Middle Atlantic
MASSOLO, ARTHUR
MIDDLE ATLANTIC GOP trend in NY, NJ - Pennsylvania is close By Arthur Massolo New York "Post" New York, Pennsylvania and New Jersey loom as major battlegrounds of the 1956 White House...
...The trend in the Keystone State —which has been pretty much the story in most of the country since 1952—is Democratic...
...He carried the state by a 269,000 plurality in 1952, and his popularity has not declined to the point where this lead can be completely erased...
...This may be his major handicap...
...Most prognosticators believe Wagner can take Javits if the Eisenhower plurality is less than 200,000...
...for the Attorney Generalship of New York...
...He tried to sell his own candidate, Governor Averell Harriman, as the man to beat Eisenhower...
...Thus, the big question in the mid-Atlantic states now is: Can Stevenson, running against a popular President, accomplish on November 6 what no Democrat has done since Franklin D. Roosevelt turned back Thomas E. Dewey in 1944...
...Privately, the professional politicians concede that Eisenhower will again take the state...
...Essentially, Wagner's main hopes rest on the anticipated decline in the President's popularity...
...Like Pennsylvania and New York, New Jersey has a popular Democratic Governor, Robert Meyner, who has introduced considerable youthful vigor into that state's party organization...
...Senate choice of both the Stevenson and organization factions...
...Using the horseplayer's yardstick of past performance, no handicapper would give Stevenson better than 2 to 5. Of course, those who devote themselves to spotting political trends must contend with the independent voters who emerge from hiding every four years to play a major role in determining what man and what party will direct the nation...
...Once upon a time, the overwhelming pluralities produced in these counties was enough to carry the state for a Democrat...
...After the convention, Anna Rosenberg, Co-Chairman of the State Committee for Stevenson and Kefauver, conferred with De Sapio and worked out a series of agreements that in a sense created a truce rather than an effective concordat...
...This apathy can be attributed to the fact that there has been no big "break" to turn the tide sharply one way, and no one overriding issue that has caught fire...
...Harry S. Truman was elected President in 1948 without the help of any of these states...
...The President's appearance in Pittsburgh was even more impressive...
...This was only a popularity contest, but it showed a trend...
...But in the current race they appear to have lost much of the compulsion they felt when they went to the polls in that record election...
...Can both organizations do for Wagner what they apparently cannot achieve for Stevenson...
...Those are the ones who swarmed to the voting booths in 1952 to catapult a national hero, Dwight D. Eisenhower, into the White House...
...His opponent, Attorney General Jacob K. Javits, is a formidable candidate who would be hard to beat even if a man lacking Eisenhower's appeal was heading the GOP ticket...
...However, Democratic leaders in the populous northern counties?notably Hudson—have not done much for the Stevenson-Kefauver ticket...
...Most experienced observers feel that it is not yet strong enough to carry Stevenson into office...
...There is little evidence in New Jersey that President Eisenhower's strength has declined appreciably since 1952...
...Over the years, Javits has piled up an excellent record of public service...
...The Wagner-Javits race is a remarkable political development, because it recognizes the liberal voter...
...Wherever Stevenson has campaigned in Pennsylvania, he has received friendly receptions...
...The politicians think that it will recur on November 6. There are some people who think that New York was written off by the Stevenson forces long before the Democratic Convention in Chicago...
...These fertile political fields, Republican in Presidential years but Democratic when only state offices are at stake, may well spell success or failure for Adlai Stevenson's second bid for the nation's highest office...
...Many miners voted for Ike in 1952...
...He lost New York by 841,000 votes, an almost impossible margin to overcome in 1956...
...Stevenson may also benefit from the vote-getting ability of Joseph Clark Jr., Philadelphia's first Democratic reform Mayor, who is running for the Senate against incumbent James H. Duff...
...Their campaigns are being waged in an area of high principle and with a minimum of mudslinging...
...It was agreed that the financing of the Stevenson-Kefauver campaign in New York state was the sole responsibility of the volunteers, and that the scores of Stevenson committees that have mushroomed throughout the state must disband after the election...
...The delegates rejected Harriman, but in doing so they virtually abandoned the state to the Republicans...
...These old-line Democrats schooled in the Hague tradition have no great affection for the man from Libertyville...
...MIDDLE ATLANTIC GOP trend in NY, NJ - Pennsylvania is close By Arthur Massolo New York "Post" New York, Pennsylvania and New Jersey loom as major battlegrounds of the 1956 White House competition...
...The state Democratic machine failed Stevenson in 1952...
...Despite the fact that Pennsylvania Democrats have built up the best-functioning party organization in the nation, the surface evidence and statistics seem at this point to give Eisenhower an edge of 100,000 votes...
...Since the Democrats are in the position of underdogs, it is they who need the help most...
...This lessened friction between the two factions in the Democratic party, but it also effectively vitiated the cohesion necessary to win the state...
...In the April primaries, he polled 319,000 votes to 108,000 for Senator Estes Kefauver...
...Neither candidate is a party hack...
...At the moment, Clark is leading the race...
...What will such a situation do for New York Mayor Robert F. Wagner, the U.S...
...Of the three states that dominate the Eastern part of the country, only in traditionally Republican Pennsylvania is there even a remote possibility of a crack in the Eisenhower front...
...Stevenson could not repeat this performance in 1952...
...Nevertheless, they realize that Pennsylvania is the "make-or-break" state for him, while it is not quite as crucial to the Republicans...
...The electoral votes of these key states total 93...
...Democrats are hoping that the economic distress in the eight coal counties, where the problem is to find jobs for miners who are no longer needed, may ignite the spark for Stevenson...
...The Stevenson movement has frightened the machine politicians, particularly in New York City where the patronage-rich clubhouses live in awesome fear of the liberals and independents...
...Republican dissension within the state organization can be counted as a minus factor in the balance sheet...
...He showed his strength and popularity among the independent voters two years ago when he easily defeated Franklin D. Roosevelt Jr...
...Besides facing a formidable candidate in Wagner, another son of a famous father, Javits has publicly embraced Vice President Richard M. Nixon, for whom he showed little affection before receiving the Senate nomination...
...Carmine De Sapio, the undisputed boss of the state organization, told the party leaders that Stevenson could never take New York...
...An Eisenhower sweep would make Javits a shoo-in, even though Javits is fighting voter apathy within his own party...
...Their hope is that his margin can be sliced to 250,-000 votes—small enough to permit the local machine to pick off the weaker Republican candidates running on the President's coattails...
Vol. 39 • October 1956 • No. 44
