Hypothesis Unbound

Inside the bargain-rate, $200-a-month Lansing office, filing cabinets bulged with letters from well-wishers, and a few recently acquired tomes on Viet Nam occupied an unpainted bookcase. Situated in a tumble-down neighborhood four blocks from the Michigan state capitol, Governor George Romney's new head quarters -- formally dubbed the "research center" -- clearly had nothing to do with state business. The working hypothesis, of course, was that the Republican presidential nomination was within Rom ney's reach. However logical that as- sumption might seem, it was being undermined with empirical assiduity almost half a continent away in New Orleans.

Gathering in the French Quarter for a two-day meeting of the Republican National Committee, G.O.P. leaders found themselves in the thick of a determined stop-George movement. Though the city's pre-Mardi Gras atmosphere was giddily festive, the conclave itself was marked by sober misgivings about the Michigan Governor's ability to speak out clearly on major domestic and international issues. As some of Romney's support began to erode, Richard Nixon, the G.O.P.'s perennial workhorse, began to shape up as its potential dark horse as well. Clearing the Track. The former Vice President had supposedly disavowed politics for six months following the G.O.P.'s election victories last November. Nonetheless, his backers came out in the open to promote the notion that Nixon, a dedicated party performer of proven ability, was preferable to the unknown quantity that Romney continues to be. On the eve of the G.O.P. meeting, Nebraska's Fred Seaton, Interior Secretary under President Eisenhower, sent letters to all committeemen and state chairmen eulogizing Nixon as "the single Republican with the stature, the requisite abilities and the qualities of leadership essential to unite us and maintain our current momentum." More discreetly, Nixon fanciers were hard at work clearing the track for their steed. To make sure that Front Runner Romney does not lock up the nomination in advance of next year's G.O.P. convention, they quietly encouraged favorite-son candidacies, at the same time talked up such moderate alternatives to Romney as Illinois' Charles Percy and New York's Nelson Rockefeller.

The Nixon boomlet has especially strong support among Southerners, as well as among Midwestern and Rocky Mountain conservatives, many of whom remain bitter over Romney's refusal to support Barry Goldwater. At the same time, party professionals of every hue are mindful of Nixon's yeoman efforts on the stump both in 1964 and 1966. Separate polls last week by the Associated Press and CBS each showed G.O.P. national committee men--or at least those who responded--preferring Nixon over Romney by 3-to-2 margins. The results, however, may be deceptive. "If you're really undecided and don't want to commit yourself this early," says Rhode Island's G.O.P. Committeeman Bayard Ewing, "what could be safer than being for Nixon?"

The Best Deal. Given all the uncertainty, California's Ronald Reagan loomed as an alternate beneficiary of any breakdown in the Romney band- wagon. While Reagan remained preoccupied last week with the first major battle of his administration, the abrasive controversy over the firing of U.C. president Clark Kerr (see EDUCATION), former California G.O.P. Chairman Gaylord Parkinson was spreading the word at New Orleans that the Governor was now "holding the door open" for the presidential nomination. In recent weeks, Texas' Republican Senator John Tower and Florida's new G.O.P. Governor Claude Kirk Jr. have made separate pilgrimages to Sacramento, each of them agreeing to go to the 1968 convention as favorite-son candidates. Reagan made the same decision.

The favorite-son gambit, in fact, has caught on in almost every key state. Besides Reagan, Tower and Kirk, the likely list now includes Ohio's James Rhodes, Pennsylvania's Raymond Shafer, either Percy or Everett Dirksen in Illinois, Rockefeller or Jacob Javits in New York. Romney strategists, realizing that their candidate has to build first-ballot strength in the primaries, are planning intensive campaigns in four states: New Hampshire, Nebraska, Oregon and Wisconsin.

Democratic Granddaddy. Behind the maneuvering lay the fact that the G.O.P.'s presidential nomination has become a prize worth fighting for. By contrast with the gloomy 1965 meeting in Chicago that followed the Goldwater rout, the 1967 national committee gathering was turned on by the nerve-end feeling--right or wrong--that Lyndon Johnson can be beaten. The credit, in large part, goes to plain-talking, publicity-shy Ray Bliss, who took over as national G.O.P. chairman two years ago, rebuilt the demoralized party as a credible political force among rural Southerners, big-city Northerners and Negroes.

The most heartening thing about the G.O.P.'s presidential stirrings is that they are generally free of racist overtures. That there is a new Republican Party--as well as an incipient new South--was manifest in a speech to the New Orleans conclave by Tennessee's freshman G.O.P. Senator Howard Baker, Dirksen's son-in-law. "I'm a lot less concerned about what my Democratic granddaddy must think of me," declared Baker, "and a lot more concerned about what my grandchildren will think of me."

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