A Party for All
ELECTIONS
Sitting back in a Washington hotel room, Republican National Chairman Ray Bliss smiled the kind of smile that had hardly creased his face in two years. "This press conference," he said, "will be a little different from my first one, when you were asking me if the Republican Party would survive." If that question seemed germane in the wake of Lyndon Johnson's 1964 landslide, it was definitively answered last week. "It looks to me," beamed Bliss, "as if we have a very live elephant."
He--and the elephant--had every reason to trumpet. With a record 56 million voters (48% of all voting-age Americans) casting midterm ballots, the G.O.P. scored solid gains at every level, from state assembly to U.S. Senate. It picked up some 700 seats in the state legislatures, more than erasing the 529-seat loss of two years ago. Having lost 38 House seats in the Goldwater debacle, the Republicans scored a net gain of 47, their best showing in two decades and a marked improvement over the average off-year pickup of 38 seats for "out" parties during the past half century. The G.O.P. won three additional Senate seats and made major inroads in the gubernatorial races. With an overall gain of eight governorships, the Republicans now take possession of 25 of the nation's 50 statehouses--and could even make it 26 if their candidate eventually wins Georgia's disputed election.
Among the seven most populous states, Republican Governors were elected in all but Illinois and Texas, now hold the top spot in California, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan, which between them have 159 of the 270 electoral votes needed to pick the next President. Moving to establish itself as the party of all the people, the G.O.P. made deep inroads in the historically sacrosanct Democratic strongholds--the cities--with significant gains in New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Detroit, Chicago, and Los Angeles.
Back from the Brink. The Republican recovery was the most dramatic since 1938. Then, after Franklin Roosevelt's unprecedented sweep in 1936 had given the Democrats fantastically bloated congressional majorities--333 to 89 in the House, 75 to 17 in the Senate--the G.O.P. rebounded and recaptured 80 seats in the House and six in the Senate. The 1964 Goldwater rout left the G.O.P. on the short end of a 295-to-140 count in the House and a 67-to-33 margin in the Senate. Dick Nixon overstated the case only slightly when he warned: "This is the year the Republican Party either goes up or goes out."
The victory did more than pull the G.O.P. back from the brink. It reestablished an effective opposition in Congress, giving the two-party system some badly needed adrenalin. It also erased the Goldwater image of a narrow, negative clique, replacing it with the vision of a cohesive, inclusive party broad enough to encompass men as ideologically diverse as New York's Nelson Rockefeller on the left and California's Ronald Reagan on the right. It is broad enough, too, not only for a polished politician with the all-American looks of Oregon's Senator Mark Hatfield or a self-made millionaire like Illinois' Senator Charles Percy, but also for the first popularly elected Negro Senator in U.S. history, Massachusetts' Edward Brooke*: for the son of Greek immigrants, Maryland's Governor Spiro Agnew; a devout Italian Catholic, Massachusetts' Governor John Volpe; and the son of a Basque shepherd, Nevada's Governor Paul Laxalt.
The election, said Washington's articulate Republican Governor Daniel Evans, gave the party a "very, very broad base." From this base, the G.O.P. hopes to catapult its candidate into the White House two years from now. That is quite a remarkable ambition, in view of the party's recent and desperate shortage of attractive national candidates. Suddenly, Bliss sees "a refreshing number of names," most of them belonging to moderates with immoderate ambitions. "The tremendous victories of all the potential presidential candidates confuse the 1968 picture a bit," said Nebraska's Republican National Committeeman Don Ross, adding: "It's a helluva nice way to be confused." Lyndon Johnson, who looked invincible after his record 16-million-vote margin of two years ago, now appears decidedly vulnerable.
Pulverized Prestige. Stunned by the G.O.P. showing, the Democrats reacted with initial incredulity. "I imagine it's a sort of standoff," said Democratic National Chairman John Bailey. Vice President Hubert Humphrey, his coattails shredded and his prestige pulverized by a near-total G.O.P. sweep in his home state of Minnesota, was more candid. "Misery loves company," he said, "and we've got it."
The President remained unwontedly silent for a day at his ranch, where he is resting for this week's scheduled surgery, then decided on a philosophic approach. "I would be less than frank if I didn't tell you that I am sorry we lost any Democratic seats," he said. The losses "somewhat exceeded" his expectations, he continued, and would make it "more difficult for any new legislation." But he noted, with unusual magnanimity, that perhaps it was a good thing after all "to see a healthy and competent existence of the two-party system."
