Winners and Losers

Even before Nixon's resignation, all Democrats and even some Republicans had good reason to rue the accession of President Ford. Now all that has changed. It will take weeks and months for the full political effects of Ford's presidency to become known, but by last week leading Republicans and Democrats were already busily assessing the post-Nixon political box score, trying to slot the winners and losers.

Since Ford will almost surely run for President in 1976, clear losers were those Republicans who had been cranking up for a run at their party's 1976 presidential nomination. Illinois Senator Charles Percy, a liberal Republican who had already spent about $180,000 campaigning for the top spot on the party's 1976 slate, said that his candidacy has been put "on the back burner and maybe into the deep freeze." Similarly, other leading Republicans who remained untainted while the Watergate scandal was under way have ironically been victimized by the end of the affair. California Governor Ronald Reagan and New York's Nelson Rockefeller have little chance now for 1976. Indeed, it would take a near disaster to drive Ford out and open the door to others.

On the Democratic side, the picture is more complicated. Loyalists of Massachusetts Senator Edward Kennedy insist that their favorite has emerged a winner from the resolution of Watergate. Kennedy, they argue, has the personal magnetism needed to unseat Ford in 1976. "Ford's going to run a personality campaign," says one Democratic strategist, and "I've been hearing people say that Ted's the only candidate we have with a personality strong enough to move people."

Other Democrats agree that Kennedy is most capable of unifying the various elements that can be rallied to the party's side--liberals, the labor unions, big-city ethnics, Catholics, blacks, the Spanish-speaking.

Kennedy supporters argue that he was the most damaged of all Democrats while Watergate was in full and odious bloom, since the sins of Nixon and his men called attention to Kennedy's own clinging scandal-- Chappaquiddick. But, they continue, as Nixon's scandal fades, Kennedy's will fade with it.

It seems likelier for the opposite to take place, however. With Ford as a Mr. Clean in the White House, Republicans have no reason to allow Chappaquiddick to fade into obscurity--"Nobody drowned in Watergate," says one nasty bumper sticker. Even many Democrats question the wisdom of electing another morally tarnished candidate to the presidency just after getting rid of Nixon. As Reporter Robert Sherrill recently showed in a devastating New York Times Magazine article, there remain many unanswered questions about the Chappaquiddick incident, including Kennedy's public explanation of it, that are bound to haunt a Kennedy run for the presidency.

These doubts about Kennedy may help other Democratic hopefuls, especially Washington's Henry Jackson. "Scoop's" conservatism in foreign policy areas--he favors large defense spending and is ultracautious on detente--may make him appealing to a part of Ford's natural constituency. His liberalism in economic matters could prove attractive to voters, especially if Ford does poorly in the fight against inflation. But Jackson, who does his homework and is known as an "issues man," often overstresses his issues. Besides, he is dull. It is hard to see him overcoming either the Kennedy charisma or Ford's open charm.

In general, Democrats are suffering because they have lost their principal platform: anti-Nixonism. While they enjoyed gleeful unity as long as Watergate flourished, its resolution now exposes the deep conflicts and divisions that plague a party encompassing both George Wallace on the right and George McGovern on the left.

The biggest political beneficiary of the entire Watergate tragedy could well turn out to be some horse too dark to be seen just now. The Democrats are well aware that any of their current major candidates would alienate some sectors of the party. A new star--a Reubin Askew of Florida, a John Gilligan of Ohio, a Wendell Anderson of Minnesota --might just be kicked up by the need for a fresh face. This possibility makes it important for Kennedy to decide early on his own plans. As long as he waffles over running for the presidency himself, less well known candidates will have a hard time making a bid.

Some dramatic effects of the Watergate climax will surely appear in the upcoming congressional elections. The Democrats are likely to pick up two or three Senate seats this November. But some Republican senatorial hopefuls have been given new life by Nixon's resignation. Among them:

> Senator Robert Dole of Kansas, former Republican national chairman. "He spent the first two years of Nixon trying to convince the people back home that he was the President's right hand man," says one Midwesterner. "He spent the last two years trying to convince them he never saw the guy." Free of the Nixon incubus, Dole's dilemma is ended. His opponent, Congressman William Roy, has been attacking him for being close to the former President. That attack has been blunted by Nixon's resignation, and Dole's chances of holding his seat in Republican Kansas have been enhanced accordingly.

> Senator Marlow Cook of Kentucky, who faced an uphill fight for reelection against popular Democratic Governor Wendell Ford. A few weeks ago, the race was felt to be lopsided in Ford's favor. The Governor had effectively linked Cook to Nixon. But now, as one local G.O.P. official, Jack Will, puts it, "People will be voting on the candidates themselves." If Cook gets a campaign visit from President Ford, it is possible that the tide could swing his way.

> Senator Richard Schweiker of Pennsylvania in his tight struggle with his Democratic opponent Pittsburgh Mayor Pete Flaherty. A liberal who was on the White House "enemies" list, Schweiker has been handicapped by the G.O.P. Administration in Washington. But despite President Ford's conservatism, relations between the new Administration and Schweiker are friendly and cooperative; a new campaign vigor and a spirit of optimism in the Schweiker camp have been immediate results.

Similarly in the House, political bookmakers have already drastically reduced their dire forecasts of a Republican slaughter. There are likely to be some unseated Republicans, while several strong G.O.P. Congressmen retired rather than face the voters in the midst of the Watergate imbroglio. But estimates of losses, which ran as high as 80 or 100, have been scaled back down to 20 or 30. Among those favored by Nixon's resignation are the Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee who voted for impeachment--like Railsback of Illinois and Butler of Virginia. Nixon defenders like Sandman and Maraziti, both of New Jersey, who switched after Nixon's confessional tapes were released on Aug. 5, have similarly been protected from adverse conservative Republican fallout by the ex-President's resignation.

Says Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter, the Democrats' National Campaign Committee chairman: "Gerald Ford's assumption of the presidency will result in the election of about 15 Republican Congressmen who might not have made it if the impeachment process had continued." Carter emphasizes that no Democrats wanted to keep Nixon in office for the sake of gaining seats. Still, they know that his departure from the White House will enable Republicans to avoid calamity. As one Carter aide somewhat wistfully puts it: In the narrowest partisan terms, some Democrats "would have preferred to see Nixon twisting slowly, slowly, in the wind."

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