<http://schema.org/articleBody>
"  In classical times, it was a capital offense to speculate upon the hour of a king&amp;#039;s death, or upon the identity of his successor. Oracles at Delphi and other holy places were carefully watched by secret agents. Astrologers were periodically questioned about their clients\u2014anyone asked to have the Emperor&amp;#039;s horoscope cast lately? If so, please give name and address. Execution was always swift. Roman emperors had enough problems without the added exasperation of ambitious rivals examining a future which everyone knew could be revealed, with luck, money and the complaisance of the gods.  Happily, we live in a more gracious age. No sooner does an American President take his oath of office than the speculation begins: Will he be reelected in four years&amp;#039; time? If not, who will succeed him? A member of his own party? the other party? Does that odd tremor in his neck mean he is suffering from some obscure wasting disease which will be the making of the Vice-President? Or is he just tired of standing at attention while endless ranks of West Point cadets march by? Americans are future-minded to the point of obsession. We are impatient at living in the present. Tomorrow is bound to be better\u2026next year, next century, always what might be rather than what is. This trait in us makes for &amp;quot;progress&amp;quot;; it also makes for a continuing dissatisfaction. AS someone remarked recently, we have now got to the point in our politics where a man is elected President simply to attain a future goal, which is to be an ex-President: prestigious, unresponsible, loved.  Today we have almost as many ways of guessing the future as our ancestors had. They were forced to interpret the ambiguities of the Pythoness at Delphi who, whenever hard-pressed by events, resorted to the kind of rambling nonanswer we have got used to at Presidential press conferences. Fortunately for us, instead of the Pythoness of Delphi we now have The Pollster of 1 Rockefeller Plaza, Lou Harris. There is no nonsense about him. He will tell you months in advance where the votes are, what the issues will be, and he&amp;#039;ll even propose the sort of campaign in which the right issues can be brought before the right group to insure victory. Happily\u2014or unhappily\u2014the Harrises and the Gallups are generally correct in their analyses.  Some things of course are not always calculable, even to UNIVAC. The effect of sudden crisis at the last minute on an election (e.g., Cuba, 1962). The charm of a given local candidate which might upset a trend (e.g., Romney&amp;#039;s election as Governor of Michigan, 1962). But usually the pollsters can tell us what the people are thinking about at any given moment (more important\u2014one might add\u2014what they are not thinking about), as well as the people&amp;#039;s impression of those few national or local politicians who have managed to get their attention. It is a discouraging fact that the people seldom know who anyone in political life is. They vote for whatever party they have always voted for. They can often identify the President and his opponent accurately, but candidates for governor, senator, congressman often as not draw a perfect blank. In a recent poll in New York City\u2014by far the most sophisticated of the nation&amp;#039;s cities\u2014it was found that only ten percent had ever heard of Ralph Bunche, twelve percent of Ed Murrow, while the regular politicians, all officeholders, were unknown. This apathy plays into the hands of professional politicians. As a result, though it is a difficult and expensive business getting control of the political centers of this country, once that control has been achieved there is no reason why it cannot be maintained indefinitely. More of this later.  Now here we are in 1963, speculating not on the Presidential election of 1964 but that of 1968. Obviously, any such speculation must be qualified. Firs, all our principals must be alive in 1968. Second, there must be no great economic or military debacle in the next six years. Should there be a major depression, the incumbent party will fin itself out-cumbent. Should we lose a war, there will not be an election in 1968. Yet assuming that the candidates and the body politic survive intact, it is possible to make certain predictions based on what is happening right now. For one thing, presidential campaigns begin earlier and earlier. John F. Kennedy&amp;#039;s 1960 campaign began in 1956. Most of the rivals for 1968 have already begun their planning for the big prize.  Here is the situation in 1968. John Kennedy will have been reelected President in 1964. Despite ritual Republican cries during the next two years that there is a rising popular tide favoring (a) fiscal responsibility, (b) less government, (c) brutal hardness on communism, the G.O.P. will discover, as usual, that though the country is quite as conservative as they want, it is also pro-incumbent and easily bemused by personality. If Kennedy&amp;#039;s popularity should have been, according to Dr. Gallup, extraordinarily high just after the debacle in the Bay of Pigs, what is it apt to be when he is doing well? And Presidents tend to do remarkable well just before they run for reelection. As New York&amp;#039;s Mayor Wagner said recently: &amp;quot;I think the Republicans may have to auction off that nomination for 1964.