KEYNOTE TO OPPORTUNITY

IN 1964 an eve-of-execution atmosphere enveloped San Francisco as the Republican Party convened to nominate its presidential candidate. Lyndon Johnson was at the zenith of his popularity. The G.O.P. was preparing to counter him with Barry Goldwater, an all-but-certain loser. The economy was booming, taxes were down, the cities were more or less tranquil, and Viet Nam was a relatively far-off rumble.

In 1968 the mood is palpably different. This time the Democrats are in decline, taxes and living costs are up, the cities are seething, and Viet Nam has turned into the nation's longest, least popular war. The heady awareness of opportunity that infects the entire G.O.P. assemblage is a measure of the distance the party has come since the dismal post-Goldwater days. When the Republican Governors met in Denver to conduct a post mortem on the 1964 election, the party was at its nadir. It had lost the presidency by the greatest popular margin in history. The Democrats had swollen 2-to-1 majorities in both the Senate and the House, and 33 of the nation's 50 Governors as well.

Said Robert E. Smylie, Governor of Idaho, without exaggeration: "We have suffered a defeat as severe in quality and quantity as any that the Republican Party has ever sustained."

In that grim year, Republicans had little to cheer about. An exception was the gubernatorial election in Washington State, where Civil Engineer Daniel Jackson Evans, still in his 30s, bucked the Johnson tide and pulled off a long-shot upset over a two-term Democratic incumbent. Two years later, a flock of Republicans duplicated Dan Evans' blueprint. On Capitol Hill, where they added 47 Congressmen and three Senators, and in the statehouses, where they picked up eight governorships, 1966 was a G.O.P. year.

Oratory and Opera. Building on that foundation, Republicans hoped to make Miami Beach the prelude for even bigger victories. Fittingly, the man they selected to strike the theme for the convention by delivering its keynote speech was Washington's Dan Evans. The age of television demands a keynoter who is young, attractive and vigorous. Evans is the prototype of a class of pragmatic, nondoctrinaire, problem-solving Republicans who came to the forefront after the 1964 debacle. Before television, keynote speeches were all too often incredible and interminable. Historian Mark Sullivan once called them "a combination of oratory, grand opera and hog calling." After Ohio Senator Simeon Fess's keynote at the 1928 Republican Convention, Will Rogers chortled: "Here are just a few things I bet you didn't know the Republicans were responsible for: radio, telephone, baths, automobiles, savings accounts, law enforcement, workmen living in houses and a living wage for Senators."

Evans was determined that his speech would be different. All too many keynotes, he found, had been "half diatribe, tearing down the opposition party, and half breast beating, or boasting about accomplishments of the past." He had put uncounted hours into the speech since early June, soliciting ideas from a spate of party leaders, trying out phrases in speeches all over the Northwest.

No Ripsnorting. To spare the brains and buttocks of the 17,000 or so delegates, alternates, functionaries, newsmen and spectators in Convention Hall, Evans limited the talk to 25 minutes. Nominating speeches were supposed to be restricted to 15 minutes and seconding speeches to four. Even the invocations were ordered held to 90 seconds. Explained a convention planner: "A clergyman is no different from a politician when he sees a camera and a microphone in front of him."

However, the rule was not meant to apply to John Wayne, who was called on for an "inspirational reading" rather than a run-of-the-mill invocation. Demonstrations for candidates were also cur tailed. When Lincoln was nominated in 1860, such a din rocked Chicago's Wigwam auditorium that, as one witness observed, "a thousand steam whistles, ten acres of hotel gongs, a tribe of Comanches might have mingled in the scene unnoticed." Miami Beach will be different. This time candidates were limited--in theory at least--to 20-minute outbursts in their behalf with no more than one 50-piece marching band (or two 25-piece ensembles), and no outside demonstrators.

In the process of refining his thoughts and tailoring them to the time limitation, Evans invited a few dozen friends and advisers to his official residence in Olympia for a trial run-through of his still unfinished speech last week. One suggestion offered afterward: throw in a few more ripsnorting flourishes to bring the people in Convention Hall to their feet. Evans vetoed the idea. "We ought to aim at the people who are watching on television," he said, "rather than delegates who won't be listening anyhow."

Where the Action Is. Evans was overhauling the speech up to the last minute, but its theme was one that he had conceived from the first: the bewildering pace of change in the nation today, and the challenge that this poses to the G.O.P. "This party should not fear to tread new paths," he wrote in his second draft, "for change in all its forms has been the generating force of America's greatness." The G.O.P. "must be where the action is."

