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To some extent, Nixon is taking a calculated gamble with Agnew. The Vice President is widely considered a liability in attracting new young voters to the Republican Party, a major G.O.P. effort (see following story). Before the Nixon announcement, one Republican strategist explained: "Nixon wants to build the party, but with Agnew, you automatically lose the kids. How do you build a party if millions of those first-time voters go Democratic?" Moreover, there seemed no obvious necessity for retaining Agnew. George McGovern so offends most conservatives of both parties that they would likely have voted for Nixon even if Agnew had been dropped; now Nixon will surely lose some moderate voters who cannot stomach Agnew. His only vote-getting advantage may be among the restive blue-collar workers who could abandon their allegiance to the Democrats.
McGovern did not appear to be surprised by the news. "It means we have the same team again we had in 1968," he said. "We'll have pretty much the same kind of tactics the Vice President is so famous for."
In sticking with Agnew, Nixon passed over some men who almost surely would be more capable of leading the nation if the need should arise. They include Connally, who has shown far greater skill than Agnew in negotiating difficult issues, serving as Nixon's troubleshooter on both the international monetary scene and in the domestic wage-and price-control battles. Nixon resisted the temptation to pull another surprise by naming someone like Massachusetts Senator Ed Brooke, a black. In advance, a top Nixon aide knocked the Brooke possibility down. "It isn't because he's black or liberal, but because he has opposed the President's war policy. There can be no faintheart on the war running with Richard Nixon." The same kind of reasoning was also applied by some White House aides to Illinois Senator Charles Percy. Other intriguing possibilities passed over by Nixon include New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller, who has drifted toward the right recently and had apparently bridged the once bitter breach separating him and Nixon, Ohio Senator Robert Taft, Ambassador to the United Nations George Bush, HEW Secretary Elliot Richardson and Interior Secretary Rogers Morton.
Doubts. The Nixon endorsement of Agnew was apparently made on the narrow ground of an illusory partisan advantage or out of purely personal loyalty. The decision should have turned on whether Agnew is fully capable of taking over the presidency if the need should arise. Although Agnew tends to arouse either adoration or enmity, any detached observer has to have grave doubts about his ability to lead the nation. Agnew's ventures into foreign policy, for example, have been uninspiring. He has represented the President overseas on five major tours, but mostly in areas dominated by right-wing dictatorships, whose leaders he has flattered more than protocol demands. His praise of such oppressive black rulers as Kenya's Jomo Kenyatta and the Congo's Joseph Mobutu, suggesting that U.S. black leaders emulate them, was a major gaffe. He is even more hawkish on the war than Nixon, and his seeming willingness to escalate military conflict would make him a dangerous President. He even initially opposed Nixon's overtures to China.