&amp;quot; Or to hear from a Republican, Senator Margaret Chase Smith: &amp;quot;There is already too much defeatism within Republican ranks about winning nationally in 1964\u2026. We&amp;#039;re going to have to hunt for somebody to run for President.&amp;quot;  In 1968 Kennedy will still be head of the Democratic Party. Though forbidden by Constitutional amendment to seek a third term, he will have a good deal to say about his successor. What are the choices of the Democratic Party? The answer is: startlingly few. There is the Vice-President, Lyndon Johnson, whose will to be President continues. But time is no friend to Johnson&amp;#039;s candidacy. Assuming he is Kennedy&amp;#039;s running mate in &amp;#039;64, he will be sixty years old in November, 1968. The public (whose memory is about two weeks, according to some cynics) has already forgotten the dynamic Lyndon Johnson who was once master of the Senate. Eight years of Vice-Presidential greyness will have completed his obscurity; nor is there any way for Johnson to gain political attention. By the very definition of his office, the Presidential shadow engulfs him. Also, practically speaking, all the arguments used against his candidacy in 1960 will still obtain. He is thought indifferent to civil rights even though, ironically, he is impeccable in that area, but, because he is a Texan, Northerners have him pegged as something of a Dixiecrat; he had a heart attack while in the Senate. Finally, how does the ceremonial presiding officer of the Senate make a new record for himself? In six years Hubert Humphrey will be fifty-seven. Assuming he is reelected Minnesota&amp;#039;s Senator in 1966, he will continue to be a major figure in the Senate, rich with seniority (nineteen years by then), an engaging personality, and the admiration of the liberals whose choice he is certain to be. But liberals are few, though resonant. Humphrey has the misfortune to come from a minor state; he can control no powerful delegation or complex of votes at any convention. Even worse, as a liberal he has no hope of big money&amp;#039;s support. All this was plain in 1960 when his vigorous primary campaign against Kennedy collapsed for lack of money. Humphrey could never successfully oppose a capable politician of personal wealth who had the support of a major industrial state, not to mention Presidential backing.  Who are the other candidates? We can rule out the President&amp;#039;s Cabinet. Though Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara is gaining an impressive reputation, Presidents do not emerge from Cabinets (Herbert Hoover was a celebrity before he was Secretary of Commerce). The Senate? There was a moment before the convention of 1960 when all the Presidential hopefuls were in the Senate chamber. Nixon presided. Kennedy, Humphrey, Johnson and Symington were Senators. Today Stuart Symington appears to be out of Presidential politics because of his age\u2014he will be sixty-seven in 1968\u2014and because he is hardly in the new mold Kennedy has cast for the Presidency: youth, vigor, and stamina. It is possible that one of the new Senators may make a name for himself, as Harry Truman did during the Second War, but not likely. Six years is not that long a time. And even if a hopeful should get the run of a lively subcommittee with plenty of headlines, he would still have to learn what Estes Kefauver learned: no matter how lavish your publicity, you need a lot of money and an important state behind you if you are to succeed in the biggest league.  An important governorship used to be the best springboard for would-be Presidents. The Governor of a large state was a President in miniature. He could keep himself before the public eye, at least in his own section of the country. But since the Second War that has changed. Foreign affairs occupy the major headlines. Even domestic affairs tend to be dominated by the White House and the Congress, as states&amp;#039; rights imperceptibly fade away. Unless one is Governor of New York or California it is difficult to get much attention in the press, or to build a national following. As it is, Republicans control New York, California of course is Democratic, but Governor Pat Brown, though an endearing figure, is not the nation&amp;#039;s idea of a president. New York, Michigan, Pennsylvania are in Republican hands until, respectively, 1966, 1964, 1966. Should a Democrat take back one of theses states he would have less than two years&amp;#039; time (in two states) to make himself appear Presidential. Illinois, Massachusetts and New Jersey all have Democratic governors, but none is known nationally. This leaves the Democrats with Robert F. Kennedy, the President&amp;#039;s brother.  It seems inevitable that Robert Kennedy will be the candidate because by definition a major career in politics must set the White House as its goal, and Bobby&amp;#039;s career is major. From the point of practical politics, the Democrats will want him as nominee because he is certain to make the best race against any Republican. Why? Because his name is Kennedy and because during the next six years he will get a formidable buildup in the press.  