Where the Votes Are

Of the 1,308 delegates who will go to San Francisco in July to choose a G.O.P. presidential candidate, only 541 will have been elected in primaries. Most of the others will come out of state conventions, mostly held in May and June. In these the active party worker, not the ordinary voter, has the final say. Thus, while the conventions have none of the splash of a big primary and rarely attract television cameras, they do manage to generate a good deal of political steam.

Stinging Slap. Two weeks ago in Kansas, for example, two-term Governor John Anderson sought election as a delegate at the state convention in Topeka. But he refused to pledge himself to Arizona's Senator Barry Goldwater, and the Goldwater forces thereupon steamrollered him. They engineered the election of a lackluster pro-Goldwater woman, thus dealt the Governor a stinging slap.

In Iowa last week, Goldwater was hoping for at least 14 of the state's 24 convention delegates as 3,500 Republicans poured into Des Moines for a state convention. For six months, Barry's boys had been working to pack the convention with pro-Goldwater Republicans, seemed to be making considerable headway.

Then along came New Hampshire, and some Iowa party leaders began wondering if it might not be a good idea to avoid committing themselves to any candidate. Soon, Henry Cabot Lodge's backers teamed up with those of New York's Nelson Rockefeller and a sizable group of undecided G.O.P. leaders to work for the election of uncommitted delegates. Since Goldwater seems to feel that those who are not actively for him are against him, the result was a relative defeat for Barry: only five Iowa delegates were firmly committed to him, with perhaps five more leaning in his direction.

Another Bandwagon? Though Goldwater's Iowa showing fell shy of expectations, he has done well enough to pick up 162 sure delegate votes, all gained at conventions but a bloc of 32 from Illinois, plus another 48 votes that are considered fairly safe. Across the U.S., Goldwater's present strategy is to concentrate on the state conventions, electing enough delegates with promises of commitment to give him imposing first-ballot strength at the national convention. Goldwater aides claim that their man will have upwards of 550 first-ballot votes by July, with 655 needed for the nomination.

But Goldwater's problem is that he could lose most of that strength in a twinkling. Some delegates are bound to Barry only for the first ballot, after which they can vote for anybody. Others are only loosely pledged to him, could desert him even before the convention to climb aboard somebody else's bandwagon.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.