The Arkansas Traveler

As George Wallace was invading the North, Michigan's Governor George Romney, who also sees himself as a presidential candidate in 1968, was sounding out Republicans in the South --landing a few well-placed jabs at the itinerant Alabamian in the process. Speaking in Little Rock, Ark., to some 2,500 members of Governor Winthrop Rockefeller's husky new G.O.P., Romney emphasized the "vital importance" of the South's growing two-party system, and derided Wallace's talk of a third party as "tilting at windmills."

"Nothing sound and lasting can be accomplished by a third-party movement," Romney told his Arkansas audience. "It serves only as a protest of the moment, as all of them have in American history. The way to genuine progress in the South--socially and economically as well as politically--is with a strong two-party system." And, he added, "that means strengthening the Republican Party."

Romney was also more than passing curious as to what the Arkansas G.O.P. would do with its 18 delegates at next year's convention. But Win Rockefeller, though in agreement with the Michigander on the futility of splinter parties, was not yet ready to join Brother Nelson on the Romney bandwagon. Said Win: "We should see what all the candidates think. We are entitled to more exposure. And Arkansas Republicans are just beginning to get into the scheme of things."

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