REPUBLICANS: The Great Surprise

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Better than Nixon? Soon after the conventions, both parties discovered that they had miscalculated the political appeal of both vice-presidential nominees. Lyndon Johnson may have avoided a defection of Southern leaders, but far from rallying to him, many Southerners—and many Southern editorialists—denounced Johnson as a traitor to the South. In sharp contrast, when G.O.P. politicians got home, they discovered that Lodge was highly popular among the voters—and possibly even a better candidate for their needs than Rockefeller. Says North Dakota Lawyer Robert Chesrown, a local Republican leader: "Until I came back from the convention I never realized how much Lodge meant to the party. People here were really talking about him. It began to dawn on me that Lodge is just as well as, maybe even better liked in this area than Nixon."

Nixon, making the most of Lodge's popularity, proclaimed that if elected, he would give Lodge more powers than any Vice President in history. He promised to make him the director of all nonmilitary aspects of the cold war—political, diplomatic, economic and propagandistic.

Matinee Show. G.O.P. soundings indicate that Lodge has a special appeal to the nation's housewives, who made up a large part of his afternoon U.N. audience. Result: campaign planners expect to put Lodge on at least one nationwide TV broadcast at a novel afternoon time. Lodge also seems to appeal to Negroes. Explains Detroit's Dr. Junius Taylor, a Negro physician who considers himself a political independent but this year is heading an outfit called Greater Detroit Volunteers for Nixon and Lodge: "Lodge had to deal with all the peoples of the world, and though they are not all Negroes, he understands what it means. His fairness in dealing with these peoples greatly impresses us."

Another campaign plus is Lodge's wife Emily. Emily Sears, the daughter of another prosperous upper-class Boston family, met Cabot Lodge at her coming-out party in 1924, accepted his proposal two years later. Over the years she is credited with smoothing down his tendency to be snappish or haughty.* U.N. delegates found her a charming hostess in the Lodges' Waldorf Towers apartment; politicos and crowds alike have found her a relaxed, warmhearted campaigner who, as one reporter put it, "accepts every bunch of roses as though it were the first she ever got." "People respect Lodge," says Nixon Strategist Len Hall, "but they love Mrs. Lodge."

"Unless You're a Saint." As Lodge put together a staff and hit the campaign trail, he was perhaps the most relaxed candidate in the business. "There are really two essential things in campaigning," he says. "First, you must be in good humor. If you're going to be irascible, you ought to stay home. Second, you ought to make sense in your speeches. These are the two things you must do. Unless you're a saint, you can't be in good humor when you're exhausted."