As for the name: state treasurers, sheriffs, and other nonrelatives around the country who happen to have the name Kennedy get uniformly large votes, usually through no demonstrable virtues of their own. John Kennedy is a popular President. That is one of the few facts the electorate is aware of. They will always vote for a name they know favorably as opposed to a name they don&amp;#039;t know at all. Franklin Roosevelt won his first election\u2014as he himself admitted\u2014because a large number of the voters in upstate New York thought they were voting for his cousin Teddy the Republican. There will be many thousands in 1968 who will vote for Robert Kennedy under the impression that it is John running for a third term, or a second, or fourth, depending on whether or not they know about terms. One must never underestimate the collective ignorance of that informed electorate for whom Thomas Jefferson had such high hopes. Already mail arrives at the White House addressed to President Robert Kennedy.  Should Kennedy&amp;#039;s second term be successful there will be no popular move to turn out his party, which is also the country&amp;#039;s majority party. Should the chosen heir be his brother and alter ego, it would be almost like granting John a third term, something a reasonably contented people would be happy to do for him, as they were for Roosevelt\u2014even happier because the attractive Kennedys&amp;#039; aura is that of movie stars rather than that of politicians.  In 1968 Robert Kennedy will have far fewer obstacles to overcome than his brother had in 1960. Before the Los Angeles convention John Kennedy had to battle the old America&amp;#039;s ingrained objection to a Roman Catholic as President; he also had to demonstrate at every turn that he was not too young for the job, nor too inexperience. Finally, he had to build a political machine from scratch. Today the religious issue is dead. In six years, Bobby will be forty-three, the same age as his brother when he was elected; during the next few years, he will be continually in the headlines and even his numerous enemies will have a hard time trying to pretend he is not &amp;quot;experienced.&amp;quot; Best of all, Bobby will have the support of the Kennedy political machine, easily the most effective in the history of the country. It is slick and up-to-date; every public-relations angle from comic books to feature-length films will be exploited. Backed by the President and the machine, with an &amp;quot;image&amp;quot; already floodlit by favorable publicity, one cannon imagine any Democrat seriously opposing Bobby at the &amp;#039;68 convention.  The only drawback is of course the very thing which has put this thirty-seven-year-old in line for the Presidency: he is the President&amp;#039;s brother. Nothing quite like this has ever happened in American politics. In the early republic, Adams (the second President) was father to Adams (the sixth); later, Harrison (the ninth) was grandfather to Harrison (the twenty-third). But in neither case was there a continuation of personal power through an organization, nor were any of the administrations contiguous in time. Among the more thoughtful (not to mention the Republican Party, which will be in a state of Spenglerian hysteria by &amp;#039;68), a brother succeeding a brother will be the source of some unease, especially such a brother as Bobby. Nevertheless, as certain as the vast crowds which gathered last year to cheer Teddy Kennedy in Massachusetts, the general public will be delighted. They can&amp;#039;t have too much of their favorite family. The Kennedys lives as revealed in the press are precisely the lives millions lead in secret dreams. Our people will vote for Bobby, the brother, and almost any other member of the national family who comes their way.  The buildup for &amp;#039;68 has begun. It now follows a familiar pattern. To begin with, one must get some sort of legitimate national attention. Bobby first got this in 1957 as chief counsel to the U.S. Senate&amp;#039;s select committee on improper activities in labor. On television the youthful counsel collided head on with James Hoffa, one of the country&amp;#039;s more unsavory labor leaders. Yet despite all efforts then\u2014and now as Attorney General\u2014Bobby still has not managed to bring Hoffa &amp;quot;to justice,&amp;quot; as the phrase goes. Despite this inconvenient failure, the next step was clearly indicated. Write a book, for to write a book is the quickest way to establish a public figure as &amp;quot;serious.&amp;quot; Dr. Gallup tells us that half of our people never read a book in their adult lives and the rest seldom do, but they hold authors in great esteem. If nothing else, to have written a book suggests an unusual ability to practice such arcane arts as spelling and the managing of syntax, all perhaps closely allied with the great brainy business of governing the state. The Enemy Within was sold to the movies and soon at our neighborhood theatre we shall see Bobby, fearless young investigator, ruthlessly hunting down the Enemy, perhaps on a double bill with the movie about his brother&amp;#039;s exploits in &amp;quot;PT 109.&amp;quot;  The second book, according to the game, must establish its author as an expert in an important field not often associated with him. So the next Bobby book, Just Friends and Brave Enemies, was all about his trip around the world, at the President&amp;#039;s request. Foreign affairs was its theme. Bobby told the Enemy all about us; now he tells us all about Them. Meanwhile, various ethnic and social groups must be won over. Bobby&amp;#039;s handling of the University of Mississippi crisis last year has made him a hero in Negro circles. They will remember him in &amp;#039;68. Meanwhile, a study of his recent appearances reveals careful strategy. Last April he spoke to the Associated Press (get on a good personal basis with the press lords, even if they are Republican); then in May a speech to the American Jewish Committee (the Jews, especially Jewish liberals, are chronically suspicious of the Kennedys; they&amp;#039;ll need a lot of attention); in June, the Commencement address at Manhattan College\u2014while the President uses him for any number of purposes where he can gain good publicity. Bobby heads a committee to consider the possibility of a domestic Peace Corps, sure to be a popular move. He is chairman of the President&amp;#039;s Committee on Juvenile Delinquency, always an urgent matter. And of course he manages the family&amp;#039;s political machinery.  