Republicans: This President Thing

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Romney vehemently says that he will "not be a candidate" for the Republican presidential nomination in 1964. But he would certainly accept a "draft," and those who saw him during two recent speechmaking trips to Washington figured that he was already measuring himself for Jack Kennedy's rocking chair. Many Michiganders resent this; they insist that Romney ought to live up to his gubernatorial campaign promises and solve state problems before he tries to move out into national politics. Last week the Detroit News, one of Romney's strongest supporters during his 1962 campaign, gave him unshirted hell in an editorial: "Governor Romney's stature as a public servant who speaks in words without double meanings suffers each day he fails to say flatly that he would not accept the 1964 Republican presidential nomination if it were offered . . . Romney's procrastination-or, as his critics inevitably will say, his fascination with national publicity-threatens Michigan's best interests ... A simple statement that he will not permit his name, whatever the circumstances, to appear on the 1964 national Republican ticket -made now-is what Michigan expects, and has a right to expect from the Governor."

As a Mormon, Romney already has some presidential support in states with sizable Mormon enclaves-Utah, Idaho, California and, curiously, Hawaii. But Romney's Mormonism can also be a political nobble, particularly in view of the Mormon Church's longstanding refusal to admit Negroes to its hierarchy. Moreover, in most regions, regular Republicans look askance at Romney as one who has stressed his role as a "citizens' candidate" and has seemed somewhat embarrassed by his Republican Party label. Says a veteran Senate Republican: "If he wants to get anywhere, George is going to have to forget that citizen-party garbage." As things presently stand, Romney can break through only if Goldwater and Rockefeller kill each other off.

Bill? Another possibility-at least on paper-is Pennsylvania's Governor Willi,am Scranton, 45. Unlike Romney, Scranton has convinced his closest friends and most of his devout admirers that he really does not want his party's 1964 nomination. In fact, he would really like to quit politics at the end of his term in 1967.

Like Romney, Scranton inherited from a Democratic Governor a bundle of trouble in his state. Since he became Governor, most of his time has been taken up in dealing with unemployment and economic depression. Only last week he managed, contrary to almost all predictions, to push through his state legislature a sales-tax raise from 4% to 5%. So far, his popularity does not seem to have suffered. But raising taxes is not ordinarily considered the best way to get to the White House. Scranton is not well known outside of Pennsylvania, and even if he were to display more presidential ambition than he has, he would still be considered an outsider in the 1964 Republican sweepstakes.

There are several other such outsiders, most notably Kentucky's Senator Thruston B. Morton and Oregon's Governor Mark Hatfield. But any realistic political estimate must consider them much more likely as vice-presidential nominees than for the top place on the G.O.P. ticket.