While a President's impact on a midterm election is always hard to assess, Johnson could hardly absolve himself of blame for the Democrats' reverses. His performance the week before the elections was probably the least attractive of any during his three years in office. He trotted Defense Secretary Robert McNamara out to announce a pre-election draft cut that struck many a voter as a blatantly political move. He issued favorable economic figures to blunt the inflation issue (Pollster Lou Harris reported afterward that it had proved a particularly injurious factor for the Democrats nonetheless). He took a savage swipe at Nixon, thereby giving the "chronic campaigner" a boost that may find its way into the history books. And, in denying that he had been planning a last-minute blitz of twelve to 15 states, Johnson advertised his lack of veracity to millions who were even then preparing for his visit.
As it turned out, Johnson probably spared his prestige a painful blow by retreating to Texas instead of going out politicking. Save for Montana, where Senator Lee Metcalf won the only major race, Democrats suffered serious defeats in every state that the President had planned to visit. Even in Texas, Republican Senator John Tower crushed Democrat Waggoner Carr. According to a gag making the Washington rounds. "Lyndon had his operation--on Tuesday."
End of Consensus. To G.O.P. Chair man Bliss, the "acid test" for Republicans came at the bottom--the state legislature races. Previously, the party had outright control of only five state chambers; now it controls 17, shares control with the Democrats in eight others. Nationally, a key G.O.P. target was the group of 48 Democratic freshman Representatives who had won traditionally Republican seats in 1964; only 21 survived. By slashing Johnson's 155-vote Democratic cushion to 61, the Republicans actually deprived him of an effective majority, since some 90 Democratic Representatives are Southerners whose allegiance to the party program is highly selective. Thus, he has even less room to maneuver than John F. Kennedy had after 1962; though the election that year left him with an 83-vote majority, Kennedy's last days were plagued by a curmudgeonly, uncooperative Congress.
Without doubt, the more conservative cast of the 90th Congress will force Johnson to abandon any remaining hope of consensus politics--which, paradoxically, could work to his advantage. With his craving for universal approval, the President sought to please everybody at once, a feat that seemed almost possible with his huge congressional majority. Now, forced into a more partisan position by a reinvigorated opposition, he will have to risk offending one group or another, and though this may cost him some legislative battles, he might win back some esteem at the same time.
Performance First. Significant as its gains in the House may be, the G.O.P.'s future hopes rest, in all likelihood, on its victorious Senators and Governors. With 30 G.O.P. seats in contention at the two levels, the party lost only two, the supposedly safe statehouses in Maine, where Kenneth Curtis ousted twice-elected Republican Governor John Reed, and in Kansas, where Democrat Robert Docking parlayed petulance over a $54 million tax boost into an upset over Governor William Avery. While the party was successfully defending its other 13 governorships and 15 Senate seats, it wrested ten statehouses and three Senate seats from Democratic hands. Most significantly, the rich harvest of victories gave the party a whole new cast of charismatic personalities--along with a few old ones that were newly rejuvenated by success.
Six of them stand out in particular--a trio of Governors who personify the party's diversity, and a senatorial threesome whose pragmatic, performance-first philosophies promise to infuse new vigor into the undermanned G.O.P. Senate wing.
Triple Mainstream. Among the Governors, New York's NELSON ROCKEFELLER, 58, scored the most sensational upset. Six months ago his popularity was at an alltime low. He insisted nonethe less on running for a third term. "Why do you do it?" one of his brothers asked him. During the campaign, most polls seemed to justify the fraternal concern.
On election night, Democratic Challenger Frank O'Connor dined on Oysters Rockefeller, but battling Nelson savored a more sumptuous dish. He won by 400,000 votes in a four-sided race, scoring so impressive a victory that a newsman asked whether he still planned to honor his pledge not to seek the presidency again. "Yes sir," replied Rocky. "Unequivocally." What he does aim to do is "to play a role" in 1968 to further "the basic mainstream thinking" in the G.O.P.: he wants to help nominate a moderate or a liberal. He has not for gotten the thunderous catcalls from the Goldwater gallery at San Francisco's Cow Palace in 1964, and he is determined to prevent the conservatives from capturing the party again. "I stood up to them once, you know. I tell you, we can really stand up to them this time." "Them" this time means Reagan, and when he was asked last week about his differences with the California conservative, Rockefeller said with a grin: "Well, we're on the same ballot, although we're pretty far apart . . . (Pause, grinning) . . . geographically."
