POLITICAL HOT STOVE LEAGUE

With the presidential election still more than a year away, this is the Hot-Stove League season in national politics. It is the time when small trades are talked about, small promises made, small wagers placed on the prospects.

But all those small things can add up to a lot. In Autumn 1963, there is no doubt about who next summer's Democratic presidential nominee will be. And so the Hot-Stove League talk centers around the G.O.P. situation. Arizona's Senator Barry Goldwater has a huge lead for the nomination; there is strong evidence that he might give Incumbent Democrat Kennedy a real run in the November election (TIME, Oct. 4).

For nearly three weeks, TIME'S Chicago Bureau Chief Murray Gart has been touring the U.S. talking to Republicans in all sections. His camp-by-camp report of their activities:

GOLDWATER: The Bandwagon The Senator insists that he is still "just pooping around the country" raising funds for the party. But "Draft Goldwater" committees are sprouting like winter wheat, should be established in every state by mid-October. Some states already have Goldwater groups clear down to the precinct level, waiting only until Barry formally announces his candidacy--probably in January--to move into high gear.

Of the U.S.'s 16 Republican Governors, four already are avowed Goldwater men. They are Arizona's Paul Fannin, Oklahoma's Henry Bellmon, Montana's Tim Babcock and Wyoming's Cliff Hansen. Leaning strongly to Goldwater are four more: Colora do's John Love, Kansas' John Anderson, Utah's George Clyde and South Dakota's Archie Gubbrud. Maine's John Reed is still stringing along with Rocky. Idaho's Robert Smylie, Rhode Island's John Chafee and Oregon's Mark Hatfield have leaned to Rocky, now believe his prospects are dead, and apparently are casting around for another candidate. That leaves only Favorite Sons Rockefeller, Romney, Scranton, and Ohio's James Rhodes.

So strong is the Goldwater swell that many leaders are finding it dangerous to oppose him. Indiana's State Chairman H. Dale Brown, a Rockefeller admirer, resigned recently because so many party officials were working openly for Goldwater. Ohio's Rhodes is leery of Goldwater, fears Barry would totally lose the state's Negro vote and might revive the explosive right-to-work issue. But Ohio observers agree that the party's rank and file is strongly for Goldwater and Rhodes may have trouble holding the delegation in line. Similarly, Michigan Republicans are getting restive about Romney's prospects, would jump to Goldwater in an instant if Romney were to release them.

Though Texas Senator John Tower has been his front man, in recent weeks Senator Norris Cotton of New Hampshire and ex-California Senator William Knowland have boarded his bandwagon. In Ohio, Industrialist George Humphrey, Ike's Treasury Secretary, is drumming up business support. Canny Lawyer Herbert Brownell, Ike's Attorney General, has been turning up lately at Goldwater rallies. And enough money is rolling into Goldwater coffers to impress even a Rockefeller. "Hell," said a Chicago Republican after a draft-Goldwater meeting, "someone said something about money, and within ten minutes we had $375,000 pledged."

One major Goldwater worry is that Senior Republican Dwight Eisenhower is still mad at him for having cracked that "one Eisenhower in a decade is enough" when asked what he thought about Milton Eisenhower as a presidential possibility. Goldwater is trying to set things right with Ike. He has written Bryce Harlow, a key pipeline to Eisenhower, explaining that the remark was made in the context of the Kennedy dynasty issue, that he actually said the American people would not take another Kennedy after Jack, just as one Eisenhower in a decade was enough. Also, Goldwater Worker John Tower recently went to Gettysburg for a friendly chat, and Goldwater himself hopes to visit Ike soon.

Aware that he will be under increasingly close scrutiny, Goldwater has scheduled private seminars to bring himself up to date on such subjects as U.S. policy in Eastern Europe. He has rented an electronic computer, and is feeding all his comments on major issues into it so he will not unwittingly contradict himself. "Consistency is not necessarily a virtue," he says, "but I haven't changed my stand on any fundamental issue and I don't intend to."

ROCKEFELLER: The Dark Days "How do you tell a corpse he's a corpse?" ponders a G.O.P. Governor who is friendly to Rocky. So remote are Rockefeller's chances that some of his previous backers are now urging him to withdraw from presidential contention completely, thereby opening the way for another progressive candidate.

