Republicans: It's the Right Thing'

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It was an occasion for Republican hurrahs. In 17 cities across the U.S., party loyalists were gathered at fund-raising dinners to hear pep talks, over closed-circuit TV, about this fall's congressional elections. Dwight Eisenhower, speaking from Los Angeles, was interrupted repeatedly by loud applause. Senator Barry Goldwater drew a spirited response. So did National Committee Chairman William Miller. Then the voice and figure of New York's Governor Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller confronted the diners. And at every single meeting, from Boston to Tulsa. Rocky was ignominiously booed.

That was a mere four months ago. Today, in a turnabout remarkable even by the volatile standards of U.S. politics, Rocky gets cheers from Republican regulars around the land. Almost everyone agrees that he is the man to beat for the Republican Party's presidential nomination in 1964. This week the Gallup poll (which takes Richard Nixon at his word that he will not be a candidate) reported that among rank-and-file Republicans Rocky has a handsome lead for 1964, with 32% as opposed to 23% for Barry Goldwater, a surprising 14% for Milton Eisenhower, and a mere 8% for Michigan's George Romney.

What has happened to bring about this change ?

To Republican professionals, Rockefeller long seemed a maverick. They looked on him as a liberal, whose views often sounded more Democratic than Republican. They saw him as a troublemaker when he publicly criticized his party's leaders and program during his abortive attempt to win the 1960 G.O.P. nomination. Then there was the matter of his divorce from his wife of 32 years—and the insistent rumors that he intended to marry a younger woman.

Into the Vacuum. But so far, Rockefeller seems to have weathered his divorce well. And recently, quite independently of his own efforts, he has been thrust into the vacuum in national leadership that plagues either U.S. political party when it does not hold the White House. Nixon, the G.O.P.'s "titular leader," has in recent weeks run into trouble in California and, despite last week's primary victory, faces a hard struggle for survival in his fight against Governor Pat Brown. Goldwater, who seemed for a while to be a hopeful G.O.P. prospect, has been hobbled by the fact that he is beginning to sound to many like a broken record, and by the party pros' conviction that he is simply too conservative to win a national election. Such dark-horse possibilities as Romney and Pennsylvania's William Scranton have yet to prove themselves in their home states.

That pretty much leaves Rocky. But if happenstance has helped, so has hard work. As Governor of the nation's most powerful state, he has administered its wide-ranging affairs ably and conscientiously, placed himself among the limited ranks of really effective U.S. Governors.