Nelson's Hundred Days

The fact may have generally escaped notice at the time, but when New York's Governor Nelson Rockefeller leaped back into the race for the G.O.P. presidential nomination on April 30, precisely 100 days remained until the balloting was to begin in Miami. Last week, despite enthusiastically cheering crowds and some other encouraging signs, there was increasing worry among his followers that Nelson's Hundred Days might well wind up as Napoleon's did--with a Waterloo.

Not that Rockefeller was allowing any such thoughts to distract him from his hard-fought, late-starting drive. Through the week, he swept from New England to the Great Plains to Arkansas and Texas, bringing to 35 the number of states he has visited since he rejoined the race. He cracked jokes and lobster in Maine, clanged through the streets of Sioux City, Iowa, in a fireman's hat, was greeted on the green in New Haven, Conn., by Sybil, a seven-year-old elephant with a Rockefeller sticker on her trunk, and dropped in at the famous Humphrey drugstore in Huron, S. Dak., to pick up gifts for Happy and the two boys; when the $21.08 bill was rung up, he had to borrow $1 from an aide and 8-c- from a LIFE reporter.

The Difference. Despite Richard Nixon's long lead in the delegate count (see box), Rocky was drawing big and often enthusiastic crowds. Encouraged by last week's Gallup poll showing him trailing Democrat Eugene McCarthy but leading both Hubert Humphrey and Nixon, the Governor told a Boston press conference: "I was just flying over your race track and I saw the horses coming into the stretch. If I could get into the lead in the stretch, believe me, that would be tremendously helpful." In Maine, he reminded audiences that he had been born in Bar Harbor and cried: "We're going to have a Maine President at last!"*

Everywhere that Rockefeller spoke, he asserted that he stood a better chance than Nixon of winning for the party in November. In Huron, a delegate asked: "There's not much difference between you and Nixon, is there?" "Not much," Rocky shot back, "except that I can get elected." Addressing New Haven teenagers, most of them black, he declared: "We're a minority party, and if we could get together with some other minorities, that would be the best thing we could ever do."

For all his ebullience, Rockefeller knows that without a big break his chances may be doomed. There were a few hopeful signs, but nothing that was important enough to slow down Nixon's momentum. The South Dakota poll showed Rocky as the strongest candidate for President, despite Nixon's victory in last month's uncontested primary there. He got a good word from Historian Arthur M. Schlesinger, who called him the best candidate still on the political scene.

Seeking to make his own break, Rocky kept lambasting Nixon. For several days, he made capital of a blooper by Nixon's Southern campaign manager, Congressman Howard ("Bo") Callaway, who declared: "Perhaps we can get George Wallace on our side. That's where he belongs." Nixon finally disavowed any connection with the former Alabama Governor.

Off the Fence. For every small break that seemed to be going Rockefeller's way, however, there was a big one for Nixon. On the heels of Oregon Senator Mark Hatfield's endorsement, Massachusetts' Governor John Volpe came out for Nixon too. Rocky pooh-poohed the defections. "It takes more than two swallows to make a summer," said he. But some other big-name Republicans seemed ready to tumble off the fence into Nixon territory. Ohio's Governor James Rhodes and Maryland's Governor Spiro Agnew, once among Rocky's most ardent supporters, were threatening to come out for Nixon at any moment. There was Michigan's Governor George Romney, who introduced the former Vice President to $100-a-plate diners in Lansing with so effusive a panegyric that one Nixon aide hailed it as "all but a nominating speech." Finally, there was Texas' Senator John Tower, who is endorsing Nixon and urging his delegation to do the same. If the Texas votes do not put Nixon over the 667 mark needed for the G.O.P. nomination, they might well shake loose enough uncommitted votes in other states to do it.

Still Rocky pressed on. "There is no possibility, for anyone who may be hoping so, that I'll withdraw," he said in Sioux Falls, S. Dak. "I'm going to go all the way." His supporters, too, refused to say die. In Manhattan the New Majority, the Governor's youth organization, opened a discotheque called "The Rock" in a converted French restaurant. The original red-white-and-blue decor was perfect, save for one small detail. A portrait of Napoleon Bonaparte had to be replaced with one of Rocky.

*Maine to date can only boast a Vice President--Hannibal Hamlin, who served during Lincoln's first term--only five Cabinet members, not one since the 19th century.

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