Nation: KEYNOTE TO OPPORTUNITY

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Gradual Shift. The opportunity for the Republicans envisaged by Dan Evans is based on more than the Democrats' problems. There is a pitch of political questioning in the land that goes beyond anything felt since the Depression. People challenge the system. Virginia's Democratic Senator Harry Byrd Jr., for one, last week declared that conventions are a "political carnival that should be abolished." More seriously, many ask whether the present ramshackle setup, from confused nominating procedures all the way up to the archaic Electoral College, can really be relied on to represent the majority will. Of more immediate interest to politicians is the fact that many voters seem to strain against a two-party system; the weakening of party loyalties and the talk of new parties, while long a fixture in the U.S. and easy to exaggerate, seem more widespread this year than before.

Above all there is a breakdown, or at least a confusion, of the old ideological lines. The distrust of Big Government, long the special property of the Republican Party, has spread to unexpected quarters.

Nowadays the radicals of the left as well as the right reflexively condemn the Federal Government for its size, remoteness and unresponsiveness. Between the extremes, there has been a gradual shift toward the view that while a strong central government alone can oversee such programs as space, defense and interstate highways, local problems can be more responsively and responsibly handled by cities or counties or states. Most liberals still feel that a strong Federal Government is essential when it comes to world issues, as well as education, jobs and housing, and doubt that local governments can be trusted to ensure a fair shake for all. Still, distrust of government and belief in decentralization is a big new force. Nixon and others have spotted it. How it can be used by the parties and the candidates, who will be hurt and who will be helped, is far from clear. But the phenomenon offers a somewhat heady sense of opportunity, of release from familiar patterns and old rules.

Republican Hour. Inside Convention Hall stands a 19-ft.-high, 500-lb. sculpture that epitomizes the party's high hopes for 1968. From its stainless steel stems hang 24 freeform wooden leaves. Twenty-three of them bear cameo-style carvings of past Presidents, including every Republican elected since Lincoln broke the ice in 1860. The 24th is blank, but the conventioneers, their euphoria heightened by the sun, surf and sand of Miami Beach, are confident that it will some day bear the likeness of whomever the G.O.P. happens to nominate this week.