There is no doubt that when Bobby goes before the convention in &amp;#039;68 he will seem beautifully qualified\u2014and from the point of view of sheer experience he will be qualified. But there are flaws in his persona hard to disguise. For one thing, it will take a public-relations genius to make him appear lovable. He is not. His obvious characteristics are energy, vindictiveness, and a simplemindedness about human motives which may yet bring him down. To Bobby the world is black or white. Them and Us. He has none of his brother&amp;#039;s human ease; or charity.  Doggedly aware of his intellectual shortcomings (like most of us, shortcomings of character are probably not visible to him), Bobby regularly attends an Administration study group. Here he and other officials are instructed by philosophers, historians and other intellectuals who might not ordinarily come their way. They were addressed recently by A.J. Ayer, an Oxford don, philosopher and expounder of Logical Positivism. The result was splendid comedy. Ayer is a persuasive lecturer and a subtle thinker; he is also used to the somewhat more civilized world of British politics where it is possible to talk\u2014at least in private\u2014about grown-up matters. He assumed the Bobby group were political intellectuals, sharing with him a similar culture and set of references. He was wrong. Early on in his talk, Mrs. Robert Kennedy challenged him about God. Where was God in his view of things? Politely, Ayer pointed out that he was discussing philosophy, not theology. But could the two be separate? Oh, yes. This came as startling news to Mrs. Kennedy. Even so, what about God? Well, what about God? Ayer was now somewhat flustered. Bobby muttered, &amp;quot;Can it, Ethel.&amp;quot; And it was canned until, at the end, Bobby asked, in perfect seriousness: &amp;quot;But don&amp;#039;t you believe in right and wrong?&amp;quot; Ayer capitulated. This was the sort of question usually put early on to a teacher by an adolescent who would then be led through that ancient dialect upon which our ethical systems are used to thinking of Us as always Right and Them as always Wrong. Needless to say, Bobby would have gained a good many votes if the public had overheard this exchange (he was sincere, wasn&amp;#039;t he?); only the thoughtful would have been alarmed, for it is apparent that Bobby&amp;#039;s view of men and actions is a good deal closer to that of Barry Goldwater than it is to that of his brother. How simpleminded should a President be might well be the issue. In less explosive times it did not make so much difference. But today, when a single miscalculation can end us all, a subtler, more adaptable temperament seems indicated. The Right and Wrong, Black or White mentality is too dangerous, one would think, for a world where nothing\u2014in politics at least\u2014is clear-cut or absolute.  Bobby&amp;#039;s instinctive dislike of liberals is temperamental. As the President said of him in a 1961 interview in Look: &amp;quot;I could say that he is essentially conservative, but not on a matter like the minimum wage or a number of other issues. He acts pragmatically. I think he might once have been intolerant of liberals as such because his early experience was with that high-minded, high-speaking kind who never get anything done. That all changed the moment he met a liberal like Walter Reuther.&amp;quot; One wonders about that change. After all, not only was Bobby a legal counsel to Senator Joseph McCarthy&amp;#039;s committee, but he would have remained quite happily on the subcommittee if he had not run afoul of another young-man-on-the-make, Roy Cohn. As is its, Joe McCarthy was a close personal friend and his loyalty to Joe&amp;#039;s memory continues.  Lately, Bobby has spent a good deal of time promoting the movie of The Enemy Within. He decided that he wanted Paul Newman to play the part of himself. Newman declined. Bobby asked to meet him. Face to face, the actor explained his principal objection to the script: since the enemy within, Hoffa, was still at large there was no very satisfactory ending to the picture. The conversation was amiable until Bobby asked Newman what he was doing next. Newman said that he hoped to narrate a documentary about the late Senator McCarthy.  Bobby snapped: &amp;quot;You shouldn&amp;#039;t allow your name to be associated with that.&amp;quot; Newman said: Why not? It was just a collection of film clips; there was no invention. Besides, he didn&amp;#039;t like McCarthy and he thought it was useful, periodically, to remind people of the methods used by that divisive figure. Bobby exploded: Newman wasn&amp;#039;t qualified to judge. He knew nothing about McCarthy. Newman said that he had followed McCarthy&amp;#039;s career at the time; he had also read Richard Rovere&amp;#039;s book on the subject. &amp;quot;Well, Rovere didn&amp;#039;t know anything about it either,&amp;quot; said Bobby. Again the theme: neither Rovere nor Newman was qualified to have an opinion. To this blunt rudeness Newman&amp;#039;s only answer was: &amp;quot;According to you, I&amp;#039;m not qualified to vote since I can never know enough about any issue to form a proper opinion.