Oregon Lodgistics

"Why," demanded the Medford, Ore., Mail Tribune, "should any Republican be attracted to a man who has lost elections, who is a lousy campaigner, who would be the oldest President to be inaugurated since James Buchanan, who is a member of the present Administration, whose views on the issues of the day are completely unknown, and who's 6,000 miles away doing a lousy job of running a nasty little war?"

But Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge seemed about to run away with the May 15 Republican primary in Oregon. The latest Lou Harris poll gave him 46% of the potential Republican vote, and only 17% to Nixon, 14% to Goldwater and 13% to Rockefeller. The influential statewide newspaper, the Portland Oregonian, which came flat out for Lodge last week, conducted its own survey, which gave Lodge 40%, Rockefeller 18%, Nixon 17% and Goldwater 14%.

Mystique. Oregon's apparent preference for Lodge could be measured by a variety of other signs. They were so strong that Barry Goldwater instructed his aide on the scene, Steve Shadegg, to cut a few days out of his Oregon schedule and privately crossed the state off his list. Nelson Rockefeller was planning an all-out mail and telephone, radio and TV campaign in a desperate attempt to gain a foothold. Rocky's people bravely explained that the situation paralleled the primary campaign of 1948, when Harold Stassen seemed to have had the state all wrapped up only to lose a last-minute saturation campaign to Tom Dewey.

Most Republican observers doubt that Rockefeller can duplicate Dewey's surprise victory, which was achieved mostly by a trouncing that Dewey gave Stassen in a nationwide radio debate. Lodge need not take any such risk as a debate. And his absence from Oregon apparently works to his advantage in other ways. Explains a top Oregon Republican: "There's the matter of overexposure. That's not something that either Rockefeller or Goldwater can correct, but it's there. The glamour, the mystique, has run thin. Lodge, on the other hand, is the personification of mystique."

Lodge's strength is partly attributable to the hard work of Massachusetts Attorney David Goldberg, who helped engineer the Lodge victory in New Hampshire. Goldberg and his aides have set up a smoothly running volunteer corps that ranges all through the state. His budget is relatively small, with most of the money earmarked for massive mailings and a few TV promotions. "We're blessed by our poverty," says Goldberg. "We can't spread ourselves into areas we can't do well in. What we can do is a very thorough job in direct mail and in canvassing door to door." Goldberg and Volunteer Helper Sally Saltonstall (niece of Massachusetts Senator Leverett Saltonstall), have divided the state into small sectors of every county in which six-man teams will soon barnstorm on an enlistment campaign. Goldberg figures that each team should be able to reach between 400 and 500 people a day, at the rate of ten people per hour. If the plan works, the Lodge volunteers will have made contact with 150,000 Republicans before the primary.

Former Neighbor. Still, the Lodge boom has raised puzzling questions in Oregon, questions of the kind raised by that editorial in the Medford Mail Tribune. Says State G.O.P. Chairman Elmo Smith, a former Governor: "This Lodge deal is one of the most fantastic things that's ever occurred in American politics. All it represents is a lack of firm conviction on the part of the voters in their ability to accept anyone else." Republican Secretary of State Howell Appling Jr. adds: "I'm struck by the number of people who don't have the vaguest notion of what Lodge stands for." Says Republican Tom McCall, who is running to succeed Appling: "This is the Year of the Green Tomato" --meaning that the "ripe tomatoes," Barry and Rocky, have been tasted by the electorate and found wanting.

Leading Republicans can see only one way in which Lodge could be stopped in Oregon, and that is through an all-out Nixon campaign. "Dick Nixon could field an organization yet that could put on a professional-type campaign," says one G.O.P. official. "People here identify with him. He's a former neighbor. There's a certain parochial geographic factor; it's latent and it could be stimulated." Elmo Smith agrees: "If Nixon came in, he'd eat at all of them some. He would pick up quite a bit of the middle-road or slightly conservative vote. Lodge would be hurt the most. I'd go a long bet and say he'd win it."

Will Nixon do it? He says no. Still, he has been in contact on and off with his former political associates in Oregon, and Wes Phillips, his executive secretary for Oregon in 1960, plans to announce soon the names of a state chairman and other officials for a late-starting Nixon campaign. If Nixon himself should then decide to jump into the presidential campaign, he might repeat Tom Dewey's victory. If he stays out, then Lodge looks like the winner.

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