GOP Convention Begins Monday In Miami Beach

Amidst the confusion of contradictory Gallup and Harris polls, and with a totally uncontroversial platform in the works, the Grand Old Party is preparing to open its 1968 convention in Miami Beach, Florida.

Just one day after the Gallup poll showed Richard Nixon to be stronger against either Hubert Humphrey or Eugene McCarthy than is Nelson Rockefeller, the Harris poll published the opposite results. Later, in a joint statement, the two pollsters defended themselves and each other, and suggested that Rockefeller was ahead and gaining steadily with the people.

Meanwhile, the platform committee, under the direction of Sen. Everett Dirksen, is drafting what one member admitted would be a document cloaked in ambiguity, vagueness and turgid prose. Platforms tend to be like that: in 1932, for example, both parties had almost identical platforms, although their candidates differed markedly on the issues.

Republican delegates, who have begun arriving in droves in this vacationland, are a mixed lot. One out of five is a returnee from the 1964 convention which nominated Barry Goldwater on the first ballot, according to Congressional Quarterly's statistics. One out of 50 is a Negro.

Ignoring for a moment the plethora of polls and columnists' guesses, the chances of the delegates ever getting around to a second ballot are historically unlikely. The last time it happened at a GOP convention was 1948, when it took Governor Dewey three ballots to defeat Harold Stassen and Robert A. Taft.