&amp;quot; On that sour note, they parted.  Success in the Presidency tends to be a matter of temperament. Our most admired Presidents have not been zealots. They cannot afford to be, without seriously deranging the balance of the State. True liberals and true conservatives invariably find Presidential caution irritating, but one suspects that they would find its opposite appalling. In temperament, John Kennedy is perfectly suited to the Presidency. His brother is not. He would be a dangerously authoritarian-minded President. The evidence? Last year he proposed to the Congress legislation which would have allowed the government to tap telephone wires without a court order if &amp;quot;national security&amp;quot; was involved. Emanuel Celler, the Democratic chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, has not allowed the Bill to be read out of committee until that dangerously vague provision is withdrawn; otherwise it gives the government the sole right to judge what is &amp;quot;national security,&amp;quot; and anything can be interpreted as that (e.g.; isn&amp;#039;t national security now and then endangered by James Hoffa?). Bobby also proposed that anyone who did not cooperate wholly with a government investigator (no matter how late at night) could be taken into custody for &amp;quot;obstructing justice.&amp;quot; This also has been stopped in committee. Recently, Bobby went along with the House Un-American Activities attempt to railroad through an Industrial Security Act, which would have made it possible for the government to forbid classified material to anyone working at a university or in an industry with a government contract. The man accused would have had no way to defend himself except attendance at a hearing where he could not confront accusers, cross-examine, or appeal the hearing&amp;#039;s decision. As the liberal Republican John Lindsay pointed out in his attack on the bill, for the first time the Federal government was in the position of being able, in effect, to deprive of livelihood a man who was not in government employ. Five million American civilians would have been involved. Fortunately, this Act was defeated by the House. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s not as if Bobby were against civil liberties,&amp;quot; said an associate in the government, &amp;quot;it&amp;#039;s just that he doesn&amp;#039;t know what they are.&amp;quot;  But Bobby is on the move. He will handle his brother&amp;#039;s campaign in &amp;#039;64. He man then, as he himself once suggested, go for the governorship of Massachusetts. The rest ought to be easy.  II The Republican Party is rich in candidates of varying degrees of attractiveness. The 1962 election gave them two new faces, both Governors: William Scranton in Pennsylvania and George Romney in Michigan. Of the familiar faces, Nelson Rockefeller was reelected Governor of New York, and Barry Goldwater continues in the U.S. Senate. Only Richard Nixon is out. He met his terminal crisis last November and passed from the scene at the Beverly Hilton Hotel, having received, as he so elegantly put it, &amp;quot;the shaft,&amp;quot; from the press.  Despite the formidable task of opposing John Kennedy in 1964, there seems little doubt that this unenviable role will fall to Nelson Rockefeller. In politics, momentum is all. Once the machinery is set in motion to create a President, nothing short of sudden death or total disaster can halt it. Nelson Rockefeller\u2014who lusts for the Presidency with a Tarquin&amp;#039;s singlemindedness\u2014is now Republican leader not only in the public&amp;#039;s mind but in the politician&amp;#039;s mind as well. He wanted to lead. Nixon fell. He leads. Nor will he be seriously contested in 1964. Obviously, Rockefeller would prefer to sit out &amp;#039;64 and return in a blaze of glory in &amp;#039;68, to win. But things don&amp;#039;t work that conveniently. If he steps aside in &amp;#039;64, whoever takes his place will have first call on &amp;#039;68; to complicate matters further, new figures are already on the scene and no one knows how they will develop over the next six years. Rockefeller is trapped by the momentum of his own ambition. He must take the 1964 nomination if he wants to be the candidate in 1968. He has no choice. In any case, he is already working hard to obtain the nomination.  The two newcomers are unknown quantities. In 1968, George Romney will be sixty-one. He is already looked upon by many Republicans as a conservative candidate who might even win\u2026as opposed to those republican idealists who would rather never win than compromise those of their principles which are based on the limiting of government. But Romney is not going to have an easy time of it. Michigan is a Democratic state. To win in &amp;#039;62 Romney was forced to run a campaign completely disassociated from his own party. The word &amp;quot;Republican&amp;quot; did not appear on his campaign literature. His program was vague and Kennedyesque: get the state moving again. There was a good deal of: &amp;quot;The state should do for the people only those things the people cannot do at all or as well for themselves&amp;quot; (italics mine). This covers just about every political position from Norman Thomas to Barry Goldwater. Also, not only is he a Mormon (a religious sect which does not believe the dark races are as full of grace as the grey-pinks), he was born in Mexico which, according to a strict reading of the Constitution, rules him out as a Presidential candidate. But neither of these factors need be fatal to him politically. His greatest difficulty will be making any sort of record as the Republican Governor in a Democratic state which is also the center of the canniest labor movement in the United States. Walter Reuther is not apt to forgive Romney&amp;#039;s statement: &amp;quot;One regrettable aspect of American life today is the fact that union power\u2014and employer power\u2014can be so concentrated as to shut down an entire industry basic to the welfare of the nation.