THE CAMPAIGN SHAPES UP
The Campaign Shapes Up Unless the climactic Presidential primaries in Oregon and California, now close at hand, decisively alter the present picture, it seems reasonably certain that the struggle...
...But if we were a kingmaker in Republican ranks, our candidate for that party would be New York City's Mayor John V. Lindsay, whose brilliant performance has stamped him as a leader who understands and acts on the compelling issues of our revolutionary era...
...Indeed, the national trend was running in the oposite direction even as Kennedy was winning in Indiana...
...The Campaign Shapes Up Unless the climactic Presidential primaries in Oregon and California, now close at hand, decisively alter the present picture, it seems reasonably certain that the struggle for the Democratic nomination will remain a three-man race right into convention time, August 26...
...Nixon's Times' total is fifty-eight more than the majority required for nomination...
...In the Republican column, what had been a drab one-man show was measurably enlivened during the past month when New York's Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller decided, at long last, to challenge former Vice President Richard M. Nixon for the Republican Presidential nomination...
...As Anthony Howard, American correspondent for The Observer of London reflected, Rockefeller "will never win the party's heart...
...Mary McGrory, the gifted columnist for The Washington Evening Star, concluded from his maiden speeches as a candidate that Humphrey will be "the man in the middle for those who find Bobby Kennedy too wild and Gene McCarthy too mysterious...
...What needs to be added, however, is that Kennedy's Indiana showing was no blockbuster capable of generating a stampede to his corner...
...Most of the pundits and politicians were convinced that Rockefeller had waited too long, and they held to this judgment despite the New York Governor's extraordinary write-in showing in the Massachusetts primary where he outpolled both Nixon and favorite son Governor John A. Volpe...
...He clearly renewed his role as a major contender for the Presidency...
...Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey would get thirty-eight per cent to Nixon's thirty-six per cent...
...The Harris statistical breakdown showed that Kennedy would now receive thirty-eight per cent of the vote to forty per cent for Nixon, with the remainder undecided or committed to Alabama's George Wallace...
...Humphrey's standing in the poll, coming only a fortnight after he announced his candidacy, was impressive for a late starter...
...Most of the survey, however, was concluded before Rockefeller's surprise performance in Massachusetts—a development that could not help but impress Republican politicians determined to get themselves a "winner" this time...
...He entered the race in a blaze of what the New York Post referred to as "affably ambiguous generalities...
...he can only appeal to its head"—by emphasizing his winning ways in the past and contrasting them with Nixon's appearance as a shopworn loser...
...Whatever its long-run significance, if any, may turn out to be, the Indiana primary, in the short run, kept alive the ambitions of both Senators Eugene J. McCarthy and Robert F. Kennedy...
...Or will he find it increasingly necessary to break away from his role as apostle of the status quo and become what he once was, the champion of change...
...Kennedy's performance in the Hoosier State was good but not great, considering the pull of the Kennedy name and the pile of Kennedy money...
...The poor boy from Huron, South Dakota, whose battered old rented bus in the 1960 Presidential campaign evoked wide sympathy in his losing battle against John F.' Kennedy, now streaks across the country in a private, posh jetliner...
...McCarthy's twenty-seven per cent vote in Indiana was not so impressive as his forces had hoped but not so poor as they had feared in view of the changed political circumstances since March 31 and the peculiarities of Indiana politics...
...From his early campaign speeches, it seems evident that he will embrace a blend of both stances, now defending the Administration and things as they are, and now striking out on an independent course—but one not so independent that it might ruffle his chief in the White House...
...The iron tyranny of our deadline made it impossible for us to include consideration of the outcome of the Nebraska primary May 14...
...A New York Times national survey in early May revealed that 725 of the 1,333 convention delegates "already picked or expected to attend the convention are leaning or committed to" Nixon, 402 to Rockefeller, and 206 to California's Governor Ronald Reagan...
...On the night before the Hoosier primary, the Harris Poll reported: "Regardless of the outcome of Tuesday's . . . primary, Senator Kennedy has suffered a sharp decline nationwide...
...More than 100 directorships of banks and corporations [were] represented among the twenty-four original members of the committee...
...The New York Times reported that the group included "some of the nation's wealthiest men, many of them connected with the securities industry...
...In "The Word from Washington" on Page 11 of this issue, Potomacus notes how readily a group of American tycoons put together a $750,000 kitty for Humphrey at a Park Avenue luncheon...
...He commands the powerful support of most of big labor which has always adored him, much of big business which once feared him, the Dixiecrats who once mistrusted him, a sizable number of the state Democratic machines, and a hard-to-determine number of liberals and independents whose loyalty to him has survived Humphrey's political behavior during the past three years or more...
...We doubt that our voice is much listened to in the councils of the Republican Party, but it seems clear to us that despite his long vacillation, and his equally long silence on the overriding issue of Vietnam, broken only recently with a string of ambiguities, that Governor Rockefeller is far and away the GOP's superior choice over Nixon...
...Among all voters, he is now the only Democrat to trail Richard Nixon...
...His ability to capture forty-two per cent of the Democratic vote, with a powerful assist from black voters, reaffirmed his status as a major contender for the Democratic nomination...
...It is the Sioux City Elk-Rotarian type that is most numerous in GOP convention ranks...
...The dilemma confronting the Vice President is the need to choose between two campaign images: Should he move ahead, as he began his candidacy, as the upholder of unity and stability—and as the Johnson Administration's defender of the faith...
...Humphrey's August convention prospects seem relatively bright...
...McCarthy would make the most impressive showing, forty per cent to Nixon's thirty-seven per cent, with the rest similarly split between Wallace and those undecided...
...However, the great majority of delegates to the Republican National Convention do not express the views of liberal Republicans and independents, or even of big business, especially the Eastern Establishment, which often shows a considerable measure of moderation, but rather the fears and frustrations of small town conservatives who trust Nixon and mistrust Rockefeller...
...His exuberant call to his colors was meant to portray Humphrey as the joyful evangelist come to heal the country's wounds...
...Subsequently, another group of top business and financial executives gathered in the Hunt Room of New York's 21 Club to swell his campaign coffers...
Vol. 32 • June 1968 • No. 6
