Poll v. Pols

Newsmen taking polls at the Miami Beach conference found not a single Governor who said he thought that Michigan's George Romney was the man most likely to get the Republican Party's 1964 presidential nomination. But Gallup poll results published during the conference indicated that, measured by his vote-getting potential against John F. Kennedy, Romney ranks high as a G.O.P. prospect. If the election were being held in mid-1963, the poll showed, none of the three top Republican prospects would be any threat to Kennedy, but Romney would fare about as well as Goldwater would --and better than Rockefeller. The findings:

Goldwater 34%, Kennedy 60% (6% undecided) Romney 33%, Kennedy 59% (8% undecided) Rockefeller 30%, Kennedy 63% (7% undecided)

Since Romney has received enormously less publicity than Goldwater or Rockefeller, his relative showing was impressive enough to make G.O.P. politicians ponder. If the 1964 Republican Convention should become deadlocked, with the party's liberal segment refusing to accept Goldwater and its conservative segment balking at Rockefeller, George Romney just could be the man to walk down the middle.

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