Evans discerned "an impulsive, reckless dissatisfaction with what we are--and a desperate outcry for what we could be once again." He noted that "our persistent centralization of government has accomplished little--except the progressive immobilization of state governments and the destruction of local solutions." One example is the welfare system, which, he said, has succeeded only in destroying pride and incentive. Observed Evans: "The first priority of the U.S. is the resolution of our internal conflict--the recognition that if we cannot unite our own nation, then we cannot preserve the hope of others." But that, he added carefully, did not mean a pell-mell pullout from Viet Nam. "To have entered the war by the path of error does not mean that we can now leave through the door of default."

Referring to his own efforts in Washington state to encourage a philosophy of "selfhelp" rather than "help yourself," Evans noted that,"Black America and poor America" are reminding the rest of the country "of something we very nearly forgot: that to own a share in business, to realize a profit on investment, to run a factory or a shop, to produce goods and see the money return to the community--that these, not welfare are the things which made America great, her people rich and her opportunity unlimited." Allying himself with America's impatient younger generation, Evans observed that the young have "served notice that satisfaction cannot be measured alone by productivity, that there is a need for service and contribution beyond the attainment of material success."

Buck Bet. For the G.O.P. to meet "the challenge of tomorrow," said Evans, it must work harder to tap two underexploited resources. One is the self-interested capability of industry to help solve social problems. The other is the selfless participation of individual citizens "who share in the dream of a country reunited."

Evans is well aware that his role as sures him of no more than a transitory moment of glory. Pennsylvania's patrician ex-Governor William Scranton, however, is convinced that Evans' speech will make a more significant impact. Scranton, one of the Republicans whom Dan Evans admires most deeply, dropped him a note last week. "I bet him a buck that when he made his keynote speech there wouldn't be any big hoopla," recalled the Pennsylvanian. "I bet him that it would take the delegates a day--24 hours--to realize that he had much to say."

Senseless Clatter. Evans' speech was practically a manifesto for the G.O.P.'s pragmatic "New Breed." It wound up in strange company. On the program preceding the keynote were remarks from two of the most outspoken representatives of an older breed--Barry Goldwater and California's conservative Senator George Murphy. But the man who was to introduce Evans, New York's Mayor John Lindsay, is himself a paradigm of the progressive politicians who have brightened Republican ranks in recent years.

Evans has capsuled the New Breed philosophy as well as anyone: "People today are interested in action, not cliches; problem solving, not promise making; an active concern for the future, not a passive contentment with the past." The hallmark of the politicians who recognize these concerns is an intense conviction that state and local governments must cope with their own problems rather than allow them to go by default to Washington for consideration. The approach is essentially nonideological, even nonpolitical--and thus is appealing to the increasingly youthful, well-educated and independent U.S. electorate. To new voters, says Evans, "the traditional clatter of politics makes very little sense. They would rather have solutions." Perhaps the paramount issue, to Evans, is the racial upheaval. As he told Negro leaders in Tacoma last year: "We cannot afford to put the lid on the cauldron of seething problems and call that law and order. We must instead find solutions, and call that social justice."

A growing phalanx of Republicans bears the New Breed label. Some are more conservative than others, but all are reaching for answers to the questions that many Republicans of an older generation were all too willing to ignore. In the Senate, there are Oregon's Mark Hatfield, Illinois' Chuck Percy, Massachusetts' Ed Brooke; in the House, Illinois' Donald Rumsfeld and Texas' George Bush. The statehouses provide the largest contingent, for it is the Governors who most directly confront the nagging problems of urban America. There are New York's Rockefeller, Massachusetts' John Volpe, Pennsylvania's Ray Shafer, Rhode Island's John Chafee, Maryland's Spiro Agnew, Colorado's John Love.

Ideological Equations. Practically every one of those names was mentioned in what became the second biggest guessing game at the convention. The big question, of course, was: Could Nixon be stopped? The next biggest: If not, who would be his running mate?

The New Breed Republicans figured heavily in the speculation as the convention opened. Virtually all of them could offer Nixon, a man of the center, the sort of progressive appeal that would compensate for his weakness in the heavily urbanized industrial states. Such ideological equations are fast replacing geographical balance as the criteria for the second spot. Reagan, Texas Senator John Tower and Florida Governor Claude Kirk figured less prominently in the speculation; if Nixon decided that he needed a man from the right to offset George Wallace's third-party appeal, he was expected to turn to them. But the betting favored someone from the liberal camp.

