JOHNSON MAY RUN FOR SECOND TERM

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31320, 16 March 1967, Page 17

JOHNSON MAY RUN FOR SECOND TERM

(From FRANK OLIVER, special correspondent N.Z.P A )

WASHINGTON, Mar. 15. The great race for 1968 may be said to be “on.” Last week Mr Johnson told the press that he was not yet ready to make up his mind about whether to run for the Presidency again.

This started off the rumourmongers. However, Walter Lippmann, never given to rash statements, says flatly the President has now told leading Democratic politicians that the Democratic; ticket for 1968 will be Johnson and Humphrey.

Mr Theodore Sorensen, special counsel to the late President Kennedy, told a Princeton University audience recently that Mr Johnson would be following the “historical pattern” if be chose not to run next year. James Reston, commenting on this, says the President had not reached the pinnacle of American political life by following historical patterns but by breaking them. Likes Job The consensus is that, given reasonable health, Mr Johnson will run for the second term the law permits him. He likes his job and he enjoys the exercise of power. Perhaps, like a lot of others, he is not sure that Mr Hubert Humphrey could get the nomination in competition with Mr Robert Kennedy. Reston says he will doubtless continue to tease the “Johnson-watchers” about his future plans, “but it is difficult to imagine any set of circumstances that would lend him to retire voluntarily.” These are among the reasons why objective observers are a hundred per cent confident that, barring acts of God, the 1968 ticket will be Johnson and Humphrey. There is no such certainty when it comes to the Republican slate. A lot of people are running, some while pretending not to run, and it is impossible to guess who will be first at the tape when the running ends at next year’s convention. Lampooned The man who gets all the publicity is Governo*’ Romney of Michigan, whose recent speech tours have been notable more for the destructive than the constructive. Last week-end at the annual gridiron dinner, the newspaper frolic at which all leading politicians are mercilessly lampooned, Mr Romney was

scalded with a song of which this is one verse: No, no. a thousand times no. Right now I can’t acquiesce. No, no. a thousand times no. But in the end I’ll say yes. One and all seem to agree that unless the reluctant Governor soon says something about Vietnam and the war there he will cripple his chances for the nomination. It is the biggest issue of the day and it seems to many that any contender for the White House has got to take a position about it It is not so much the Vietnam war as such, but whether this country should be committed to a policy of policing the world and combatting communism wherever it happens to break out.

The man who is running and does not care who knows it is none other than Mr Richard Nixon, and he is now off on a much-publicised world tour to bring himself up to date on world affairs

He was lampooned at the gridiron dinner, too, when an impersonator, to a tune from “Porgy and Bess,” sang the song, “Someday I’ll find someone I can beat.” Not Popular He gets full marks for persistence, but the polls do not show him enjoying any particular popularity, and my own experiences with noted Republicans (and run of the mill, too) is summed up by “Nixon? No, not again.” He cannot, however, be be counted out California reports indicate a wide belief there that Mr Ronald Reagan will be a “favourite son” candidate from his state and that after the honour of one ballot he will switch his votes to Mr Nixon.

It is also widely known that Mr Nixon is the favoured candidate of Mr Barry Goldwater, which may be a help if the convention turns out to be as conservative, as some people have predicted it will be. There is another potential candidate who is on a world tour but unattended by the lamp of publicity that lights the Nixon path. This is former Governor William Scranton, of Pennsylvania.

Unable to succeed himself, he is without a political base at the moment and, accord-

ing to friends in the party, is taking a very leisurely journey, spending considerable time in all countries of importance, and expects, when he returns, to be as well informed on foreign affairs as any other candidate and better than most. A Newcomer

A so-called “dark horse” is Senator Percy, of Illinois, making a name for himself in the Senate at a great rate for a newcomer, a thoughtful man with opinions he does not hesitate to express even when they do not exactly dovetail with those of the Senate Republican leadership. Important Republicans in New York believe it would be silly to count out Governor Nelson Rockefeller. The row created by his divorce and remarriage has disappeared, and his great victory in last year’s election has given him new prestige as a politician and a vote-getter. Said a very important New York Republican to me, concerning the Governor’s statements that he will never again be a candidate for the Presidency, “If the convention points to a man how can he refuse?” Any of these men could head the Republican ticket. Much depends on the public image they manufacture in the next few months.

Lippmann says that if the Republicans wish to win in 1968 they must nominate someone who looks and sounds like a real alternative to Mr Johnson. “For the underlying issue then will be whether this country’s interest and . duty, are to police the world, thus entangling itself in one Vietnam after another —or whether its interest and its duty are to return to the older American conception of the United States as, on the whole, a non-interventionist power, except where its own vital interest is clear.” Be that as it may, the campaigning is on. The Republicans now have a pretty clear idea of who they have to meet and beat, and the indications today are that the convention will not the rigged affair it was in 1964, when Mr Goldwater had the nomination in the bag before the other sections of the party knew it.