Republicans: Anchors Aweigh

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Even so, Johnson may prove no easier to unhorse in 1968 than Harry Truman was 20 years earlier when threatened by an overconfident G.O.P. Like Truman, Johnson faces flank attacks from two sides, the radical New Leftists and the segregationist supporters of former Alabama Governor George Wallace. Like Truman, also, he is getting no help from the 50,000-member Americans for Democratic Action, which is noisily critical of his Viet Nam policy. But the A.D.A. came around and backed Truman after he was nominated in 1948, and nobody would be surprised if it did the same thing for L.B.J. After all, during its convention in Washington last month, the A.D.A.'s national board refused by a 6-to-l margin to come out against him. As Chairman J. Kenneth Galbraith pointed out, the organization has a "longstanding commitment to political realities."

So do most other Democrats. What ever their feelings about the war, they are beginning to line up behind Johnson for 1968. Even as outspoken an Administration critic as Oregon's Senator Wayne Morse says he would rather "take my chances" with L.B.J. than back a Republican. Says Texas Congressman Jake Pickle, who holds Lyndon's old seat in the House: "We be lieve in unity, even if we have to fight for it." Also in Johnson's favor, as California Pollster Mervin Field notes, is the fact that he "has it in his power to change the rules of the game overnight. He can change his stand on Viet Nam, he can allocate funds to the poor, and put pressure on the Federal Reserve to stimulate the economy."

Seismic Upheaval. Short of death or disablement, about the only thing that could keep Johnson from renomination in Chicago would be a Trumanesque decision to retire. That decision, in Truman's case, came only after the popularity rating of his scandal-plagued Administration had sunk to a bare 23% in November 1951 and Kefauver defeated him in New Hampshire the following spring. Whether Johnson will win re-election if he runs is another question. Harry Truman, earthy and at times almost embarrassingly open in showing his feelings, made an appealing underdog in 1948. Johnson, by contrast, is just as earthy but all too plainly inclined to hold his cards close to his vest—or up his sleeve—and attracts no sympathy votes.

Moreover, the entire U.S. electorate is in the midst of a seismic upheaval that has left politicians of both parties unsure of their footing. An upsurge in registered Negro voters is changing equations in the South and the major cities. Fully 46% of the nation's 19 million union members now earn between $7,500 and $15,000 a year and are more uncommitted than ever. "We've got to get the guy who goes home and has a bottle of beer and checks the TV schedule," says one astute Democrat. The G.O.P. is after the same fellow.

Even so, the Republicans also have some serious problems. According to Gallup, the G.O.P. is now outnumbered by independents. The latest reckoning gives the Democrats 42% of the electorate, independents 31%, Republicans 27%. The implications for the party are clear: to win an election, it not only has to win over a large batch of independents but siphon off millions of votes from the Democrats as well.