EDITORIAL

...EDITORIALS CANDIDATE FORD The presidential race is more than a year away, but President Ford is already off and running hard, and apparently not even an assassination attempt is going to be allowed to cut down on his campaigning...

...Some people just aren't afraid of historical parallels at all.at all...

...President Ford is creating a highly conservative image now, they fear, which will be hard to shake after his nomination is assured by what is, after all, a minority party...

...Ford has not been doing justice to his own "compassionate nature...

...Ford may have a com-passionate nature, but when he calls for a governmental retreat in every area except military spending, the record indicates that this is not just a question of emphasis...

...This could ruin Mr...

...But as speech after speech makes plain, Mr...

...No one expects Mr...

...Indeed, in his recent addresses, said Senator Clifford P. Case of New Jersey, Mr...

...Ford has sounded the same note over and over again...

...Senator Case is no doubt at least partially right...

...It is hard to believe in this day and age, but Mr...

...It's a matter of emphasis," Senator Case said after seeing the President...

...Ford should consider these states, said the Republican moderates, rather than aim his campaign at small states with very conservative views...

...he speaks from the heart...

...emphasis is important in a campaign...

...Ford that the conservative tone of his recent utterances could win him his party's nomination but cost him the electoral votes of crucial industrial states next year...

...As he pledged to an audience of hardware merchants in the midwest, his aim is to "get the federal government out of your business, out of your lives, out of your pockets and out of your hair...

...Ford really stands for, however, there can really be very little doubt, at least in the minds of those who look at his long and consistent record in the House of Representatives...

...Ford's chances in their states, the GOP moderates told him, and they reminded him that they represented a total of 187 out of the 270 elec-toral votes needed to win the presidency...

...Why he is doing it, though, is the ques-tion...

...Once he gets the nomination locked up, this thesis goes, the President will moderate his Adam Smith line and make an appeal to voters outside the Republican party's right wing...

...Ford may shift ground as he goes along, but so far his basic theme is clear: the assertion that the federal government's role is primarily in the area of national defense and that its part should be minimized or eliminated in all others...

...Ford can bring the hardware merchants to their feet whistling and applauding with a promise to "cut big government down to size," but those out of work and those worried about their jobs far outnumber the hardware sellers, and they are unlikely to vote for a do-nothing President...

...There was a feeling in our group," said one, "that the President is secure in his efforts to get the nomination, and does not have to move too far to the right...

...To a great degree, this is what campaigning is all about...

...To the basic ques-tion of what Mr...

...Why then is Gerald Ford taking the line he is...

...Ford hankers after the pre-New Deal days when any substantial governmental role in economic life was rejected out of hand...

...In the light of all this, there is an inescapable note of irony in the GOP choice for its con-vention of Kansas City, a town where they last met in 1928 when they nominated Herbert Hoover...

...With the nation perhaps just beginning to emerge from a serious recession and with unemployment still at a distress-ingly high rate, it seems an incredible game plan, but Mr...

...This seems to be the analysis of the moderate Republican Senators who warned Mr...

...Some argue that Mr...

...Ford is following the conservative road in order to undercut Ronald Reagan's appeal to GOP conservatives...

...If such statements simply meant a desire to cut excessive bureaucratic interference, no one could reasonably object...

...Ford to alter his basic views, it was emphasized, but he should try to relate his views to citi-zens who have not embraced traditional Republican con-servatism...

...Ford seems committed to seek a full four-year term on a tired old platform of laissez faire...