Republicans: Cooling the Convention

Party politics, as Disraeli defined the term in 1864, is "organized opinion." It can also be the opposite, as U.S. Republicans demonstrated at their national convention 100 years later, when an open free-for-all over the party platform irreconcilably widened the breach between the G.O.P.'s moderate and Goldwater factions. To avoid another schism in 1968, when they will need all the unity they can muster, some Republicans suggest holding an informal platform-drafting convention a year earlier, when the atmosphere should be more conducive to deliberation.*

The authorship of the plan portends harmony. Its sponsors are Michigan's Governor George Romney, a probable candidate...

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