Nation: KEYNOTE TO OPPORTUNITY

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Canceled Flight. Lindsay's name came up in connection with a number of other dream tickets that he might not write off so readily as nightmares. Among them: Percy and Lindsay, Hatfield and Lindsay, in either order. And more than a few observers did some wishful thinking about Lindsay and Dan Evans. But as the convention opened, reality bore other names. Nixon, clearly, was the odds-on favorite. Both Rockefeller and Reagan hoped to siphon enough delegates away from the former Vice President to prevent a Nixon victory on the first ballot, figuring that his strength might dissipate swiftly thereafter. Nixon and his aides radiated confidence—but they were taking no chances. When six pro-Nixon delegates from South Carolina chartered a plane to meet with Reagan in Winston-Salem, N.C., last week, Nixon's lieutenants got on the phone to them in a hurry. The message: "If you switch to Reagan now, you're going to be on the outside looking in." The delegates canceled the flight.

Both Rockefeller and Reagan were relying on a small number of favorite sons to hold their delegations together at least into the second ballot. If only a few of them broke away, they would free enough votes to nominate Nixon before any rival was able to build up momentum.

Among the most crucial states: Maryland with 26 votes; Michigan, 48; New Jersey, 40; North Carolina, 26; Ohio, 58; Pennsylvania, 64; and Texas, 56.

The Maryland delegation, led by Governor Spiro Agnew, an early Rockefeller booster who turned neutral, came to the convention with a pro-Nixon majority. Ohio Governor James Rhodes was holding fast as a favorite son, but while Rockefeller counted on him to stay that way for at least two ballots, Rhodes showed in 1964—when he released his pro-Goldwater delegation before the vote started—that he is not a man to spurn a bandwagon.

Michigan's favorite son, George Romney, was influential enough to control perhaps three-fourths of the delegation's votes even past the first ballot. But the Governor cagily refused to indicate whether he would go for Rockefeller or Nixon, turn his votes loose or hold out in the hope that somehow a deadlocked convention would turn to him. North Carolina and Texas were typical of Southern states in which Reagan had begun to leech off Nixon's strength. In North Carolina, however, Nixon forces blocked a move to make Congressman James Gardner a favorite son and thus tie up the state's votes.

New Jersey, arriving in Miami Beach with a loose commitment to go with Senator Clifford Case as a favorite son, encompassed both Rockefeller and Nixon votes. Mostly, the New Jersey delegates yearned to go with the winner. With New York and California denied to Nixon by their commitments to Rockefeller and Reagan, Pennsylvania remained the largest bloc open for raiding. Most of its votes, however, seemed to be under the control of Governor Raymond Shafer, an aggressive Rockefeller booster.