Republicans: Anchors Aweigh

(5 of 10)

A growing number of Republican officials—and voters, judging from the polls—believes that the surest way to accomplish that in 1968 would be with a Rockefeller-Reagan ticket. The idea sets some normally phlegmatic party regulars to daydreaming: here is Rocky, launching his campaign from the steps of a Harlem tenement and blazing a triumphant trail through the nation's big cities; there is Reagan, wowing the farmers at the plowing contest in Fargo, N. Dak., and, as he stumps through the cornfields of the Midwest and the canebrakes of the South, leaving in his wake legions of charmed citizens, particularly women, who will have 62 million votes next year—4,000,000 more than U.S. men. Rockefeller, in particular, could capture new bases of support for the party among urban Negroes, workers and intellectuals.

While an R. & R. ticket is more than a Mittyesque dream, it has some towering obstacles to hurdle. The least of them is the fact that both men are on their second marriages. "We've never had a candidate who was divorced," says North Carolina Republican Marcus Hickman, chairman of Mecklenburg County. "This would give us two."

Most & Least. If Rocky is to win the top spot, 1) Nixon and Romney would have to gut one another in the primaries, 2) bandwagons for Reagan and Percy would have to be derailed before they got rolling, 3) the moderate Governors would have to coalesce be hind their colleague from New York, and 4) Rocky, in all likelihood, would have to strike a deal with the conservatives in advance by guaranteeing the second spot to Reagan.

Even that might not win them over. Rockefeller has perhaps the greatest assets and the greatest liabilities of any man in the G.O.P. The assets make him the party's most electable candidate; the liabilities make him its least nominable contender. Chief among the latter is the right wing's almost pathological hatred of Rocky—a feeling that Goldwater is unlikely to detoxify. "He's failed to support Republican candidates," says Barry. "It's kind of hard to forget these things." Particularly in Dixie. "I don't think Texans would vote for Rockefeller," says Republican State Committeeman Albert Fay, "if Jesus Christ were his running mate." They just might if Ronald Reagan were. Indeed, signs of grudging support for an R. & R. ticket are beginning to sprout even in the South's stony soil.

Too Artful? Could the two men share a ticket without tearing it to bits? Some Republicans doubt it; others are concerned that the pairing would strike voters as a little too artful. Actually, while the two are far apart in their political philosophies, they are by no means incompatible. "Keep in mind that Nelson is not of the liberal wing of the party," says New York's Senator Jacob Javits, who decidedly is. "He is more of a moderate Republican than he is a liberal. He could accept Reagan ideologically." Rockefeller himself cautioned friends to take the Californian seriously after his 1,000,000-vote victory last year. "When he gets engaged with the realities of being a Governor," said Rocky, "you'll find he is no extremist." A Rocky-Reagan ticket, moreover, would pull both men more toward the G.O.P.'s ideological center.