Ideologically too. But RONALD REAGAN, 55, has been moving toward the middle ever since he announced his candidacy and has been trying to prove that, unlike Barry Goldwater, he can be a kind of ecumenical conservative. After the 1964 election, he bitterly denounced Republicans who failed to support Goldwater as "traitors"--an appellation that included, among others, Rockefeller, Brooke, Michigan's Governor George Romney, Senator Jacob Javits of New York and Clifford Case of New Jersey. But after his nearly 1,000,000-vote victory last week, Reagan emphasized "how foolish it is to be separated by labels, how much we really have in common." Reagan may also have been somewhat sobered by the fact that his moderate running mate for Lieutenant Governor, Robert Finch, Nixon's 1960 campaign manager, ran nearly 100,000 votes ahead of him and that the Democrats won control of both houses of the state legislature--though by reduced majorities.
What surely will temper Reagan is the job he will take on next January. The task of running the most populous state in the Union, accommodating the 1,000 new arrivals who pour in daily, satisfying California's insatiable demands for more schools, roads, hospitals and--not least--water, demands an activist Governor. However great the momentum of past programs, the impetus of growth in such states as New York and California has invariably proved greater. Actually, though he has promised to cut back on wasteful state programs, Reagan admits that his "creative society" will not come cheap.
Situated between Rockefeller -and Reagan--geographically as well as ideologically--is Michigan's GEORGE ROMNEY. A powerful speaker, Romney tirelessly emphasizes the Democrats' "destructive centralism," urges Republicans to begin "revitalizing state and local governments," but so far has had little to say on most national and international issues. Though he was expected to win a third term, few experts anticipated the extent of his victory. Before the election, Wisconsin's Melvin Laird, chairman of the House Republican Conference, observed cagily that to become a serious presidential contender, Romney would not only have to win reelection by a heavy margin but would also have to carry G.O.P. Senator Robert Griffin and a couple of doubtful Congressmen in with him.
Romney surpassed even that herculean task. He amassed a 570,000-vote plurality, pulled Griffin in despite a formidable challenge from former six-term Governor G. Mennen ("Soapy") Williams, helped return five Republican underdogs to Congress, was instrumental in establishing G.O.P. control over the state senate and a tie in the previously Democratic house. The scope of his sweep, which did much to allay Republican suspicions of Romney as a lone wolf, thrust him into the forefront among presidential candidates.
"Creative Moderate." Of the party's senatorial winners, none is likely to command more attention than Massachusetts' EDWARD BROOKE, 47, who once described himself as "a Protestant in a Catholic state, a Republican in a Democratic state and a Negro in a Caucasian state." He professes to be weary of hearing himself called "the first Negro this or the highest Negro that"--though he is certain to hear a lot more of it. "If I did confine myself to Negro problems," he says, "there would hardly ever be another Negro elected to public office except from a Negro ghetto, and justly so."
Brooke considers himself a "creative moderate," explains that he is "a liberal in civil rights and a conservative in fiscal matters." Strikingly handsome, with extremely light skin and hazel eyes, he is uncertain of his distant ancestry. "We never knew what we were," his Virginia-born mother says. After a middle-class upbringing in Washington's Brookland section (his father was a Veterans Administration lawyer), Brooke found himself in a nebulous no man's land between the white and Negro worlds; consequently, he is a reserved, often remote individual--despite his reputation as a formidable ladies' man. He married Remigia Ferrari-Scacco, an Italian girl, whom he met as a captain in the 366th Infantry Regiment, a Negro outfit, during World War II, has two daughters--one a blonde. Remigia's engaging Italian accent ("I think I never lose that," she says), helped him win a good share of Massachusetts' big Italian vote.
Brooke, who trounced ex-Governor Endicott Peabody by 436,000 votes, campaigned on the idea that "we can't have the so-called Great Society until we have the 'Responsible Society'--the society where it's more profitable to work than not to work. You don't help a man by constantly giving him more handouts." Though he complained at one point that he was "tired of hearing about backlash, and sidelash, and any other kind of lash" during the campaign, he was acutely aware of the impact it could have had--but did not--on his candidacy. "A vote for me is a vote against Stokely Carmichael," he said. "Civil rights cannot be obtained through the sword and bloodshed."
