Nation: NOW THE REPUBLIC

• Share

(5 of 10)

Nixon's game is poker, and in poker, he observed upon arriving in Miami Beach last among the candidates, "it's the fellow without the cards who does the strongest talking. I've got the cards." Nixon was so confident of his hand that he tarried on Long Island during the preconvention weekend. On Monday morning, he appeared at a naturalization proceeding in New York on behalf of his Cuban driver and cook, Manolo and Fina Sanchez. When he got to Miami Beach that evening, Rockefeller and Reagan were frantically and forlornly scampering after delegates. By this time, the hot Florida sun had finally hatched Reagan's official candidacy.

Stirrings. Behind the convention scene of mixed turmoil and torpor (from her pinnacle of 84 years, Alice Roosevelt Longworth pronounced it "soporific"), there was a good deal of political jostling and even some drama. During the three days leading up to the Wednesday-night balloting, the main maneuvering centered on three elements: 1) a handful of uncommitted delegations, of which Maryland, Ohio, Michigan, New Jersey and Pennsylvania were the most important; 2) the South, which was largely in Nixon's camp already but vulnerable to Reagan; and 3) Nixon's choice of a running mate.

Michigan, under Governor George Romney, and Ohio, under Governor James Rhodes, were subject to raiding by Nixon. But the gains to be made there were not worth the cost of antagonizing their powerful leaders, who clung to their status as favorite sons. Romney was apparently prepared to hold out indefinitely. Rhodes, who had been generally regarded as eager to be in line with the winner, remained surprisingly stubborn. Not so secretly, he wanted a Rockefeller-Reagan ticket as the strongest draw in Ohio and, despite a well-earned reputation for sagacity, held out some hope for its success. "We've really stirred things up," he said at one point. "We've turned this into an open convention."

Most of the important stirring, however, was being done on Nixon's behalf. New Jersey was restless under its commitment to the favorite-son candidacy of Senator Clifford Case, and the Nixon forces decided to move in on it. On a golf course over the weekend, Nixon Aide Peter Flanigan told State G.O.P. Chairman Webster Todd: "Look, we need your delegation right now." Todd, whose wife was openly supporting Rockefeller, shot back: "Hell, no!" But pressure continued on individual delegates, who saw no purpose in holding out for a lost cause. By Tuesday night it was open knowledge that New Jersey would break, just as it had at the 1964 convention.