Revving Up

The New Hampshire primary, first chicane of the 1968 political grand prix, is still three months off, but already Michigan's Governor George Romney, the G.O.P.'s only major official entrant to date, is coughing and sputtering. Last week, revving up inexorably for a January announcement of his candidacy, Richard Nixon moved into the unenviable spot of "the man to beat."

In New Hampshire, State Republican Chairman John Palazzi reported Nixon leading Romney by as much as 3 to 1. In Wisconsin, which will hold the nation's second primary April 2, polls show the former Vice President leading Romney by some ten percentage points.

Nixon's current ascendancy is based partly upon an absence of new declarations in the G.O.P. ranks. Nelson Rockefeller, whom top Democrats regard as the most formidable threat to Lyndon Johnson next year, professes with diminishing credibility that he is not interested in being President. More important, Nixon has gained widespread acquiescence to the idea of his candidacy. Party leaders, many of them indebted to Nixon for his herculean campaign labors, have come to view him as an acceptable candidate who at least would not sunder the party as Barry Goldwater did three years ago--even though some doubt that he could win.

Image to Shuck. To try to shuck his loser's image, Nixon hopes for accelerating primary triumphs in New Hampshire, Wisconsin, Oregon and Nebraska. His aides say that he may also enter other state primaries against favorite-son Republicans. Nixon forces are banking, optimistically, on a first-or second-ballot victory at the convention.

Last week, in a bid for broad party support and accord with the Republicans' Eastern Establishment, Nixon turned up at a Manhattan fundraising dinner that amassed some $300,000 for New York's liberal Senator Jacob Javits--the first official New York G.O.P. function that Nixon has attended since moving there four years ago from California. While Rockefeller and New York Mayor John Lindsay listened with fixed smiles, Nixon warmly endorsed Javits for re-election next year. Ironically, the potentially most powerful bloc in the G.O.P. is musclebound. Twenty-four of the nation's 26 Republican Governors, ending a conference in Palm Beach last week, failed to unite behind any one candidate--although as many as 15 or 20 of them favor Rockefeller.

The Governors also ran into stubborn resistance from the congressional wing of the party over the 1968 G.O.P. platform. They demanded that a moderate from their ranks be made co-chairman of the platform committee, serving on a par with the almost certain congressional spokesman, Illinois' Senator Everett Dirksen. Wisconsin's Melvin Laird, chairman of the House Republican Conference and the conservative who chaired the 1964 platform committee, rejected the Governors' overtures, leaving unsettled what the tone of the 1968 G.O.P. platform will be and the kind of candidate who will be chosen to run on it.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.