"Problem Solver." Like Brooke, Illinois' CHARLES PERCY eschews confining labels, prefers to call himself simply an "activist" and a "problem solver." The G.O.P., he says, should be "a party of proposition rather than opposition. My desire is always to have a plan that you're for, instead of getting preoccupied with being against." To three-term Democratic Senator Paul Douglas, 74, Percy was a "blank-check" candidate whose views were a mystery. Yet Percy pulled steadily ahead, won additional sympathy votes after his daughter, Valerie, 21, was slain in September in a still unsolved murder, and wound up with a 400,000-vote majority to spearhead a spectacular Republican comeback in the Midwest.
Percy, a Christian Scientist who became president of Bell & Howell at 29, saw his political ambitions sidetracked when he lost a bid for the governorship in 1964--though he ran 334,000 votes ahead of Goldwater. Now they are very much back on the track. Now Percy is a tougher, more urbane stumper than he was during his first campaign, when he projected a somewhat bland Boy Scout image.
Because of his dovelike Viet Nam stand and a 5-to-4 edge in Democratic registration, Oregon's MARK HATFIELD, 44, had the toughest fight of the three, but emerged with 52% of the vote against Democrat Robert Duncan. Hatfield got himself into a hole at the beginning of his campaign by emphasizing his opposition to the war and by becoming the only dissenter from a pro-Administration resolution on Viet Nam at the Governors' Conference in July. "Any man who gauges his political viewpoints on where the votes are and who lets his career plans get in the way of his personal integrity--well, that man isn't a leader and he shouldn't win," he argued. His victory, in fact, stemmed less from the Viet Nam issue than from his wide and well-deserved popularity--a rare heritage for a Governor who has been in office for eight years.
Ideologically, Hatfield compares himself to the late Senator Robert A. Taft, "in that he was with the liberals on matters like public housing and aid to education, but was generally conservative." That puts him in much the same mold as Brooke and Romney. So does his emphasis on "self-help"--for individuals as well as governments.
Centrist Tradition. To Pennsylvania's Republican Senator Hugh Scott, the candidates' triumphs marked a restoration of the party's "centrist tradition." It was further cemented by the reelection of such G.O.P. Governors as Rhode Island's John Chafee, Colorado's John Love and South Dakota's Nils A. Boe, and by the emergence of such fresh faces as Arkansas' Winthrop Rockefeller, New Mexico's David Cargo, Pennsylvania's Raymond Shafer and Oregon's Tom McCall, the grandson of a former Massachusetts Governor.
In the Senate, the centrist trend was buttressed still further by Griffin's victory in Michigan, the landslide re-election of New Jersey's Case and Kentucky's John Sherman Cooper, and the upset victory in Tennessee of Howard Baker Jr., 41, over Governor Frank Clement. The first popularly elected Republican to the U.S. Senate in the state's history, Baker stands slightly to the left of his father-in-law, Ev Dirksen. "We must see that the Republican Party is so broadly based," he says, "that it can support widely divergent viewpoints and express 'the majority view.' "
Notwithstanding the G.O.P. gains, there was no overwhelming tide for either the conservative or moderate wings of the party. What was evident, instead, was some of the most selective, sophisticated voting in memory. Such was the extent of ticket splitting that Connecticut was the only state in all of New England in which the governorship and both houses of the legislature belonged to the same party. In Virginia, Negro voters gave Senator Harry Byrd Jr. a scant 18% of their votes, but went for Senatorial Candidate William Spong Jr., a racial moderate, by an overwhelming 91% .
The most notable trend was a vague feeling among Americans that after a three-year outpouring of Great Society legislation the time had come to slow down and consolidate. It was less a reaction than a resistance to further grandiose programs, less a change in direction than in tempo. "The people wanted to pause and do a little inventorying," said Reagan. "They've been asking, 'Just where are we going?' " Democrats agreed. New York Senator Robert Kennedy acknowledged: "Some parts of the country want to go slower than others." Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield conceded that the time had come for Congress to do some "tightening up" of the programs that he helped enact. Slowdown sentiment is certain to make itself felt the first time Congress is asked to fund an expensive foreign-aid or domestic program. "I should judge," said Dirksen, "that the scalpel will be wielded rather freely."
Rare Coalition. Neither of the issues that many observers considered pivotal --the "white backlash" and Viet Nam --had a profound effect on voting patterns. Of 25 Congressmen threatened by the backlash, according to a Congressional Quarterly survey, 17 emerged as winners, including Ohio's Republican William McCulloch, who played a major role in getting the 1964 Civil Rights Bill through the House. In
Georgia, Alabama and Florida, where Conservative Claude Kirk Jr. became the first Republican Governor in more than 90 years by borrowing George Mahoney's slogan, "Your Home Is Your Castle," backlash is hardly a suitable term; the racism was always there, needed no Negro demonstration to stir it up.
