DEMOCRATS: The Unity Candidate

With the Democratic Convention just six weeks off, the Washington political oracles were saying that the free-for-all race had turned into a two-man sprint. On the tip sheets of most political touts, Jack Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson were leaving Adlai Stevenson and Stuart Symington behind.

Johnson cherishes a hope that the summit blowup greatly added to the political appeal of the image he has tried to create: experienced, responsible, free of zealous partisanship, the candidate of national unity. On a foray into the Northwest last week, he refused to make a formal declaration of his candidacy. Duty forbade, he explained: as an avowed candidate he would have to neglect his Senate duties. But at a political session in an Idaho Falls hotel, he leveled with an anxious admirer. "We don't want to bet on a horse that's going to stay in the paddock." the politician observed. "Are you a candidate?" Replied L.B.J.: "You're damned right I am." "Then I'm with you," said the politician, thrusting out his hand.

The public seemed to be getting the Johnson unity-candidate message. On his arrival in Spokane, he was serenaded by a group of Yakima Valley Junior College students singing a song that a student had composed for the occasion. Sample stanza:

Who are yon voting for? He who holds the Senate floor. Unity, that's his say, All the way with L.B.J.