Someone, say, like John Lindsay. Nixon's aides hinted broadly, in fact, that the stalwart New York mayor was the candidate's first choice. "He's brainy and courageous," said one Nixon lieutenant. "He's got one of the toughest jobs in the world, and he's dived right in and made the most of it." When asked a few weeks ago how he felt about the "dream tickets" that included his name, Lindsay quipped: "I do have bad dreams occasionally." But many Republicans were convinced that the mayor would jump at the second spot. "He has a good image now," noted a Rockefeller lieutenant, "but he knows he's sitting on a powder keg. Sooner or later, something is going to happen to make him look bad."*

Canceled Flight. Lindsay's name came up in connection with a number of other dream tickets that he might not write off so readily as nightmares. Among them: Percy and Lindsay, Hatfield and Lindsay, in either order. And more than a few observers did some wishful thinking about Lindsay and Dan Evans. But as the convention opened, reality bore other names. Nixon, clearly, was the odds-on favorite. Both Rockefeller and Reagan hoped to siphon enough delegates away from the former Vice President to prevent a Nixon victory on the first ballot, figuring that his strength might dissipate swiftly thereafter. Nixon and his aides radiated confidence--but they were taking no chances. When six pro-Nixon delegates from South Carolina chartered a plane to meet with Reagan in Winston-Salem, N.C., last week, Nixon's lieutenants got on the phone to them in a hurry. The message: "If you switch to Reagan now, you're going to be on the outside looking in." The delegates canceled the flight.

Both Rockefeller and Reagan were relying on a small number of favorite sons to hold their delegations together at least into the second ballot. If only a few of them broke away, they would free enough votes to nominate Nixon before any rival was able to build up momentum.

Among the most crucial states: Maryland with 26 votes; Michigan, 48; New Jersey, 40; North Carolina, 26; Ohio, 58; Pennsylvania, 64; and Texas, 56.

The Maryland delegation, led by Governor Spiro Agnew, an early Rockefeller booster who turned neutral, came to the convention with a pro-Nixon majority. Ohio Governor James Rhodes was holding fast as a favorite son, but while Rockefeller counted on him to stay that way for at least two ballots, Rhodes showed in 1964--when he released his pro-Goldwater delegation before the vote started--that he is not a man to spurn a bandwagon.

Michigan's favorite son, George Romney, was influential enough to control perhaps three-fourths of the delegation's votes even past the first ballot. But the Governor cagily refused to indicate whether he would go for Rockefeller or Nixon, turn his votes loose or hold out in the hope that somehow a deadlocked convention would turn to him. North Carolina and Texas were typical of Southern states in which Reagan had begun to leech off Nixon's strength. In North Carolina, however, Nixon forces blocked a move to make Congressman James Gardner a favorite son and thus tie up the state's votes.

New Jersey, arriving in Miami Beach with a loose commitment to go with Senator Clifford Case as a favorite son, encompassed both Rockefeller and Nixon votes. Mostly, the New Jersey delegates yearned to go with the winner. With New York and California denied to Nixon by their commitments to Rockefeller and Reagan, Pennsylvania remained the largest bloc open for raiding. Most of its votes, however, seemed to be under the control of Governor Raymond Shafer, an aggressive Rockefeller booster.

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.

The party's confidence recalls the comment offered by Pennsylvania's Republican boss, U.S. Senator Boies Penrose, on the eve of the 1920 convention that nominated Warren Harding. "Any good Republican," he declared, "can be nominated for President and can defeat any Democrat." Any such statement today would seem unrealistic and overbearing. Daniel Evans warns of that danger in his keynote speech. "In a very real sense, this is the Republican Hour," he said in his draft address. But it could slip by, he indicated, unless the G.O.P. made the most of it. "What is at stake now is whether the Republican Party can rise to the challenge created by the winds of a new direction," said Evans, "or whether, in defiance of history, we choose to retreat when the nation clearly calls."

* Moreover, Nixon's men saw no particular problem in the constitutional clause prohibiting electors from casting votes for both a President and a Vice President from the same state. If Nixon were elected and the loss of New York's electoral votes threatened to deprive Lindsay of the vice-presidency, there would be nothing to prevent Nixon from moving to another state for the period between Election Day and Dec. 16, when the Electoral College meets.

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