Following the Electorate

...Why does Nixon think he can get away with appeals and strategies which served the party so poorly four years ago...

...In return for some 11th hour Southern comfort, he promised that he would select a running mate "acceptable to all," and specifically not one who was objectionable to the South...

...it is something people long for in 1968, and to millions of concerned Americans, it takes priority over the social recommendations of the Kerner Commission...

...To the citizens of Newark and Detroit, Chicago and Los Angeles, it is something very different now that it has broken out in their streets...

...In Miami, rather than taking credit for the Republican role in passing Federal open-housing legislation, he acted like he was ashamed of it...

...By embracing Thurmond and his followers so lasciviously, Nixon has again written off the Negro vote and perhaps much of the urban vote (to say nothing of the pro-pornography vote...

...As it was, he ignored them to almost the same extent that Goldwater ignored them when he selected William Miller in '64...

...Nixon was old hat...

...Rather than risk the traumatic ideologioal split of 1964, everyone gave up something this year...

...George Wallace could hardly have done more...

...Nixon did not arouse their passions, but they were confident that he would not get carried away with any despotic schemes to coddle criminals or share the wealth...

...That is a harsh judgment, but the evidence from Miami is pretty compelling...

...Nixon seems quite willing to follow the electorate rather than lead it between now and the election...

...At a convention where the Nixon forces preached unity ad infinitum ad nauseum, the pretense was promptly abandoned the moment the Presidential nomination was secured...

...Perhaps he doesn't...

...And yet Nixon has started off his campaign in much the same vein...

...At least they thought so until Nixon sprung Spiro Agnew on them...

...Not only is he counting on the suburbs, small towns and rural areas, but he may be anticipating the long-heralded backlash vote in the big cities...

...And by picking him rather than one •of the more logical moderate possibilities, Nixon seemed to reject the moderate wing of his own party...

...But one senses that, instead, he may try to exploit and inflame the widespread anxieties, especially the dark racial fears...

...He told the convention what he thought it wanted to hear...

...Nixon clearly recognizes these emotions, and there is still time for him to respond to them in a constructive way...

...Or Nixon may be planning a slightly muted Goldwater campaign because he, like many other observers, believes that a conservative tide has come in since '64...

...This automatically eliminated most of the Northern liberals, all doves, and other assorted bleeding hearts...

...In a year when it had an extraordinary opportunity to outshine the opposition, the gop settled for cautious mediocrity...

...Lindsay smacked of the idealist...

...Lindsay would cover that weakness...

...Conspicuous by their absence were Senators Brooke, Kuchel, Case, Scott, Percy, Hatfield, Javits, Cooper or Morton...

...Nixon was the old pro...

...Whether or not the party as a whole —and especially its nominee?learned anything at all remains open to question...

...Whatever his reasons for selecting Agnew, Nixon may have miscalculated in more ways than one...

...While they listened politely to a moderate keynoter, accepted amiably enough a moderate platform, and did not boo a modicum of rhetoric aimed at the black, the poor and the young, their hearts plainly belonged to the likes of Goldwater (who gave a speech he could have used profitably four years ago), Max Rafferty, Reagan and John Wayne...

...For instance, at the early morning discussions of the Vice Presidency, Senate Republicans were represented by such conservative stalwarts as Karl Mundt, Roman Hruska, the once and future Senator Goldwater, Thurmond, George Murphy, Dirksen and Tower...

...Agnew, on the other hand, gives every sign of becoming a number one flunky in the classic Humphrey tradition...

...Not only did many delegates think that he was just the right man to run with Nixon, but much of Nixon's staff thought so too...

...Not only did Nixon reject this thesis, but he bestowed Thurmond with greater prestige than he has ever enjoyed before as a Republican...

...Law and order" is not merely a good political applause line...

...and despite public disclaimers, Lindsay would have accepted the designation...

...The Negro revolution was one thing when it was confined to lunch counters in the South...

...Small wonder that Phyllis Schlafly, John Tower and Strom Thurmond all saw fit to vote for Richard Nixon on the first ballot...

...the selection of Lindsay would indicate that the Presidential nominee approached the war with an open mind...

...Nixon was considered weak on/in the cities...

