Advantage to the Incumbent

THE Democrats' disarray only adds to the self-confidence bordering on serenity that has overtaken the Republican Party in recent months. Quite aside from the Democrats' problems --the possibility of a McGovern nomination, which the G.O.P. would welcome, or a Democratic schism, which would be at least equally advantageous to the Republicans--the Nixon forces can savor all of the unique advantages of incumbency.

Against the potentially fractured Democrats, the Republicans will be united behind a President whose approval rating in the Gallup poll is now up to 60%, just short of a two-year high. Arthur Bremer's pistol seems to have ended or seriously diminished the threat from the right of a third-party George Wallace candidacy. But above all, Nixon has the presidential power and political freedom to zig and zag. In his press conference last week, for example, the President announced that the Paris peace talks will resume next week --during the Democratic Convention. Thus the prospect of negotiations in the midst of the campaign may mute the antiwar attacks of the Democrats, who would not want to invite charges of undermining a possible peace settlement (see following story).

Nixon's presidential prerogatives allow him to call press conferences whenever he chooses; last week's was the first on television in 13 months. A President, as Nixon noted, does not really need the press, but he can, in effect, switch the media on and off as he chooses. The candidate sitting in the White House can run a statesman's campaign above the battle--which is precisely what Richard Nixon intends to do.

In the meantime, dozens of the President's surrogates round the nation will be conducting a somewhat earthier campaign. Of all the possible Democratic nominees, the Republicans regard George McGovern as the most vulnerable. Says White House Political Adviser Harry Dent: "Some people around here are about to wee-wee in their pants waiting for him to get the nomination." If the South Dakotan succeeds, the President's outriders will portray McGovern as a dangerous radical bent on emasculating the Pentagon and the free-enterprise system, legalizing marijuana and abortion, abandoning U.S. commitments in Viet Nam and around the world.

Among other things, the Republicans will quote Hubert Humphrey's sulfurous attacks on McGovern during the recent California campaign. If McGovern is too radical for Humphrey, they will say . .. And leave the sentence dangling. If Humphrey himself should get the nomination, the Republicans are confident that they could take him nearly as easily. The White House regards Humphrey as a used-up politician who would repel the young, probably trigger a splinter party of the left and be vulnerable because of his old associations with the Johnson Administration, which the Republicans would probably refer to as "the Humphrey-Johnson Administration."

Debts. While complacent, the Republicans are sufficiently professional --and well heeled--to put together a formidable organization. Former Commerce Secretary Maurice Stans roamed the nation several months ago, pointing out to businessmen that their anonymity would be guaranteed if they contributed to the Nixon campaign before the law requiring disclosure took effect on April 7. The money was channeled into numerous dummy committees set up in a Washington bank. On May 31, the Nixon committee had $9,845,000 on hand; the Democrats reported assets of $33,526 and debts of $9.3 million left over from the 1968 campaign. They hope to wipe out some of the debt with a convention-eve telethon (see SHOW BUSINESS). This year the Republicans will spend an estimated $30 million to $40 million; the Democrats hope that they will have $20 million for the campaign. Many businessmen, both Democrats and Republicans, have been sufficiently frightened by McGovern to swell the G.O.P. pot.

The President's 230-man campaign committee was stunned to learn last week that their boss, former Attorney General John Mitchell, was stepping down from his $60,000-a-year post "for personal reasons." His wife, Martha, recently gave him "an ultimatum" to abandon politics (see PEOPLE). Most observers felt that Mitchell would unofficially remain Nixon's top political adviser. To replace Mitchell as campaign manager Nixon named Clark MacGregor, a former Minnesota Congressman who has served for the past two years as the President's top Congressional lobbyist.

While the Republicans put their money into an advertising campaign in 1968, the emphasis this year is on grass-roots organization--a lesson the G.O.P. is borrowing from McGovern's primary operations. The Republicans are organizing down to the precinct level in all but five states--Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas and Louisiana, all taken for granted, and liberal Massachusetts, written off.

The key, as Republicans formulate their strategy, will be the Southern whites, the blue-collar Catholic ethnics, the Jews. The fondest Republican hope is that this year the old Democratic coalition assembled by Franklin Roosevelt will disintegrate so badly that the G.O.P. can win the majority status it has dreamed of for decades: a union of Archie Bunker, Flem Snopes and Stanley Kowalski. Says White House Speechwriter Patrick Buchanan: "We're trying to turn the Republican Party into a working-class, middle-class majority." Among the Democratic defectors the Republicans hope to find the urban Jews. If McGovern is nominated, Nixon's men will bear down on his previous judgments on Israel: a 1970 call for Israel to give up much of its conquered territory, for example, and a 1971 suggestion that Jerusalem be made an international city.

The Republicans are not ignoring or even writing off the blacks, the Chicanos or the other minorities. Last month almost 2,500 blacks gathered in Washington for a $100-a-plate Republican fund-raising dinner, an event that would have seemed improbable not long before. Said Floyd McKissick, for mer director of CORE: "I don't believe you can get from the Democratic Par ty what you can get from the Republican Party." Republican literature is al ready pointing out to blacks that, among other things, the Nixon Administration has 1) doubled federal grants to primarily black colleges, 2) tripled federal busi ness loans to blacks and 3) increased the funds for civil rights enforcement from $75 million to $602 million. For all that, the Republicans will be content if their share of the black vote rises from 12% in 1968 to 20% this year.

What might trouble the Republican serenity? First, there is a credibility gap, an atmosphere of taint that reminds some observers of the last years of the Truman Administration. The cloud of ITT is in the air. So is the Republican refusal to disclose the names of those who poured $10 million, quite legally, into the G.O.P. war chest. The bugging raid on the Democratic National Committee headquarters fosters a nagging suspicion.

No Ike. The economy is also less than wholesome, and unemployment remains comparatively high. The war continues to be a divisive question, as it has been for years, and it is overlaid with a deep popular cynicism that must contaminate any President who touches it. As Nixon continues the bombing of the North and shifts troops into Thai land to make good his withdrawal claims, as Nguyen Van Thieu claims dictatorial powers (see THE WORLD), it may be that the President is already overdrawing his accounts. An agreement in Paris, of course, could dissolve the issue before November.

Finally, there is the matter of Nixon's own personality. As one White House aide admits, "We don't have an Eisenhower around here any more." The President, as he knows despite his reading in the polls, cannot bank very much on sheer personal appeal. But neither can George McGovern--if McGovern is the nominee. If the South Dakotan loses next week in Miami Beach, with the attendant possibility that his insurgents will bolt the party or hopelessly divide it, then the Republicans will still have good cause-- perhaps even better cause--to face November with confidence.

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