Of Peace and Politics

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All that was rough enough. But, barring a last-minute reversal, the sharpest rebuff to the Administration looms ahead on Nixon's nomination of Judge Clement Haynsworth to the Supreme Court. A hard count of Senate votes taken by the Republican leadership showed at week's end that a minimum of 53 Senators, including 17 of the Senate's 43 Republicans, plan to vote no.

The President also prodded Congress again about its slow legislative pace, claiming that he might not even be able to propose a federal budget on time if appropriations bills continued to lag. Two days later, the Senate made it clear that it would not act this year on his proposal for a lottery procedure for the draft. The bill passed the House, but Democratic leaders in the Senate want to reform the whole Selective Service Act and contend that this requires more time. The issue apparently will reemerge next year, but Nixon need not wait. He can institute certain reforms, short of a lottery system, by executive decree.

Thus it appeared to be a relief for Nixon to leave Washington and return to an activity that seems to refresh his spirit. He engaged in his first wholly partisan political stumping since he took office. Campaigning for Republican gubernatorial candidates in Virginia and New Jersey. Nixon mentioned the war only once —and that was to tell an airport crowd in Morristown, N.J., to be sure to listen to his speech this week "on that particular matter."

But he could not really escape the war. Several hundred demonstrators in the wealthy, conservative area awaited him in front of the Gouverneur Morris Inn. They held candles and chanted "Peace now." A few held up placards reading EFFETE SNOBS FOR PEACE.

Partisan Outing. In both New Jersey and Virginia, the President's enthusiastic fans far outnumbered the peace demonstrators. In Salem, Va., Nixon jumped onstage to do a jig with G.O.P. Candidate Linwood Holton. Three times Nixon tried to start his speech, only to be halted by sustained ovations. When the crowd finally paused, he devoted almost the entire message to extolling his concept of a New Federalism. "For 50 years," he said, "politicians in both parties have been saying that we had to decentralize government, that power should go back to the states. But for 50 years nobody has really done anything about it until this Administration came to power. We have offered the most revolutionary legislation in the history of the republic in this respect." That legislation includes proposals for revenue-sharing with the states, welfare reforms and decentralized control of job-training programs.

Nixon's political pitch in New Jersey was a broader one, accenting Republican efforts to combat crime, improve transportation and check pollution. Campaigning for Republican William Cahill, Nixon did not stray outside friendly Bergen and Morris Counties. They gave him a 96,000-vote plurality over Hubert Humphrey last year, though he carried the state by only 61,000 votes (out of nearly 3,000,000). As in Virginia, the crowds were large, jubilant and overwhelmingly Republican.