Nation: NOW THE REPUBLIC

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Humphrey's Problem. Nixon maintains that he will fight hard for all the crucial states, and says of the major industrial states: "I don't think we gave them adequate attention in 1960." He will avoid his 1960 mistake of barnstorming all 50 states. His mode of attack is best suited to opposing Hubert Humphrey. He sounded eager for it. "Two tough fighters like Hubert Humphrey and Dick Nixon," said Nixon after his nomination, "are going to slap each other around pretty hard on the issues. But I'm going to keep it on a high level—no personal attacks, just on the issues." In an interview with TIME last month, he indicated his strategy: "Humphrey's problem," he said, "is that he carries the past on his back. He is the candidate of the past no matter how much he talks about his programs and the future." Nixon is hardly alone in his conclusion that "if there is one thing the American people don't want, it's what they've got."

Having won the Republicans, Nixon now has to win the Republic. Some of his friends and most of his foes are dubious that he can do it. At Rockefeller's headquarters before the Miami Beach convention, Gordon MacRae sang:

Richard Nixon's going far,

In his snappy Edsel car.

General Custer's coming in,

Gonna show Dick how to win.

Rockefeller's people have company in thinking that Nixon is a permanent loser, and Nixon knows it. Just after the Oregon primary, he described his feelings: "You know, politics is the crudest sport of all. There are few loyalties, very few friends. But coming off the floor, that meant something to me. I kind of get a bang out of demonstrating that the old saws, the old myths about Nixon have no validity." He has yet to prove that, of course, but he is perhaps in better shape to do so now than ever before. In the weeks to come, the nation will observe a fascinating and peculiarly American human drama, the final testing of a man who almost had everything, almost lost everything and is now given a rare opportunity to try again.