Fitfully, Richard Nixon slumbers. In dream review, his White House predecessors flicker past. There is Woodrow Wilson, railing against the Senate's "little group of willful men." He dissolves to Andrew Jackson, censured by the Senate for removing deposits from the Bank of the United States without authority. F.D.R., his aplomb punctured by a Senate that thwarted his attempt to pack the Supreme Court, snaps in and out of focus. Finally Lyndon Johnson, hounded from office amid the taunts of Senate doves, looms up.
President Nixon tosses, turns. The pantheon of the past retreats. Now it is 1971. From his Oval Office, Nixon sends to the Senate the nomination of a Mississippi judge for the Supreme Court. Zap! Confirmed. He asks $10 billion for an expanded ABM system. Pow! Appropriated. He proposes cuts in school funds. Chop! Done. In one corner of his dream stands a forlorn J. William Fulbright, talking while no one listens. With other prickly Democratic Sena'e oligarchs, Fulbright has been toppled by a Republican capture of the Senate. In a far recess of the Senate chamber, a vestigial cluster of radic-libs cowers as a troglodytic terrorizer in tailored twill cracks a whip over their heads. At last the President slips into the sleep of serenity and contentment.
IF asleep he may dream his Improbable Dream, the waking Richard Nixon is increasingly unsparing of himself, his Vice President, his Cabinet and the enormous, varied and subtle resources of his office. Coming down the stretch toward Nov. 3 and the 1970 election, the President has taken active as well as strategic command of the campaign he began outlining more than a year ago. Nixon has found the liberal Senate to be his most embarrassing and implacable opponent; on one issue and appointment after another, the Senate has plagued his policies and thwarted his choices. Thus while 33 governorships are up for grabs as well as all 435 seats in the House of Representatives, it is the battle for the 35 Senate seats being contested this year that matters to Nixon.
The White House can exert minimal influence on gubernatorial races. Nor do the Republicans expect to do more than hold their own in the House of Representatives, where they have 188 seats to 243 for the Democrats (there are four vacancies). More than 90% of House incumbents who seek reelection, following recent patterns, can be expected to win; traditionally the President's party loses seats in the House in off-year elections. So as G.O.P. National Chairman Rogers C.B. Morton says: "This year the name of the game is the Senate."
It is the costliest senatorial election in the nation's history (estimated outlay: $65 million), one of the most bitterly fought and from all appearances, likely to be the closest since 1954, when Democrats won control by a single vote.
As of last week, Nixon had already committed himself to go stumping in 21 states. This schedule constitutes the most extensive effort any President has ever undertaken in an off-year election. Flying out of Washington on Air Force One, Nixon hopscotched through Vermont, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin in just one day. And in a frenetic Saturday-through-Tuesday extended weekend, he also was due at rallies in Ohio, North Dakota, Missouri, Indiana, Tennessee and North Carolina.
At every stop, Nixon pushed forward Republican candidates, lifted