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Humphrey seems poised to announce some time around the first of the year. Muskie remains overall the dominating force in the race, quietly commanding the party's center. Richard Nixon, from the comfortable vantage of incumbency, can watch the Democratic fighting with a certain equanimity. There is no White House consensus, however, on the potential opposition. Some in Nixon's high command think that Muskie would be the toushest man for the President to beat, believing that Muskie would unite most elements of the nation's majority party with the smallest flake-off at either end. Muskie could bring to television an effective counterimage to Nixon, as he did on election eve last November. Of Humphrey, Muskie and Kennedy, Nixon's political advisers think Humphrey would be the easiest to defeat. "He's got all those scars," says a Republican National Committee official, "and if you get Hubert, you're likely to get a fourth party."
But Kennedy is unpredictable. If he should become the Democratic nominee, the only certainty is that it would be an uncommonly dirty campaign. Already some automobile bumper stickers are appearing: REMEMBER CHAPPAQUIDDICK and WOULD MARY JO VOTE FOR TED? The Republican National Committee's newsletter Monday this month showed a sign that hangs on the office wall in the Shiretown Inn on Martha's Vineyard, where Kennedy was staying the weekend of Chappaquiddick: PLEASE
DO NOT ASK US TO ANSWER QUESTIONS CONCERNING THE KENNEDY INCIDENT. THANK YOU. THE MANAGEMENT. Some handbills are circulating that bear a picture of Ted Kennedy and large type reading: WANTED EDWARD MOORE KENNEDY, FOR MURDER OR PRESIDENT?
Playing Fair
Officially, the Republicans would probably never even have to mention Chappaquiddick. Says a G.O.P. operative in California: "We'd talk about character, about stability and morality, and the voters couldn't help thinking about Chappaquiddick. Compared with that incident, Nixon comes out looking sincere and upright and wholesome."
Ted Kennedy is the one man who might explain what happened on that July weekend when at the same time man was first setting foot on the moon —why and when he and Mary Jo Kopechne left the party at a cottage on the island, why and how he failed to summon help immediately instead of waiting until the next morning when his car was discovered under the Dike Bridge. A week afterward, he went on television with a carefully crafted and largely ghostwritten statement, pleading that while his conduct was indeed "indefensible," his doctors "informed me that I suffered a cerebral concussion as well as shock." In the national mind, the lacunae and the doubts remain. That night will surely be replayed endlessly if Kennedy wins the nomination.