Yorktown Revisited

"If Paul Douglas is in trouble," thundered Hubert Humphrey at a Democratic rally in Chicago last week, "then George Washington was in trouble at Yorktown." That intelligence could bring Cornwallis back from the grave.

For the polls, as opposed to the vice-presidential glands, have largely shown that Illinois' Liberal Democratic Senator Douglas is in deep difficulty in his fourth-term bid against Liberal Republican Charles Percy, a millionaire industrialist who has wryly classed himself as "unemployed" since his unsuccessful 1964 attempt to win the governorship.

A longtime champion of civil rights, Douglas is the natural target of whites angered by unruly civil rights demonstrations in Chicago--while Percy is winning the votes of many Negroes irked by the Democratic machine's resistance to their demands. Hulking, white-thatched Douglas, 74, emphasizes his past contributions to such legislation as social security and federal aid to education. Says Percy, 47: "My opponent views the future through a rearview mirror." The G.O.P. challenger--whose campaign has swiftly recovered momentum lost during a three-week moratorium imposed after the murder of his daughter Valerie in September--comes down hard on the immediate, largely non-ideological issues. Percy emphasizes inflation, tight money and racial disorders, condemns Douglas' you-never-had-it-so-good refrain as "materialistic," and largely untrue; last week Percy launched a four-day whistle-stop train trip through downstate areas.

This week the Chicago Sun-Times's poll gave Percy 57% to Douglas' 43%. The spread may narrow considerably as Chicago's Democratic wardheelers redouble their efforts, but Percy exudes confidence that he will no longer be unemployed after Nov. 8.

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