&amp;quot; He must also, as Governor, face reelection every two years. That means running again in &amp;#039;64, and in &amp;#039;66. The finances of Michigan are a mess (in 1959 the state could not meet its payroll); a new Constitution must be got through in April; a hostile legislature must be won over and to win them he will have to surrender the classic mask of conservatism which\u2014though seldom seriously worn\u2014must at least be held to the face if one is to be nominated at a Republican convention. It is difficult to look good as Governor of Michigan as a member of the state&amp;#039;s majority party; as the minority party&amp;#039;s Governor who will have to raise taxes, it ought to be impossible. Yet by the same token, should Romney pull it off he would be something of a miracle man and Time Magazine then would soon be telling us a great deal about the essential caritas of Mormonism and the foolish ambiguity of the Constitution&amp;#039;s requirement that a President be native-born. For the moment George Romney is at the foot of the mountain; he needs to get well above the timberline before he is Presidential.  William Scranton&amp;#039;s problems are not unlike Romney&amp;#039;s. He has a difficult state to govern. He is also not allowed to succeed himself, which means that after 1966 he will not be Governor. Since Pennsylvania does not have a senatorial election in 1966, he has the choice of returning to the House or going fishing. In 1968 Scranton will be fifty-one. He is currently fortunate in having a Republican legislature and the patronage of fifty thousand state jobs. He is not fortunate in inheriting a state in serious economic trouble. Like Romney, he will have to raise taxes. This Draconian necessity is not the surest way to the citizen&amp;#039;s heart.  Although only two years in elected politics (a term in the House of Representatives, &amp;#039;60-&amp;#039;62), Scranton has more political definition that Romney. As a freshman congressman he amazed his own party&amp;#039;s old guard by voting in favor of Kennedy&amp;#039;s bill to liberalize the House Rules Committee. This action not only put him firmly in the liberal wing of the Republican Party, but pointed up his singular independence. Also, William Scranton of Scranton has great wealth. With any luck in Pennsylvania\u2014and a possible election to the Senate in &amp;#039;64\u2014he could give Nelson Rockefeller a hard fight for the nomination. But those are two big &amp;quot;ifs&amp;#039; and the odds are against him.  Among other hopefuls there is Mark Hatfield, the attractive Governor or Oregon. He was reelected to a second term in &amp;#039;62. He will serve through &amp;#039;66. In &amp;#039;68 he will be only forty-six. But Oregon is not a king-making state and its Governor cannot command national headlines. In 1962 the late Senator Taft&amp;#039;s son Robert was elected at the age of forty-five to the House. But from House to White House is usually an impossible leap. Nevertheless, Hatfield and Taft are likely Vice-Presidential candidates. Taft because the nominee will undoubtedly be from the liberal wing of the party and may need the weight of a conservative name on the ticket, while Hatfield is a good man from the West an, should the Presidential candidate be from the East, geography would be well served by adding the Oregonian to the ticket. Remember Charles McNary? No? Well\u2026. Parenthetically, one should note a remarkable change in American politics. Only very rich men are now considered Presidential . Also, because of the difficulties of amassing a new fortune nowadays, these rich men tend to be heirs to old fortunes: Scranton (coal), Rockefeller (oil), Kennedys (everything). Romney alone made his money himself. The public delights in the rich. After all, to have Rockefeller ask you for something is a heady experience. Politics has replaced polo as a popular game for heirs. And why not? It is exciting; it takes real sill and toughness; its rewards in notoriety and perhaps fame are far greater than anything a mere heir can hope for. The heirs also bring a fine and often useful disinterestedness to the grand old game. Yet it is sad that the Humphreys are ruled out, and that even the Nixons, if they want a political career, must accept large sums of money from people who do not part with it simply because they like the cut of the candidate&amp;#039;s jib. It is unlikely, as election costs continue to soar into the millions of dollars, that a relatively poor man will ever again be President.  