National Affairs: A Shot Heard Far

The one Republican who inspires a thump of political kinship in the hearts of Virginia Democrats is Arizona’s deep-dyed conservative. Senator Barry Goldwater. On a raid into the Old Dominion last week, Goldwater publicly assured Virginians that they could interpret the silence of their own Democratic patriarch, Senator Harry Flood Byrd, 73. about the Kennedy-Johnson ticket as “sufficient instruction” to vote for Nixon-Lodge. In rebuttal, Virginia’s Governor J. Lindsay Almond, sometime Byrdman who has gradually set up a separate camp of his own, spoke up for Jack Kennedy and seized the chance for a sly jab at Byrd and his lieutenants. “I am certainly not going to label these distinguished Virginians as Republicans,” said Almond with deadpan irony. “Senator Goldwater has already done that. Whether his statement is a compliment or an accusation is a matter for these gentlemen to deal with as they see fit.”

Later that day. Almond fired off a shot heard round Virginia, and beyond. “There is no doubt in my mind,” he said to newsmen, “that the Republican leadership, by innuendo, is seeking to capitalize on the religious issue. Furthermore, I think Mr. Nixon has done that by repeatedly referring to the matter, ostensibly to deprecate it.” It obviously was getting hard to tell just who was doing most to fan the religious issue—those who make a point of it, those who deprecate it, or those who call attention to those who deprecate it. Jack Kennedy, asked whether he agreed that Nixon was trying to exploit prejudice, answered that he was “sure the Vice President does not want this campaign to hinge on a religious debate.”