But Rocky refuses to play dead. He went off on a twelve-day tour of Europe, met with headline-making figures like Pope Paul VI, France's President Charles de Gaulle, German Chancellor-designate Ludwig Erhard and British Labor Party Leader Harold Wilson. He still intends to enter the New Hampshire, California, and possibly the West Virginia primaries, and wage a person-to-person campaign in the style of the late Estes Kefauver. It is generally conceded that he is badly trailing Goldwater in all three states; in California, for example, polls give him 35% of Republican votes against 65% for Goldwater. It would be suicidal for Rocky to run against Goldwater in the Illinois, Indiana, Nebraska and South Dakota primaries. In the Ohio primary, he would presumably run up against Governor Rhodes; in Wisconsin, Representative John Byrnes figures to be a favorite-son candidate. Oregon is an unpredictable free-for-all, for as many as a dozen people often wind up on the primary ballot, whether they want to be there or not.

Rocky's, meteoric descent stems only in part from his remarriage last May. Many Republican leaders think he made an even more serious political mistake with his furious denunciation of the "radical right" in July. Among other things, this gave Barry a golden opportunity to go around preaching party unity. In his dark days, Rocky is having trouble finding a campaign manager with national status. He got a flat no from bulky Len Hall, Dwight Eisenhower's 1952 campaign-train manager, now is trying to enlist ex-G.O.P. National Chairman Meade Alcorn, a Dartmouth classmate.

But even if he loses, Rockefeller fully intends to make a fight for his progressive principles when it comes time for the G.O.P. to write its platform at the San Francisco convention. This prospect gives many Republicans the willies. They remember all too well how Rocky forced his views on Richard Nixon in 1960 -- and how Nixon gave in in a fashion that may well have cost him the election. Says a top Republican of the possibility that Rocky will try to repeat that performance: "He might break all the china in the party's closet."

ROMNEY: Trouble with Timetables

Michigan's Governor George Romney is the probable preference of both Eisenhower and Nixon. Surveys indicate that next only to Goldwater he would run best against Kennedy.

But Romney remains adamant in his denials. "I'm not going to be a candidate. I'm not going to seek the nomination. I'm not going to become part of any 'stop' movement." Sighs a Republican who favors him: "It's tough when a fella's got the attitude he has."

Making it even tougher is Romney's timetable. He is deeply involved with a special session of the legislature, which is considering his make-or-break tax-reform proposals. If his program passes, Romney must immediately plunge into budget conferences, then into another legislative session that will probably last until April. Only then will he even make up his mind about whether to run again for Governor. And by then, it may be far too late for him to make a move toward the presidential nomination.

THE OTHERS: Not Much Bounce

Little known outside the East, Pennsylvania's Governor William Scranton seems to want to keep it that way, and Republicans are beginning to believe his vehement denials of candidacy. There is no movement in the works for him.

Mentioned more and more often as a compromise candidate is Kentucky's Senator Thruston Morton, thanks in large part to recent praise from Ike. But Morton has been doing about as much as Romney and Scranton to further his cause--which is to say, nothing.

Another whose name has been cropping up lately, though some Republicans consider him to be hopelessly damaged goods, is Richard Nixon. "I'm not going to be a candidate in 1964," insisted Nixon in Manhattan last week. In 1968, when he will be only 55, he might entertain more ambitious ideas. Others whose names have been tossed out to see how they would bounce: General Lucius Clay, ex-Minnesota Representative Walter Judd, Oregon Governor Mark Hatfield. None bounced.

ADDING IT UP

Almost all Republicans agree that if Goldwater beats Rockefeller in the New Hampshire primary, the nomination is his. They also agree that he might win the nomination even if he were to lose in, say, New Hampshire and California.

Despite this, there are plenty of leaders who, though fond of Barry, do not like the situation. They are distressed by the enthusiasm shown for him by such extreme right-wing groups as the John Birch Society. But there are some indications that that very enthusiasm is bringing many of the extremists into the regular Republican Party--and in so doing they make the party no more conservative, but rather become more moderate themselves.

Again, some Republicans fear that the civil rights views that make Goldwater so popular in the South would work against him in the North. Goldwater's backers reply that the G.O.P. need not worry too much about losing the big-city Negro vote, since the party doesn't have that vote anyway. And they note the possibility of a big-city backlash by low-income whites resentful of Negro gains in jobs, housing and education. In Philadelphia, a recent poll indicated that 11% of the Democrats had switched to the G.O.P., mostly because of the civil rights issue.

The question that frets many Republican leaders most of all is whether Goldwater is merely a one-sentence candidate whose oversimplified views would not stand up under the intense heat of a presidential campaign.

The answer is still out. About all that can be fairly said is that Goldwater's views, oversimplified as they may seem, have taken him a long way so far.

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