An important governorship is still a good-enough place to start from, but not the best. The states are in trouble. It is hard to make any sense of them economically. The U.S. Senate is by far the best place in which to be notices. Senators\u2014like doctors\u2014bury their mistakes, but a Governor is out in the open, the target of any organized group which has a grievance, which is every group. A Governor cannot escape an occasional action. The harder he works at his job, the more unpopular he becomes. In the Senate a Barry Goldwater can privately see to it that Arizona gets huge transfusions of Federal money, while publicly denouncing Federal spending and the reliance of the states on Big Brother in Washington . No one bothers to point out the contradiction. A Senator, unlike a Governor, can have it both ways, Goldwater does.  Barry Goldwater may have &amp;quot;peaked&amp;quot; too soon. He has a public. He is enormously popular. He put on the conservative mask no one has worn full-time since the death of Robert Taft and he found it a snug fit. The Right Wing is with him. He could probably get the South to vote Republican were he the nominee. But he is sure to lose labor, the Negroes, the entire urban complex, and of course the election. He realized this. More important, the Republican Party leaders realize this and they are, at heart, just like Democrats: neither &amp;quot;liberal&amp;quot; nor &amp;quot;conservative,&amp;quot; but simple politicians who want to win elections. They know what will win and what won&amp;#039;t. Goldwater won&amp;#039;t.  Goldwater, though he will certainly be an important figure at the convention in &amp;#039;64, is not only not going to be the Presidential nominee, but it is unlikely he will accept the second spot\u2026something almost any Republican candidate would want him to do. The reason is simple enough. Goldwater is up for reelection to the Senate in 1964. He may have a difficult race. If he were to run for Vice-President and lose, that would be the end of him. But if he is returned to the Senate in &amp;#039;64, he will again be a figure to be placated at the convention of &amp;#039;68 and once more he can go through that exciting moment of ritual when he forces the &amp;quot;liberal&amp;quot; candidate to hold up to his face, if only for a moment, the bleak mask of conservatism. It is all show, but pleasurable. At the moment, Goldwater&amp;#039;s momentum is slowing down. The country turned away from him in 1962. On the whole, liberal Republicans did better than conservative ones. In the bright, practical, opportunistic world of the Scrantons and Rockefellers, Kuchels and Javitses, Barry Goldwater more and more seems an echo of old prejudices and worn platitudes, harmless enough in themselves but dangerous when truly believed in; worse, to the professionals, these vestiges of the old Populism make it impossible to win.  Robert Taft when he lost to Eisenhower in 1952 is said to have remarked: &amp;quot;Since 1936 the Chase National Bank has chosen every Republican candidate for President.&amp;quot; He meant of course that the moderate, internationalist-minded, Eastern-seaboard wing of the party which selects candidates was much influenced by those financial interests represented by the Chase National Bank. If what Taft said is true, he would be horrified today. The Chase National Bank is no longer merely grey eminence to the Party, it is the eminence itself, for the Bank is the Rockefeller family and the family are the Bank, and Nelson Rockefeller is the leader of the party.  Nelson Rockefeller was elected to a second term as Governor of New York in 1962 by a plurality some sixty-four thousand less than that of his first victory. In some ways this was disturbing: his Democratic opponent was little known; the campaign was short; Rockefeller spent tow-and-a-half-million dollars to win, as opposed to less than half a million spent by the Democrats. More galling to the Governor was the victory of his running mate, Senator Jacob Javits whose plurality was nearly a million votes. The effect of Javits&amp;#039; victory on Rockefeller was beautifully visible to those who watched the G.O.P. victory celebration on television.  ACTION: Rockefeller crosses to the camera. Javits, nervously giggling, moves upstage. Rockefeller forgets to smile. The face is curiously sullen when the smile is turned off. Rockefeller growls at the still-camera men; tries to shoo them away. Suddenly realizes he is on camera; abruptly, smile turns on; arms go up; spirit of victory. Rockefeller turns to Javits, pulls the Senator, still nervously giggling, into the picture&amp;#039;s frame. A moment of warmth and unity. Then he gently shoves Javits off Stage Left; Senator departs, dreaming his own dream of Jacob&amp;#039;s Ladder which ascends not to heaven but to the White House: the first Jewish President. Why not? Rocky is now alone with is people. He smiles at us. He speaks: &amp;quot;Hiya, fella!&amp;quot; Yet Rockefeller&amp;#039;s relatively poor showing in the race proves, upon analysis, his growing strength as a national leader. He did better than ever in New York City; less well with upstate Republicans. This might be ominous for a state leader, but for a national leader it proves that he is strong where he needs to be strong: in the cities, among minority groups, with labor. Rockefeller came out of the 1962 election with the leadership of the Republican Party. He already has the 1964 nomination and, as his advisers admit, &amp;quot;painful&amp;quot; though that experience will probably be, he cannot run in &amp;#039;68 without doing his duty in &amp;#039;64.  