Republicans: The Cinched Nomination

In its main order of business, the 1964 Republican National Convention was all but over before it began. Barry Goldwater's presidential nomination was as close to a cinch as anything in politics can be.

But that conclusion did very little concluding. Still stretching ahead was the steep, stone-stubbled campaign road to November. And in their anger and anguish at Goldwater's imminent nomination, Barry's Republican critics seized on battle cries that will echo hither and yon—and be picked up by the Democrats—throughout the coming campaign.

When Forthrightness Is Wrong. Candidate William Scranton put it one way. He told the sparse airport audience that greeted his arrival in San Francisco that he would continue his anti-Goldwater fight to keep the G.O.P. from becoming "another name for some ultra-rightist society."

Nelson Rockefeller avowed to the convention Platform Committee that the party cannot expect to win if it seeks to serve "the narrow interests of a minority within a minority"—that is, the Goldwater interests. Henry Cabot Lodge said: "We must never countenance such a thing as a trigger-happy foreign policy which would negate everything we stand for and destroy everything we hope for—including life itself. Many times in foreign relations the thing to do is not to be forthright." Michigan's Governor George Romney asked that the G.O.P. "unequivocally repudiate extremism of the right and the left and reject their efforts to infiltrate or attach themselves to our party or its candidates."

Suicide in Full View? What all this strong talk added up to was the proposition that Goldwater's nomination would cause an irreparable party split, that by nominating Barry, the G.O.P., in effect, would be committing suicide in full public view.

But would it? Though many Democrats might desire it, the answer was no. If Goldwater, by some miracle of political chemistry, were to be denied the nomination, there would indeed be a split, even the possibility of a third party formed by his followers. But with Barry on the very brink of victory, there was no evidence whatever that his Republican critics had enough cohesiveness to make 1964 a Bull Moose year.

Goldwater's nomination may cause some professional Republicans, for their own particular and perhaps understandable reasons, to stray from the national party fold. Among these is New York's Senator Kenneth Keating, up for re-election this year in a northeastern industrial state where Barry has little appeal. Keating has decided to wage his Senate campaign as an "independent" Republican if Goldwater is nominated, and last week he hinted that he might even vote for Lyndon Johnson in November. "I'm a good Republican," said Keating, "but not a hidebound Republican."

Next Step. As for all the talk that Goldwater represents only a small segment of the Republican spectrum, that he would be the nominee of "a minority within a minority," Barry had his own facts and figures to point at. After all, the overwhelming delegate strength that he brought to San Francisco came from all sections of the U.S., and could by no means be narrowly categorized as a mere handful of "extremists."