Jack Kennedy - Chris Matthews [116]
Once the door opened again, Tawes had agreed to what the Kennedy forces wanted: an open run for the primary in Maryland.
The Kennedy treatment of Governor Pat Brown of California was cordial, if only in comparison. Brown, after much prodding from Jack himself, O’Donnell, and O’Brien, worked out a deal. It was simple enough: he’d run on the ballot unopposed in his home state and then hand over his delegates at the convention if Kennedy continued to sweep the primaries and lead in the Gallup poll. Even with this agreement between Brown and Jack, Bobby continued to put pressure on the California governor. Although Senator Kennedy had agreed not to run in the California primary as long as Pat Brown was the only candidate on the ballot, Bobby filed a last-minute delegation. It was an insurance policy against the possibility of Hubert Humphrey attempting a comeback in delegate-rich California, where loyalties to the old liberal crowd ran high. Bobby agreed to withdraw the Kennedy slate of delegates only after Humphrey gave his personal guarantee he wouldn’t try to sneak in at the wire.
Fred Dutton, who was Pat Brown’s top political guy, thought this final move showed moxie on the Kennedy side. “It was a pretty good example of the sort of hard-boiled game that the Kennedy group was playing. They were just protecting themselves, they said.”
Even after the California primary, the Kennedy campaign wouldn’t let up. According to Dutton, “The Kennedys, as soon as the primary was over with, ran a very aggressive war of nerves to try to get Brown to come out for them and to pull over as many California delegates as they could. Bobby was in the state a half-dozen times; Larry O’Brien came out and met with me. They had every right to be worried, since a strong pro-Stevenson contingent made it increasingly difficult for Pat Brown to support Kennedy if he was going to protect his own skin in local politics. Liberals loyal to Adlai were beginning to make an eleventh-hour run for their twice-nominated hero. He’d taken on the challenge of Ike, went the argument. Didn’t he deserve the chance to beat the now far more beatable Nixon?”
Bobby again refused to allow any possibility of this romance with the past taking hold. He was keeping his fingers around Brown’s throat. “He was calling up and was impatient, a little petulant, and not at all understanding of why Brown couldn’t make up his mind.” Dutton figured he either didn’t understand Brown’s political problems or, if he did, he wasn’t going to show he did. Bobby Kennedy was not the sort to see it from the other guy’s point of view. Besides, his job was not to be convinced. “I’m not running a popularity contest,” he told Time’s Hugh Sidey. “It doesn’t matter if they like me or not. If people are not getting off their behinds and working enough, how do you say that nicely? Every time you make a decision in this business, you make somebody mad.”
Next in line was Pennsylvania. Jack Kennedy knew that Governor David Lawrence feared a backlash if he supported him. Having been the first of his religion to rise to this position there, he was uneasy about endorsing a fellow Catholic. To win Lawrence over, Jack needed an inside man. He found him in U.S. congressman William Green, who chaired the Democratic Party in Philadelphia. Green was a consummate big-city political boss. Two years earlier he had used his clout to get Lawrence the nomination for governor. After West Virginia, he was convinced his fellow Irish-Catholic had proven himself the strongest candidate. He believed no other Democrat would stand a chance of beating Richard Nixon. With the bulk of Pennsylvania’s delegates in his control, he began putting pressure on Lawrence to drop his