In two key contests, the race issue had a partial but by no means decisive influence. Reagan was helped in California by white reactions to riots in San Francisco and to open-housing laws, but he owed his election primarily to his "time-for-a-change" theme, his charismatic personality and skillful oratory. Though he advocated open-housing legislation, Chuck Percy profited both from white indignation over last summer's Negro demonstrations in Chicago and from Negro resentment over their sluggish progress under a Democratic city machine. But his real margin of victory was the contrast between his youthful activism and Paul Douglas' image of a well-meaning man who should have retired.
The backlash, said Urban League Executive Director Whitney Young, "did not materialize as much as many people had anticipated. American citizens, when the chips are down, prefer to vote their intelligence and good sense rather than their prejudices." In many races, in fact, there was something of a Negro "frontlash." Winthrop Rockefeller became the first Republican to win Arkansas' governorship by capturing 80% of the Negro vote--which turned out to be his margin of victory. South Carolina Democrat Ernest ("Fritz") Rollings' 10,000-vote margin for a U.S. Senate seat came mostly from Negro votes. In Maryland, Republican Agnew beat Mahoney on the votes of poor Negroes, upper-income Jews and Government workers from nearby Washington.
Fading Blue Collars. A major--perhaps decisive--factor in the G.O.P. resurgence was the fact that National Chairman Bliss's "cities strategy" was beginning to pay off. During the campaign, he conducted more than 50 "big-city workshops" for precinct chairmen, followed them up with personal inspection tours. "It isn't necessary for us to carry the big cities to win statewide," said Bliss, "but let's reduce the losses."
The party certainly did that. Rockefeller cut the 1962 Democratic margin in New York from 203,000 to 65,000, carried three of the city's five boroughs. In Boston, Volpe turned a 52,000-vote Democratic bulge four years ago into an 11,000-vote Republican lead. Romney reduced the Democrats' 1962 Detroit margin from 207,000 to a niggardly 37,000. Most sensational of all was Los Angeles, where Brown won by 111,000 in 1962's gubernatorial election and lost by 135,000 last week.
In part, the shifting urban vote is a result of the slow, steady erosion of the coalition of ethnic minorities, Negroes and intellectuals that F.D.R. forged 34 years ago. Negro militancy has siphoned off much support from urban Italians, Irish and Slavs. The war has disenchanted many intellectuals. Of greater concern to the Democrats is their fading appeal to the blue-collar vote, once their mainstay. California's Brown, who had the support of labor leaders but lost the rank-and-file vote, noted: "Workers used to ask about workmen's compensation and disability insurance. Not this time. The workers have become aristocrats, and when they become aristocrats, they become Republicans."
Puff, Puff. The Democrats were hurt further by intraparty squabbling in several states and by many of their candidates' stodginess on the stump. Both were once G.O.P. trademarks.
The G.O.P. congressional candidates (average age: 47.3) were mostly younger than their Democratic counterparts (49.6)--and they acted younger. While Soapy Williams reminisced about the New Deal in Michigan, Griffin cut rock-'n'-roll records for teenagers. In Illinois, Hubert Humphrey inadvertently underscored the generational gap between the Democratic and Republican styles in the senatorial campaign when he said, "The Senate without Paul Douglas would be like show business without Jimmy Durante"--who, at 73, now uses Old Man Time as a theme song. To the delight of Republican audiences in Wilkes-Barre and Philadelphia, outgoing Pennsylvania Governor William Scranton's wife Mary puffed plump cigars, promised to come back and finish the smoke--"regardless of how green I turn"--if they improved their 1962 vote totals. (They didn't.)
By contrast, the Democrats ran notably dull campaigns in New York, Illinois, Michigan and California, committed a few grievous gaffes along the way. None was worse than a scene in the 30-minute campaign film in which Pat Brown was shown telling a little Negro girl: "I'm running against an actor --and remember this: You know who shot Abraham Lincoln, don't you?"
RISE for Romney. The youthful G.O.P. campaigning style was echoed after the election by a new, partywide buoyancy--particularly concerning 1968. As the current front runner, Romney has abandoned his old coyness, last week expressed frank pleasure "that people are talking in those terms." Already, 20 Romney clubs are being formed in states across the nation; in Reagan's backyard, an outfit called RISE (Romney in Sixty-Eight) has begun soliciting Los Angeles businessmen for financial support. Less than 24 hours after his reelection, Romney was on the phone with New York's Rockefeller, Percy, Hatfield and Brooke; Reagan called him to discuss prospects for party unity. Later he flew to Washington to appear on Meet the Press and to confer with veteran G.O.P. strategists.
