Romney Rediyivus

George Romney may not be a hotshot bowler, but he is no quitter. To knock down all ten duckpins at an alley at Franklin, N.H., he took 34 balls. Pursuing his presidential hopes, Romney is proving every whit as persistent. In a valiant effort to blunt the 3-to-l edge enjoyed by Richard Nixon in the Granite State's March 12th Republican primary, Romney last week wound up his first five days of campaigning with 11,826 hands shaken and a firm belief that reports of his imminent political death are premature.

"I am exhilarated," Romney confessed in his hotel late one night. All day he had tramped relentlessly through snow and ice at 5 m.p.h. to buttonhole voters, or had communed with groups of from 20 to 100 in homes rigged out as Romney headquarters across the state.

There are indeed signs that New Hampshire Republicans are warming to the outsider, whose supporters are spreading the word that "Romney's right." On the stump, Romney does nothing to belie his slogan's perfervid moralizing by stressing the need to discipline children and hold families together. "There didn't used to be the cynicism there is today," sighed Romney at a Plaistow kaffeeklatsch.

Contented Underdog. Straining to live down his "brainwashed" gaffe, Romney attacked the President's current handling of the war and his efforts to start negotiations. "I refuse to support an Administration," said Romney, "that cannot wage the conflict effectively or seek peace convincingly."

Romney chose the well-scrubbed students of Keene State College to hear his plan to neutralize North and South Viet Nam, Laos and Cambodia under international guarantees. He reported positive interest from world leaders during his latest globe-girdling tour, which included South Viet Nam. Soviet Pre mier Aleksei Kosygin, Romney reported, had failed to come up with any better ideas.

By Romney's own admission, his plan hung precariously from three essentials that have eluded peacemakers: the great powers must agree to impose peace, the Viet Cong must be disarmed and permitted to enter South Viet Nam's political life, and there must be effective international policing.

Romney headed back to Michigan--and a day's campaigning in Wisconsin --a contented underdog. It is a role in which he has excelled, as he pointed out to all and sundry, both in revitalizing American Motors and in putting Michigan's affairs in order. His New Hampshire supporters were also happy. Although Romney planted two sitzmarks while skiing uncertainly on King Ridge, he never once tripped over his own tongue.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.