For the Record

Michigan Republican Chairman William McLaughlin knows who’s the most important man in the Republican Party right now, and suggests double-dip Secret Service protection for whoever it was who wrote Gerald Ford’s fighting acceptance speech…. Howard Baker’s keynote address is, it is said, the work of Ray Price, Richard Nixon’s Number One speechwriter…. Eugene McCarthy’s comment on Robert Dole choice was on the wry side: “In Ford’s case he was bound to be helped by anyone he picked.”… Any idea that Carter will run an elevated campaign can be scratched as per this piece of rhetoric to a labor group: President Ford has vetoed legislation at four times President Nixon’s annual rate. “To be four times as negative as Mr. Ford’s predecessor is a remarkable achievement.”… Radical-chic types are moving in on Carter, but not yet telling him what to say. At reception at actor Warren Beatty’s in Los Angeles (other guests: Faye Dunaway, Diana Ross, Peter Falk, Art Garfunkel, Hugh Hefner, George Peppard), Beatty said he and his friends have “a rising enthusiasm” for Carter and hope he will “cut $30 billion from the defense budget, free Huey Newton, and help the Chicago Seven.” That, commented Carter, was about as accurate a rendition of his views “as the GOP platform writers had given in Kansas City.”… Ironic note: U.S. News rundown lists 15 states plus the District of Columbia as sure Carter wins in November, which makes the anti-Washington candidate the going-away favorite in the District.

Republican liberals left Kansas City distinctly out of sorts, but indicating they intend to stick with the ship. Washington Post reports Sens. Javits, Mathias, and Brooke will remain within the GOP if only, says the Post, “to keep it [the party] sane.”… Alan Baron, fired from George McGovern’s staff earlier this summer for taking part in a Stop Carter move, sighs: “Thank God there is an Ed Brooke within the Republican Party,” according to same Post story…. Mathias, stiff upper lip and all of that, replied on Meet the Press, to question whether he had ever thought of shifting parties, unequivocally thus: “I’ve never seriously really contemplated that.”… Richard Schweiker, in interview with Sally Quinn on plane returning from KC, viewed flak he had gotten from GOP liberals back home in Pennsylvania a little differently. “I was disappointed,” he told her. “Now I find that when some liberal Republicans say open door, they mean the conservative wing should let the liberals in, not the other way around.”

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Michigan Republican Chairman William McLaughlin knows who’s the most important man in the Republican Party right now, and suggests double-dip Secret Service protection for whoever it was who wrote Gerald Ford’s fighting acceptance speech…. Howard Baker’s keynote address is, it is said, the work of Ray Price, Richard Nixon’s Number One speechwriter…. Eugene McCarthy’s comment on Robert Dole choice was on the wry side: “In Ford’s case he was bound to be helped by anyone he picked.”… Any idea that Carter will run an elevated campaign can be scratched as per this piece of rhetoric to a labor group: President Ford has vetoed legislation at four times President Nixon’s annual rate. “To be four times as negative as Mr. Ford’s predecessor is a remarkable achievement.”… Radical-chic types are moving in on Carter, but not yet telling him what to say. At reception at actor Warren Beatty’s in Los Angeles (other guests: Faye Dunaway, Diana Ross, Peter Falk, Art Garfunkel, Hugh Hefner, George Peppard), Beatty said he and his friends have “a rising enthusiasm” for Carter and hope he will “cut $30 billion from the defense budget, free Huey Newton, and help the Chicago Seven.” That, commented Carter, was about as accurate a rendition of his views “as the GOP platform writers had given in Kansas City.”… Ironic note: U.S. News rundown lists 15 states plus the District of Columbia as sure Carter wins in November, which makes the anti-Washington candidate the going-away favorite in the District.

Republican liberals left Kansas City distinctly out of sorts, but indicating they intend to stick with the ship. Washington Post reports Sens. Javits, Mathias, and Brooke will remain within the GOP if only, says the Post, “to keep it [the party] sane.”… Alan Baron, fired from George McGovern’s staff earlier this summer for taking part in a Stop Carter move, sighs: “Thank God there is an Ed Brooke within the Republican Party,” according to same Post story…. Mathias, stiff upper lip and all of that, replied on Meet the Press, to question whether he had ever thought of shifting parties, unequivocally thus: “I’ve never seriously really contemplated that.”… Richard Schweiker, in interview with Sally Quinn on plane returning from KC, viewed flak he had gotten from GOP liberals back home in Pennsylvania a little differently. “I was disappointed,” he told her. “Now I find that when some liberal Republicans say open door, they mean the conservative wing should let the liberals in, not the other way around.”