Ike Is No Sure Thing

...It is curious how many historical decisions which are so problematic in prospect become so seemingly inevitable in retrospect that one wonders why everyone speculated about the outcome...

...The achievement of balancing the budget will become less and less impressive if it appears that we have allowed the Russians to gain an advantage over us in guided missiles and other weapons, and that Moscow is making progress in winning over the neutralist nations of Asia...

...The Democrats will exploit the wider alliance of social forces in their party as against the seeming dominance of the business community in the Republican party...

...The first is that the farmers are definitely off the reservation, and the Republicans have been successful only when they could preserve the alliance between the farmers and business on which the party was founded...

...This consensus is somewhat to the right of the New Deal on domestic policy and is identical with previous Democratic policy on foreign policy, if measured by the President's temper rather than by Secretary Dulles's words...

...Other hazards to Republican success might be mentioned...

...Nevertheless, Eisenhower's reelection is by no means a foregone conclusion...

...Granted the normal human love of power and responsibility, and particularly President Eisenhower's sense of responsibility for finishing an "unfinished" task, it is almost impossible to conceive why he should choose the comforts of his Gettysburg farm in preference to the hazards, creative possibilities and "thrills" of the Presidency...

...Among the many considerations which prevent confident conclusions about next November's election, a few deserve special mention...

...Perhaps the election will hinge on how many voters feel that a man who is ready to risk his life for his country cannot decently be turned down, or how many voters, on the other hand, think that not only the President but the nation is taking a risk...

...True, the fear of inevitable atomic catastrophe has been all but removed...

...These new perplexities threaten the unity of a party which rests upon two pillars of strength: the traditional Southern Democracy and the Northern liberal bloc composed of labor, the professional and middle classes, and presumably the farmers...

...No wonder the Republicans are jubilant about the possibility of exploiting for their party the possibilities of this bipartisan consensus...

...The original success of the New Deal was accomplished by destroying this alliance, and Truman's unexpected victory in 1948 was due to winning the supposedly recalcitrant farmers back to the Democratic fold...

...It is a rather strange historical development that the President should govern so securely with a majority comprising both parties and representing a general consensus of the American people on both domestic and foreign issues...

...The polls have been too much against him...

...The second reason for uncertainty about the election is the increasing ominousness of the Communist threat...

...That this latter class of voters is definitely felt to exist is shown by reports that Richard Nixon will probably be dropped as Vice President...

...For two reasons, the President's decision now seems inevitable by the wisdom of hindsight...

...The second and more personal reason for Eisenhower's decision can also be clearly seen in retrospect...

...The American Presidency is the most imposing center of power in the entire world, perhaps exceeding in prestige any previous such office in the history of the world...

...Adlai Stevenson, whose nomination is practically assured by the President's decision, is better able to heal that breach than anyone else, but it will remain a hazard to Democratic success in November...

...The Democratic victory freed the President from subservience to the right wing of his party, ended his vacillation in regard to Senator McCarthy, and started him on his great love affair with the American people, which reached its culmination in the Geneva "summit conference" and was not appreciably dimmed by the sorry developments at the subsequent Geneva conference of foreign ministers (for the heart attack wiped out all other considerations and left the President virtually immune to criticism...

...Perhaps what the Democrats have most to fear is not President Eisenhower's popularity but the flare-up of racial tensions consequent upon the Supreme Court decision on desegregation...

...He represents the wing of the party which broadly accepts the New Deal revolution in domestic policy and which understands the worldwide responsibilities which our nation bears as a concomitant of our tremendous power...

...But the new flexibility of Communist strategy requires a better counter-strategy than bland assurances that we have forced them to adopt this new approach and reminders that Eisenhower made peace in Korea...

...They may be so much so that even an Eisenhower cannot guarantee them a second victory when they can no longer arouse emotions about "the mess in Washington" and the painful Korean episode is over and forgotten...

...Eisenhower's popularity proves that only this type of Republicanism has a chance of holding power in America today...

...Though President Eisenhower's popularity is at a peak, much can happen between now and the November election Ike Is No Sure Thing By Reinhold Niebuhr President Eisenhower's announcement that he would seek reelection ended a period of almost morbid nationwide preoccupation with the President's health and with the question of his availability for another term...

...Eisenhower has been a popular President, leading a party which had been out of power for two decades because it did not sense the deepest convictions and longings of the people on both domestic and foreign policy...

...Evidence has accumulated that the Republicans are really a minority party...

...In view of his huge popularity, it was inevitable that party pressure on him to run again would be very great...

...Labor is more united than ever before, and presumably its political objectives are not those of the Republicans...

...An ironic note in all this is the fact that the President's popularity, which made his renomination so desirable to the Republicans and increased his own zest for what at first seemed a thankless job, really began with his loss of both the Senate and the House to the Democrats in 1954...