Romney at this point can count on probable convention support from a host of moderate G.O.P. Governors. Rockefeller urged a Romney-Javits ticket last spring. Colorado's Love, Massachusetts' Volpe, Pennsylvania's Shafer, Wisconsin's Warren Knowles and Rhode Island's Chafee--who sees a possibility of a Romney-Chafee combination--might throw him their convention votes. Vermont's Senator George Aiken states flatly: "I've held that Romney is the most promising man we have. He could win." Among other Republican Senators, New Jersey's Case, Kentucky's John Sherman Cooper, Hawaii's Hiram Fong and Maine's Margaret Chase Smith also are said to favor him.
Yet Romney, after four years in office, is still something of an unknown factor. He looks the part of a President and, as a devout Mormon, is morally about as upright as a candidate can be. But even those who lean toward him are not sure that he has the depth for the job, and some express concern over his tendency toward sanctimoniousness. One gag has an aide telling Romney, as the two emerge from a meeting, "Beautiful day, Governor." Romney's reply: "Thank you." Over the next 20 months, the undecided Republicans will be studying his performance with microscopic care.
"Which End?" The election galvanized a host of potential rivals. First in line: Richard Nixon, who labored mightily for Republican candidates during the campaign, only to be overshadowed when so many attractive new faces won so strongly. Nixon, by contrast, seems an all-too-familiar fixture, a candidate who has not won an election since 1956. He knows the track-perhaps a little better than he should. Asked about the presidential prospects of the party's bright new men, Javits said their chief drawback was that "they haven't been out on the track yet." Nixon's problem was the opposite. Likening him to a race horse, Javits said, "Well, they don't run them till they're two years old, and they rarely run them after they're six or seven." Moreover, as a two-time loser, however narrow the margins, he lacks popular appeal. "Here we are, the party people, just made for Dick Nixon," said an Indiana pro. "But go down the street and ask the people what they think of him. Not so much, I'll bet." Still, Nixon holds several trumps: he has earned the gratitude of hundreds of Republicans over years of doughty campaigning, and in the event of another conservative-moderate clash, he may be the only man acceptable to both sides.
Despite Rockefeller's disclaimers of persisting presidential ambitions, some pros are nervously watching him for signs of a relapse. Percy, yet to serve a day, has an eye on the chairmanship of the G.O.P. Senatorial Campaign Committee--the platform from which Barry Goldwater soared to prominence. Hatfield is also believed to harbor presidential ambitions. Reagan denied having any presidential plans, but did hint that he might go to the convention as a favorite son if there is "a need to avoid a divisive struggle." Since Reagan will be 61 in 1972, he might have to move in 1968 or forget it altogether.
Some pros speak longingly of a Romney-Nixon ticket, or a Romney-Percy ticket, or Romney-Hatfield, or even Romney-Reagan. At the moment none of the prospective running mates would settle for the vice-presidential nomination. The impasse reminded one old hand of the time when Calvin Coolidge asked Senator William Borah if he would join him on the G.O.P. presidential ticket. "Which end?" snapped the stately Senator.
A Prize Worth Winning. Talk of 1968 is, of course, premature. But the very intensity and fervor with which it erupted even before all the ballots were counted was itself a reflection of the G.O.P.'s vastly improved outlook and buoyant spirits. In 1964, the liberal Eastern Establishment's so-called "kingmakers," figuring that the nomination was scarcely worth having against an ebullient, efficient L.B.J., crumbled after putting up a feeble fight against Goldwater. By their reasoning, it was as good a time as any to exorcise the right wing's dream that it could sweep the nation by offering voters "a choice, not an echo." So disastrous was the result that the moderates are unlikely to risk relinquishing the nomination to the conservative wing again without a bruising battle.
Unseating an incumbent President is a formidable challenge, but even so, some newly confident G.O.P. leaders think that the party will prove equal to the task. And who knows--given such volatile ingredients as Viet Nam, the racial crisis, the uncertain economy and the volcanic personality of Lyndon B. Johnson? "The next convention," said an Iowa Republican, "is going to be looking for a man to win an election, not just someone to run a race."
*Two other Negroes, both Reconstruction-era Republicans from Mississippi, were elected by the state legislature. Last to serve was Blanche Kelso Bruce, whose term ended in 1881.
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