Politics: Burdened by Barry

POLITICS Only a few weeks ago, a gleam entered the eyes of congressional Republicans whenever they thought about November elections. They felt certain of winning at least 20 seats away from Democrats, nurtured hopes of gaining the 42 they would need to seize control of the House of Representatives. But as of last week, most Republicans would settle for the 176 seats their party now holds in the 435-member House.

Republicans had also expected modest gains in the Senate, where such strong challengers as Ohio’s Robert Taft Jr., Texas’ George Bush and Wisconsin’s Wilbur Renk had a good chance to unseat incumbent Democrats. Some of them still may make it, but their chances have diminished. Even such incumbent Republicans as New York’s Kenneth Keating and Pennsylvania’s Hugh Scott are in more difficulty than they ought to be. Similarly, such G.O.P. gubernatorial candidates as Charles Percy in Illinois, George Romney in Michigan, Ethan Allen Hitchcock Shepley in Missouri, and Withrop Rockefeller in Arkansas seem to be confronted by more problems than they figured to be when the campaign began.

The mutual problem of all such candidates is the sorry progress of Goldwater’s national campaign — and many attractive, respected Republicans fear with increasing intensity that they may lose simply because they are on the same ticket with Barry.