Romney Leads Early.

After the resounding defeat of presidential candidate Barry Goldwater in 1964 the Republican Party was left leaderless and seemed moribund. One bright spot in that year, when many Republican candidates for national and state offices had gone down in defeat with Goldwater, was the reelection of George Romney, the popular Republican governor of Michigan, where voters had favored Johnson over Goldwater by a margin of two to one. Even before he was elected to a third two-year term, Romney had emerged as the frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination in 1968, with promises of support from Gov. Nelson A. Rockefeller of New York and most other Republicans.

Romney Falters.

In November 1966 polls showed Romney leading President Johnson by 54 to 46 percent, and the Michigan Republican continued to lead the president by similar margins through spring 1967. By then Romney, who was a poor...