Nation: Tradition of Interest

• Share

By Gallup poll estimates, the national political stock of New York's Republican Governor Nelson Rockefeller dropped sharply after the announcement that he and his wife of 31 years would be divorced. But then, almost as sharply, it rose again.

An October poll, pairing Rocky against Arizona's conservative Republican Senator Barry Goldwater, gave the New Yorker a 51% to 33% lead among Republican voters who expressed a preference for the 1964 presidential nomination. In November, just after Rockefeller's divorce announcement, he and Goldwater ran even, at 40% each. But last week, Rocky was way ahead again, 49% to 37%.

Assuming that there are no new complications in his personal life, Rocky still seems a cinch for re-election next year as Governor—a prerequisite to the 1964 nomination. So far, few candidates of either party have seemed eager to test him for Governor. But last week two-term U.S. Representative Samuel S. (for Studdiford) Stratton, 45, a lean, attractive Democrat from upstate Schenectady, announced that he would try for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination. In the past, Stratton has done handsomely in generally Republican territory—to the point that the 1961 Republican-controlled legislature gerrymandered him out of his district. But were he to get the Democratic nomination, he could hardly make divorce an issue; his first wife divorced him in 1946 in Massachusetts.

As for Rocky, he was unimpressed by Stratton's candidacy. He promptly called a press conference, reavowed his intention to run for reelection, made it equally clear that he still had high hopes for 1964. He refused once more to pledge that he would serve a full four-year term in Albany, concluded meaningfully: "The people of this state have a tradition of interest and concern in national and international affairs."