the returns from the South were already in. Harry Reasoner and Howard K. Smith were not excited. This one promised few surprises, at least not in the presidential race. But these men were veterans; they would not get too far ahead of things. Enough precincts had reported in for ABC to project Nixon victories in Florida, Alabama and South Carolina. This year there was no Wallace. Already the electoral votes were piling up in Nixon's column.

Reasoner and Smith had aged a lot since '68. Their hair had turned from gray to white, and wrinkles of a six-o'clock-seriousness had furrowed more deeply into their faces. Smith was a little off that night. He kept confusing Republicans with Democrats, and mispronouncing the names of some of the minority candidates. Harry Reasoner would smile tightly. Both of them were looking businesslike, but it was almost like a sudden switch to sportscasting for them: teams, players, scores... a winner.

At the break for the local news spot, the Boston sports announcer ran through the games in election metaphors: "And in a close race in the National Hockey League, the Los Angeles Kings have a slight lead of 3-2 over the St. Louis Blues going into the final period. As yet, we have no projection on that one."

Then the station switched back to the national network. The cameras in Alabams brought in a live interview with George Wallace who was sitting in a wheel chair before a fireplace in some ante-bellum mansion. "Well, Aaah think both candidates are proposing programs that Aaah proposed when Aaah ran for president in 1968," Wallace drawled. Someone in the dorm stuck his head into the room: "Is that Brooke?" he asked.

More states began to fall to Nixon, Ohio, Illinois, Kentucky, West Virginia. Then the District of Columbia went for McGovern. Three electoral votes. Maybe if he carried New York and California--and Texas. But Nixon had already hit the triple figures. The 270 electoral votes needed to win were barely out of reach. A Coke commercial came on showing respectful young faces at the marble throne of Abraham Lincoln. There were seraphim singing in the background...

About that time Massachusetts went for McGovern, ABC flashed a map of 48 states colored Nixon, McGovern, and Not-Yet-In. You could hardly see the McGovern colors. By 10:30 ABC had projected a Nixon victory. "Of course, the night is far from over," Reasoner said. "We don't know by how much the President will win, though it looks like he will win. And there are a lot of interesting races still to be decided."

SARGENT SHRIVER came on the screen speaking from his Maryland headquarters. McGovern was losing even in South Dakota. There was a crowd of people standing around the Shriver headquarters; they were cheering. "And my family and I will be looking forward to working with all of you during the next four years," Shriver said. He did not concede or throw Ted Kennedy's hat in the ring for '76. Not quite. The message was supposed to come from South Dakota. ABC was waiting. Then McGovern came on.

There was a crowd of people at his headquarters, too. They gave him a standing ovation as he came to the podium. I could not imagine that McGovern would concede and make up with Nixon. I was wondering if he would even send him the traditional telegram. Such a thing seemed so "old style," a vestige of a time when the issues were not so urgent, when the country did not seem so divided. But there it was in the second line of his speech: "And I have just sent the following telegram to President Nixon: Congratulations on your victory. I hope that in the next four years you will lead us to a time of peace abroad and justice at home. You have my full support in such efforts. With best wishes to you and your gracious wife, Pat. Sincerely, George McGovern."

Sincerely, George McGovern. And he went on to borrow from Adlai Stevenson who borrowed from Abraham Lincoln who had been borrowed by Coca Cola: The Story of the Boy Who Stubbed His Toe in the Dark, by George McGovern. "It hurts too much too laugh, but I'm too old to cry."

Bob Dylan might have been a better reference. It was not a generation of life-long Democrats who had gotten McGovern that far; it was not a crowd of party regulars who were cheering him in the end.

It was an after-Coca-Cola crowd: the same long-haired young people who had marched in the streets of Washington, by-passing both the Lincoln Monument and the tear gas in Du Pont Circle. They were applauding for a good try. "It takes a lot to laugh, but it takes a train to cry."

McGOVERN IS partly a minister, McGovern is partly a schoolteacher, but, finally, McGovern is a politician. Perhaps his error was in not deciding which of these McGoverns should run for president. But in between his passages from Yeats and Isainh, it was of the "loyal opposition" that McGovern spoke. "So I ask all of you tonight to stand with your convictions. I ask you not to despair of the political process of this country. because that process has yielded too much valuable improvement in these past two years..."

Afterwards, there was Isaiah and his winged eagles, a "God bless you," and McGovern was gone. Shriver had been watching ruefully in Maryland. He would be running his hand through his hair everytime the camera switched to him. His upper lip was stiff. I could not help but have a sense of him "going through all this for the family," the Kennedy family. I was passed at Ted Kennedy; if he had joined McGovern they would have won. Now there was only NIXON. THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.