Counting Blessings

THE PRESIDENCY

In any off-year election, the influence a President may bring to bear on local contests is always a great imponderable.

Still, Lyndon Johnson intends to exert all the influence at his command to re pay Democrats who have done their best to support his Great Society programs. This week, with a Labor Day speech in Detroit, the President sets out in earnest on a campaign trail that will carry him to all 50 states before Nov. 8.

"Don't Forget Us." Whatever the polls may say about his popularity, the President's fellow Democrats are anx ious to have him drop in. When word got out of his visit to Detroit, ten Michigan Democrats asked him to speak in their congressional districts. California's embattled Governor Edmund ("Pat") Brown has invited him out West at least three times, on one occasion said imploringly, "Don't forget us." High on the priority list for presidential visits are 48 districts where freshmen Democrats who were swept into office in the 1964 landslide are struggling to keep constituents from reverting to their traditionally Republican voting ways. Johnson, for example, plans to lend a particular hand to Iowa's six Democratic Congressmen.

While he is helping out local candidates, the President also expects to do himself some good by polishing his image as a campaigner. He is anxious to prove that, despite a general feeling of neutrality toward him, he can still draw big crowds and pull in votes.

When he goes on the stump, the President certainly has one banner that he can--and does--wave effectively: the considerable accomplishments of his Administration. He repeatedly harks back to the gloomy days of the '30s, reminding his audiences that the problems of prosperity are infinitely preferable to those of depression. Again and again, he tells listeners that they never had it so good, and he unabashedly counts America's--and his--blessings in his speeches. "We have many problems," he says, "but there is not a nation in the world that I would want to trade problems with. We have more people working at better jobs, with better homes and better health and better education, than live under any other flag in any other land, and we ought to be thankful for it."

Don't Rock the Boat. To challenge the President, the G.O.P. has neither a figure of sufficient national stature nor an issue that is sufficiently foolproof. "Viet Nam, inflation, high interest, violence--these are the issues of 1966," cries House Republican Leader Gerald Ford, but the fact is that local issues will probably overshadow all of them. Further, the President is taking extreme pains not to rock the boat with any overly controversial decisions before Election Day. In this situation, G.O.P. leaders privately concede that they stand scant chance of recovering the 38 House seats they lost in the '64 Donnybrook, figure they would be doing well to score a net gain of 30 or 35, plus one or two in the Senate.

Up to now, Lyndon Johnson's trips, including a weekend sortie to dedicate a dam in Summersville, W. Va., and to help Dallastown, Pa., celebrate its centennial, have been touted as nonpolitical and paid for out of taxes. But the bill for his frankly partisan visit to Detroit is being footed by the Democratic National Committee, as will be the bill for the rest of his trips through the fall. From now on, it will be a purely partisan performance--and the President's presence is certain to lend an air of excite ment to local contests and to give a valuable fillip to the candidates who trail in his wake.

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