...The convention bypassed Rockefeller because most Republican professionals hate his guts, and it bypassed some of the exciting young moderates because the delegates thought they could get away with—win with?one of their own...

...Following the Electorate By Robert Sandoz Washington At the 1968 Republican National Convention, the party's conservative wing proved that it had learned its lessons well in 1964...

...Thanks to Goldwater's '64 successes in the Deep South, the conservatives came to Miami Beach with disproportionate strength...

...While talking compromise and negotiation some of the time, he gave a tough, escalation-like talk in the Southern caucus, and his acceptance speech included a hard, demagogic line on the Pueblo...

...In 1964, Goldwater was rejected massively at least in part for his lukewarm civil rights stand, his presumed indifference to the large industrial states of the East, his hostility to the Supreme Court, and his militaristic approach in the nuclear age...

...In their searching postmortem of the '64 Republican disaster (The Party That Lost Its Head), George Gilder and Bruce Chapman wrote: "The national party should be outspokenly pro-civil rights and fiercely inhospitable to segregationists, including seated officeholders and their chief spokesman, Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina...

...Of course, John Lindsay was considered ideal by many delegates...

...More critical than any political blunder involved in the selection of Spiro Agnew is a larger question: It is fair to ask—as many will in the next two months—if by potentially placing a man of limited experience and unproven ability that proverbial heartbeat away from the Presidency, Nixon sold out the country in Miami Beach...

...3. Nixon thinks he can lick Humphrey on his own...

...Most of them—and the press?had been encouraged to believe that Nixon would choose his Vice President from among the new crop of "glamor boys" (as he referred to them with some disdain the night he was making his decision...

...They got a Presidential nominee whose public pronouncements could be interpreted as loosely as scripture, and who in private massaged their sensitivities on the Supreme Court, the Attorney General, looting, rioting, gun control, civil rights legislation, pornography, and the Vice Presidential nomination...

...If he convinces the voters that their problems will go away once there is a cop on every corner, he may win, but the country will lose...

...There are three probable reasons: 1. The day before the balloting was to begin, Nixon sensed that his Southern base—which he needed in order to win—was shaky...

...He told the Southerners what he thought they wanted to hear...

...But if the hard-core conservatives insured Nixon's nomination, a majority of conservatively-inclined delegates made it possible...

...This was not Agnew's fault (he was considered a moderate in good standing while he waged a lonely battle to nominate Rockefeller), but simply a matter of sloppy politics on Nixon's part...

...2. Nixon had no desire to be upstaged or outclassed by his running mate, as he probably would have been by Lindsay...

...When the delegates adopted a platform entitled (after Lincoln), "We Must Think Anew and Act Anew," Agnew was not exactly what they had in mind...

...For every vote the departure of spurious Republicans like Thurmond will cost the young Southern gop, doors to half dozen new votes will be opened...

...How this cavalier treatment of the moderates can possibly work to Nixon's advantage is hard to understand...

...The South got a candidate it can accept," said Strom Thurmond in his subsequent hour of triumph, "while the big cities did not get who they said they had to have...

...That may or may not be the same thing he told the Southerners, and it may or may not be the same thing in October that it is today...

...Nixon was considered a hawk...

...Lindsay could draw independents and Democrats...

...They used it to their full advantage: sacrificing Governor Reagan (whose candidacy they considered ideological bliss but political suicide) and settling for the best they could get, which turned out to be quite a lot...

...Outside of the South, a majority of delegates viewed his selection as a serious and conceivably fatal mistake...

...Had Nixon bothered to even casually consult the moderates on the Vice Presidential question, he might have salvaged some good will...

...Conceivably he will discard them if he feels they have served their purpose...

...Although Agnew is no racist, the mere fact that he had to be cleared by Senator Thurmond makes him (and Nixon) suspect in the eyes of all progressives, regardless of party...

...The conservatives gave up a little (the platform), the moderates gave up a lot (the ticket...

...Lindsay was fresh...

...Why, then, did Nixon pass him by for a man who, at best, will not hurt Nixon, and who, at worst, could destroy his chances for victory in November...

...Now he may proceed to tell the country what he thinks it wants to hear...

...Nixon would secure the gop...