Elections: The Outlook for November

Buoyed by the flood tide of Great Society legislation last fall, Democratic strategists six months ago ventured that November 1966 might prove an exception to the seldom-broken rule that the party in power loses strength in midterm elections. Now, with all 435 House seats, 35 Senate seats and 35 governorships at stake, they are talking gloomily of losing at least 30 seats in the House, a couple in the Senate and at least two statehouses. Even so, Senate Minority Leader Everett Dirksen figures that the Democrats are being too optimistic. To make his point, he has offered to wager $100, even money, that the G.O.P. will pick up 50 or more seats in the House.

The weather vanes shifted largely as a result of Viet Nam. The war is already uppermost in the minds of an impressive number of voters. A poll conducted for the Republican National Committee by New Jersey's Opinion Research Corp. indicates that fully 33% of U.S. voters consider it the nation's No. 1 problem, while an additional 20% regard such closely related issues as the threat of world war or the menace of Communism as dominant. By comparison, only 19% of the voters consider the most important domestic issue, civil rights, to be the nation's chief concern.

Suspended Strategy. The G.O.P. has not yet decided what its strategy should be on the Viet Nam issue. "What we say today," said one party official, "may not be worth five cents tomorrow."

Nonetheless, its basic strategy is suggested by a Lou Harris poll showing that only 49% of the voters currently approve Lyndon Johnson's handling of the war, v. 66% in December. This does not by any means suggest that the argument will resemble the familiar dove-hawk controversy. Many Republican campaigners will undoubtedly urge intensified bombing of North Viet Nam, particularly "source" targets in the Hanoi-Haiphong industrial complex, which have been spared on the President's orders. The Administration may also be criticized for not calling up the reserves—or, if they have been mobilized by November, for having done so unnecessarily.

In any event, G.O.P. tacticians point out, Republicans, in time, will aim some sharp shafts at the majority party's "appeasement wing." Last week Chairman John J. Rhodes of the House G.O.P. Policy Committee and House Republican Leader Gerald Ford issued a statement deploring the fact that "the deep division" among Democrats over Viet Nam "is prolonging the war, undermining the morale of our fighting men and encouraging the Communist aggressor" (see The Congress).

Subsidiary Benefits. The G.O.P. is also preparing to zero in on a number of domestic dividends arising out of the war. Biggest of these is the growing threat of inflation, largely generated by heavy defense spending for the war, though the attendant dangers of tax increases and price and wage controls may also be issues. "We're going to have to answer the Republicans on inflation," concludes South Dakota Democratic Official Herb Teske. "They're comparing the dollar to a wooden nickel, blaming the President and saying we can't support our boys in Viet Nam and Great Society programs at the same time."