MPR News Feature; George McGovern campaigns in Duluth

Senator George McGovern brought his presidential campaign to Duluth and superior today in a tightly scheduled hour and 15 minute happening that included hand shaking with some of the 200 or so supporters who turned out at the Duluth airport and rubbing elbows with truckers and grain elevator workers at the Farmer's Union elevator in superior. The whole affair had a maid especially for the media flavor which is perhaps unavoidable for a presidential candidate who is accompanied by a jet load of reporters and photographers assigned for the duration of the campaign and also picks up an entourage of local and regional communications types wherever he goes. Still except for a couple of deliberate forays into the crowd at the Duluth airport McGovern was constantly surrounded by shoulder mounted cameras amplifiers and boom mike which served as a moving barricade often preventing so much as a glimpse of him. On the agenda was a statement to be delivered by McGovern to workers at the superior grain elevator. McGovern in fact spoke only a few words of that statement. And again for the benefit of the cameras strictly speaking it was deliberate However in printed hand-outs fashion that you got from the

girl in the orange coat. If you happen to know that the girl in the orange coat had the releases in the first place. The grain elevators provided an interesting albeit dusty background for film coverage. A railroad car full of green was emptied. A fairly dramatic display in which the car was raised in the air dumped on its side in empty like a sandbox toy. Somebody passed out yellow hard hats presumably as a safety precaution and the assembled crowd loomed like a field of black eyes. There amidst the earthy odor of decomposing green McGovern offered his comments on the USDA negotiated grain sale to Russia. All of us are grateful for the opportunity to now more American grain over the. But the recent deal on wheat and grain with the Soviet Union. Has the bad. Mouth to it as one looks into the application of what happened because the facts are. That grain activator were allowed to make a killing on this

deal at the expense of the American farmer and the American taxpayer. The truth there is that. Tens of millions of dollars have been made by grain speculators that should have gone into the pockets of the people that reduced that drain the American farmer. I think what is needed now is a full investigation of the conditions under which that grain Dale would negotiate. There's something wrong with the Department of Agriculture move in and out of the employee of the United States government and the employ of the private grain company in such a way that they do damage to the engine of the American farmer and the American taxpayer. It pretty much went off like clockwork on schedule and according to the script was only tiny unexpected occurrences like bumping into Teddy White and listening in on a conversation between Frank Mankiewicz and another McGovern staff worker to make the event

seem more than two dimensional. Perhaps that is what is so disturbing a presidential candidate came to town. And even if you were there the show will be a lot better more real when you see it on the tube tonight. This is Claudia daily intimate.