For a journalist there's nothing, so to speak, like getting ahead of the news. So [in Our Next President] Russell Baker has written the story of the 1968 presidential election in advance. He does it delightfully. And in many respects, he could be right.

In one or two details, the facts have already caught up with Mr. Baker. He did not anticipate George Romney's pullout. He did not anticipate Senator Eugene McCarthy's strong showing. But let us not be picayune. The crystal ball is bound to be clouded here and there.

Mr. Baker is the humor-affairs columnist of the New York Times' editorial page. Being funny three times a week is a devastating assignment. Mr. Baker keeps up with it very well indeed. Often it is real wit, rather than slapstick of the Art Buchwald variety….

This preview of the 1968 campaign, however, is no exercise in whimsy. In most...