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Like all the other Kennedy competitors, the Johnson strategists figure that Kennedy will fall on the lances of the old professional bosses at the Los Angeles convention—if he hasn't already lost the race in West Virginia. If Kennedy falters, Johnson is prepared to make an end run at the convention (Candidates Symington and Humphrey don't even figure in the calculations). Again, like the other hopefuls, he has a potent candidate for Vice President: Jack Kennedy. "I can see it now," says an aide. "He'll be standing there in the hotel room after the nomination, and he'll say, 'We want that boy for Vice President. Go get him for me!' " Is Johnson likely to run as Vice President on anyone else's ticket? Not a chance, says a Johnson staffer. "Can you imagine Lyndon sitting there watching someone else trying to run his Senate?" And if Johnson failed, where would his Southern power go? Johnson personally is fond of Humphrey and somewhat less than impressed by Symington. But conceivably, if the Kennedy-Humphrey-Stevenson liberals are arrayed against Johnson, the Southern votes might well go to Missouri's Symington—in fact, in their Midwest sales pitch Johnson forces are snuggling close to Symington people. Should Johnson find the nomination safely tucked in his inner coat pocket, he would swing into the full momentum of Phase 3, a hell-for-leather national campaign against Nixon (whom he personally admires)—the kind of campaign that makes the Eyes of Texans gleam.
Parliamentarian's Approach. Lyndon Johnson is a smart, shrewd, complex man; he has the capacity and the desire to be President. But he is a superb strategist, too, and he would never risk his cherished Senate leadership on a quixotic adventure—even with Jack Kennedy as his Sancho Panza. He is a man who takes his time, counts the votes, sticks to the possible, makes no move unless he is reasonably certain of success. "Lyndon is using the parliamentarian's approach," said one anxious friend last week. "He waits around for the precise moment and then moves by a set of rules he knows. But in the national game you don't wait, and you don't have any set of rules." Clint Anderson was more confident: "I know that he doesn't move until he has the votes. He has this great skill of putting votes together. I don't know why he can't do it on a national scale. He'll find a way."
* Woodrow Wilson was born in Staunton, Va., but his lifelong loyalty was to New Jersey.
*Last October Johnson returned the Mexican President's hospitality with a huge fiesta at the ranch, featuring a Mexican band, platters of $2.50-per-lb. beef barbecue, hundreds of Mexican tricolors, 800 goggle-eyed guests, and a sign, prominently displayed on a tree: LYNDON JOHNSON SERÁ PRESIDENTE. Johnson and López Mateos made an entrance worthy of Auntie Mame in a helicopter, followed by Harry Truman and Mister Sam in another, smaller helicopter. It was, according to a Dallas reporter, "one of the most dramatic outdoor shows since they produced Aïda with live elephants."