All the columnists started talking about him. He was introduced on Meet the Press as a "strong contender" for the 1964 Republican presidential nomination. Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon both mentioned him as a possibility. President Kennedy even went to the trouble of up staging him when he was asked about the man's presidential potential at last week's news conference.
Not since Wendell Willkie had the Republicans seen anything quite like him.
For the man everyone was talking about had only within the past year identified himself as a Republican, and it was not until last weekend that George Romney, 54,...