Man Enough to Pray

The wind atop Mount Washington is singing "Romney's right!"

The waves that wash New Hampshire's shores are roaring "Romney's right!"

George Romney's right for our country now. We need a man today

Who's tough enough to do what's right, and man enough to pray.

Pray as he might, George Romney last week found the wind nipping off Mount Washington at ten below zero, the waves of voter popularity running 3-to-l in favor of Richard Nixon, and the need to do right as urgent as the lyrics of his new campaign anthem. Whether coursing New Hampshire's icy highways in his cream-colored Dodge camper truck or standing without earmuffs before factory gates, he seemed tough enough for the weather--if not for the competition--in the first primary campaign of the 1968 election.

Romney prides himself on his ability to come from behind, citing his resuscitation of American Motors and his 1962 campaign for Michigan's governorship as cases in point. He will need all of that stern-chasing stamina to overcome Nixon before the March 12 primary.

Computers & Charisma. Though he will avoid a costly electronic assault on 683,000 New Hampshireites--as much because of his stilted speaking style as from the fact that the state has only one TV channel--Romney did challenge Nixon to a debate, which his foe is unlikely to accept. The Michigander also refrained from inundating the state with the traditional gadgetry: only 1,000 bumper stickers have been ordered, along with a few hundred psychedelic posters that show Romney glowing with an inner purple light. Instead, he is depending on a combination of computers and charisma to win.

Directed by David Goldberg, the political strategist who managed Henry Cabot Lodge's 1964 New Hampshire write-in victory, Romney's staff spent three months combing 303 voter lists to locate and analyze the state's 148,000 registered Republicans. The lists were taped and banked in an IBM computer center in New York. At some time during the next six weeks, each G.O.P. registrant will receive a personally signed invitation from Romney to come by and get acquainted.

The meeting place will often as not be one of some 300 "home headquarters"--private dwellings like the white clapboard crackerbox of University of New Hampshire Professor Glendon Gee in Somersworth (pop. 8,900), where Romney last week whizzed in for a 40-minute foray.

Even so, Granite State voters are traditionally suspect of "outlanders." When Romney accosted a woman in a Persian lamb coat in frosty Manchester (pop. 93,700), she peered at him sharply and asked: "Who are you?" "I'm the Governor of the state of Michigan," he replied. She walked away unimpressed. It will require all of George Romney's considerable campaigning skill to overcome that sort of skepticism--and much more vigor to pursue the presidency beyond New Hampshire.

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