REPUBLICAN RENAISSANCE PRESIDENT’S PARTY FACES ELECTIONS WITH CONFIDENCE

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32233, 27 February 1970, Page 12

REPUBLICAN RENAISSANCE PRESIDENT’S PARTY FACES ELECTIONS WITH CONFIDENCE

These are the golden days for Republicans—when everything the Grand Old Party does, or fails to do, or pretends to do, conies up smelling like roses. Seldom has a party with a sitting President approached a midterm election with so much justifiable optimism. The polls are gratifying, the majority of the electorate is content, the opposition is ieaderless and . disunited.

The Republican Party, on the other hand, now possesses not one but two gleaming superstars. President Nixon Is riding the result of a Ghllup survey showing that 66 per cent of the voters approve of his style, content and direction. Few Presidents: have managed to package their assets more attractively than Richard Nixon. While carefully rationing his personal exposure, he has projected an image of surefootedness and relaxed control. Further, he has to allappearances de-f used the war issue and he may even manage to take the inflation and pollution issues away from the Democrats Agnew Electrifies Meanwhile, Spiro Agnew continues to do what ought to come naturally for a VicePresident—to electrify the believers, titillate the halfconvinced and take his lumps from those who might otherwise be giving them to the President. “He is more in demand than anyone,” says a top Republican Party official, who then conscientiously and a little wryly adds, “than anyone except the President, of course." Indeed, there is evidence that Agnew actually is in more demand than his boss on the rubber chicken, plastic pea,, fund-raising circuit. For a ' Vice-President can hit harder, and on occasion lower, than would be appropriate for a President. In stark contrast to the debt-ridden Democrats, money is no problem to the Republicans. They have emerged from their 1968 victory with all bills paid, and their annual fund-raising dinner, which will take place in Washington on March 11, is expected to bring in 5U51.5 million. And this is not even their major source of revenue. The device of the “sustaining membership” has been the party’s financial lifesaver. Some 225,000 Republicans now contribute SUSIO a year to the party, thus guaranteeing SUS 2.2 million annually. “Little Man's” Party Rather astoundingiy, in view of the two parties’ historical images, the Republicans can now rightly claim that they, not the opposition, are the party of the “little man." Eighty per cent of the Republican National Committee’s operating costs are now supported by those contributing SUSIOO or less. Conversely, the Democratic National Committee now gets 80 per cent of its operating income from those contributing BUSIOO or more. The Republican Party also has a clear organisational advantage—and an organisational hero: Representative Rogers C. B. Morton of Maryland, the national chairman. A shrewd, earthy hulk of a man, Morton has enlivened the dour, nit-picking atmoI sphere of the party bureaucracy he inherited from cantankerous Ray Bliss, even as he retained its precision and efficiency. “He handles the big picture,” says one leading Republican, “and he is not in here squirreling around for every detail in the operation.” Mr Morton has had notable success with two of the party’s more divisive groupings. The upstart Young Republican organisation, while not brought completely to heel, is more pliant for him than for any recent chairman. Also, the women love .him. For a time, at least, the party’s roiling distaff branch have muted their general contentiousness and their chronic ideological warfare. The old aggravations, in fact, have died down—though certainly not out—all along the line. The patronage squabbles that threatened to dismember the party, a year ago are no longer a major

JOHN J LINDSAY.

'By

Newsweek feature Service)

problem. The White House for i political operator, Harry his ; Dent, is meshing well with.Ag the National Committee and,| 1 through it, with the state art ■ committees. And the lines frc : are open to the President, 'poi i Even the White House Con- str i gressional liaison staff— Sp i which was flubbing its job no regularly throughout most of po > last year—has settled down vol ■to professional performance. • The staff had a real triumph • recently, when Congress sus- - tained the President's veto of ' I'the crucial Health, Education ™ • and Welfare Bill. -i Though the party in L y ij control of the White House. ,ni i has a depressing history of! 8* losing Congressional seats at'be mid-term elections, the Republicans’ outlook for Hs is surprisingly;? ol t good. In part, that isi>° . because the “unnatural’’: D< , Democratic Senate seats won IP° ■_ in Lyndon Johnson’s 1964. m ' s landslide come up for re-i*B .. election t 0 „ A gain of seven seats tn se " the Senate would permit the j Vice President to break a R* 5 tie and organise the Senate 33 , for the Republicans And >” t there are fully 25 Democratic to . seats in contest. Twelve of! f these are considered vul- an s nerable. Among them: Texas, fa Ohio, New' Jersey i ot 5 ; Connecticut. Tennessee J The House of Represen “• ’itatives is a tougher nut i ra t'The Democratic margin has ** .. hovered at about 57 votes for I th • the past two years, and the!™ ..‘Republicans would be vastly w< si pleased to cut the margin ini** y I half. >• I Losses In The States? a Only in the State houses • do Republicans have grounds ’> to fear losses—and this is a mainly because they are. s already in such superlatively i 3 good shape. The Republican ® Party now holds 32' of the! • 50 governorships, including e every State with a large elecs toral vote except Texasi II Indeed, Republicans bave not had so many Governors in e half a century—since the fo '• 1920 Harding landslide at ‘ But Republicans havetr always been capable of going Di more than halfway to meet $3 disaster, and if there is any tei ii significant grumbling in the I ranks it comes from those i- same comparatively multi- a i tudinous governors, as well asibe ~ from liberal Senators and;th » Congressmen. ve f Some- of the Governors ;wc .-complain that they are notch s consulted by the White‘de -i House, that the President bit 1.1 seems uninterested in their! re; c i local problems. And it is a!ua s’fact that Mr Nixon has not er g gone out of his way to show. - his togetherness with the an State house contingent. Afwi oithe Republican Governors ca ill Conference last December.: in; I-

>r example, he turned down is invitation and sent gnew instead. Liberal lawmakers are also roused, especially those •om populous states. They oittt out that the “southern irategy" in general, and piro Agnew in particular, do otbing at all for northern oliticians who must win otes in the big cities. Democrats’ Position Even so, the complaints are tuted; they are not nearly as trong as those that faced .yndon Johnson during his lid-term election season. And enerally speaking, the good ews keeps piling up The most recent Louis Larris survey, for example, ound that for the first time n the modern era, the lemocrats have lost their osition as the nations najority party. Two years go, 52 per cent of the decorate considered themelves Democrats; now only 18 per cent do. Self-styled lepublicans still number only 13 per cent (up two points n the last two years), but he trend is notable. Still, smart Republicans are inticipating merely the downall of the Democratic Party, lot its death. They remem>er too well the last time a lirge was sounded over a najor political party. That vas only five years ago, after he Goldwater debacle, and lepublican Party prospects vere as dismal then as they ire bright today.