According to the polls, Rockefeller is already the choice of the Republican politicians. Those who regard him as too &amp;quot;liberal&amp;quot; have no one else to look to except Romney, who cannot yet compete with Rockefeller&amp;#039;s money, organization and momentum. Even Goldwater, wearily, is ready to accept Rockefeller as his party&amp;#039;s choice, muttering to anyone who will listen that Rockefeller is really a lot more conservative than most people think. Goldwater is probably right for, as Rockefeller says again and again, &amp;quot;liberal&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;conservative&amp;quot; are just labels anyway, generally meaningless in Presidential politics. Rockefeller is also more correct than he suspects, for the politics of the country tend in both parties to be a consensus (revealingly, &amp;quot;consensus&amp;quot; is this year&amp;#039;s cant word) of what the polls say the people want, and what the politicians can do to identify themselves with popular measures while not upsetting those special interests which make up party alliances. More and more, we have the spectacle of men of different personality and style but quite similar politics acting out a political debate which is no debate but a tacit agreement that such-and-such is the winning issue and how do I take it away from you? Rockefeller&amp;#039;s demerits are few. His divorce many professional politicians thought would hurt him. Apparently it did him no harm among New York State&amp;#039;s Roman Catholic voters; there is some evidence that it may have contributed a bit to the upstate Protestant disaffection. But in six years&amp;#039; time the divorce will be entirely forgotten, unless he marries again. The majority of his own party&amp;#039;s leaders have declared, privately, that a remarriage would be the end of his career. I suspect they are wrong. In the last decade Zsa Zsa Gabor, late at night on television, has changed the public morality for good.  Rockefeller is an engaging campaigner, though a poor speaker. In a debate with Kennedy (any Kennedy with the possible exception of Teddy) he would not look good. His mind is slow. He has no easy command of language. He takes a briefing well and he can roll off statistics endlessly in what is now the accepted way of proving to the electorate that you know what you&amp;#039;re talking about, but when the script changes abruptly he is apt to go blank. His refusal to debate Robert Morgenthau in the 1962 election was well calculated; he would have been facing a first-rate lawyer and he knew he would b e in trouble.  As a Governor, Rockefeller showed courage early on when he increased the state&amp;#039;s income taxes. This cost him votes four year later. Voters may forget a face, but they never forget a tax. Yet as a result New York is now on a firmer financial basis than it has been for years. Unfortunately, in the heat of his last campaign, Rockefeller vowed not to increase state taxes again. He may have to run for President two years from now simply to escape the consequences of that rash promise. Or else abandon all new programs.  Rockefeller has said that if he had run against Kennedy in 1960 he would have won. It is quite possible, as even the President is reported privately to have agreed. Rockefeller also claims he can beat the President in &amp;#039;64. For obvious reasons this seems a dubious proposition. Nelson Rockefeller&amp;#039;s real test will come in 1968 when, at the age of sixty, he will face the soon-to-be forty-three-year-old Robert Kennedy. At that moment two great money dynasties will clash and to the victor goes the prize: us.  Who will win? Like so many who grew up in the Thirties and Forties, I was a devotee of John Nesbitt&amp;#039;s Passing Parade. This was a short movie feature which often dealt with the prophecies of Nostradamus. The opening shot invariably discovered a member or the Screen Actors Guild, wearing a vast beard and peering apprehensively into a moonlit sky, as Tchaikovsky&amp;#039;s Fourth Symphony pounded away on the sound track. Then Nostradamus would sit down at his desk and write something with a feather while Mr. Nesbitt, in a rich voice, told us what he was writing. Then the prophecy would be acted out. The resemblance between what was foretold in cryptic verse and what actually happened (as revealed to us on the screen) was always uncannily accurate. Yet Mr. Nesbitt, no slave to superstition, deliberately left everything up in the air at the end when he would say straight to us out there in the dark: &amp;quot;But what do you think?&amp;quot;  Since neither Lou Harris nor Dr. Gallup has yet given us any guidance for &amp;#039;68, and since the oracle at Delphi is silent and its green laurel withered, one must turn for instruction to Nostradamus himself. Here is the entry for our period (page 274, The Complete Prophecies of Nostradamus, translated, edited and interpreted by Henry C. Roberts, published by Crown Publishers, New York). 97.   At the finish of the war, to change the glory, Near the shore shall three fair children be born Ruin to the people, by competent age. To change that country&amp;#039;s Kingdom and see it grow no more. The entire course of a kingdom shall be changed by the appearance of three brothers, who shall enter into and take over the branches of the government. As John Nesbitt used to ask: &amp;quot;But what do you think?&amp;quot; I think Nostradamus was probably a crypto-Republican. And of course, I hope that we are both false prophets. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a4622/best-man-1968/>