Problems of Political Candidates

...Halleck's...

...That is why, in the end, one returns in the book to Adlai Stevenson's words, hackneyed though he admits them to be, that "if we are to meet the historic challenges in this world, and in worlds that may lie in galaxies beyond this mother earth, we dare not blind our vision, shackle our imagination, silence a new argument, crush a new idea, or slumber in the belief that all is done, all is well...

...To be sure, labor is tactically far more effective today—in registration, education and propaganda— but strategically it has changed little in its political method...

...Are the other recipes for practical politics as useful as Mrs...

...Such effective politicians as Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt sometimes resorted to evasion, deception and delay...

...Such an approach may not always have been very practical for Stevenson's own ambitions...

...What works for an Adlai Stevenson may not for a Richard Nixon—and vice versa...

...When politicians he wanted were too busy to write a chapter, he adapted essays from things they had previously written, or he went in to see them with a tape recorder, re drafted the transcribed conversation and then cleared it with the au thor...

...Because it isn't expected," he writes, "it catches the other fellow by surprise...

...but the question arises as to whether labor has tried hard enough to work within the Demo critic party to make it a more dependable instrument of labor and liberal goals...

...We have a few such strong, policy-oriented parties in this country at the state level—notably those led by Democrats John Bailey in Connecticut and Neil Staebler in Michigan—but unhappily these two brilliant party leaders are not contributors to this volume...

...John Kennedy and Adlai Stevenson, along with Governors Abe Ribic off of Connecticut and Pat Brown of California, seasoned state politicos Jake Arvey of Chicago and Ray Bliss of Ohio, elder party statesmen Jim Farley and Len Hall, and experts in specialized political techniques such as Lou Harris, the pollster, and 13 others...

...Cannon was obviously a hard man to say no to...

...Politics U.S.A., in short, is a collection of lively, informative essays that bring us close to the problems and techniques of individual candidates...

...But is candor always advisable...

...Despite all the changes in the labor movement since the day of Samuel Gompers, it seems clear that labor has not progressed much from Gompers' old formula of "help your friends and defeat your enemies...

...He has assembled within hard covers a glittering array of national politicians, including Richard Nixon...

...Aside from Lou Harris' illuminating words on the uses of private polls by candidates, the chapters on mass media techniques add little to what we already know...

...One reason may lie in the fact that British parties know much better than ours what governmental goals they are trying to achieve...

...Others observe all the "rules" and still lose...

...The heart of the book has some what more general utility, however, for it comprises essays by experienced party leaders who have studied many candidates and party organizations...

...Reviewed by James MacGregor Burns Author, "Roosevelt: The Lion and the Fox" "John Kennedy: A Political Profile" EDITOR JAMES CANNON deserves a prize for editorial resourcefulness...

...Ray Bliss of Ohio, probably the ablest Republican state chairman in the nation, argues the case for a more professional and better-financed party machinery than we have today...

...Ma-chiavelli can hardly be exorcised from American politics...

...Unhappily for those who like to read "how-to-do-it" guides, there are few universal techniques for winning political power in a country as diverse as the United States...

...It does not—and never was intended—to make clear what politics is ultimately all about...

...Both major parties in Britain are far ahead of both major parties here in grass-roots financing, local organization, the use of trained party workers and election-day organization to get out the vote...

...Subtitled "A Practical Guide to the Winning of Public Office," the book begins with Senator Hugh Scott on how to take the plunge into politics and continues with Kennedy on why young people should go into public service...

...Fiorello LaGuardia defied some of the rules in this book but he usually came up with majorities on election day...

...There are candidates who forget names, make overly long speeches, fail to do their homework, suffer from bad cases of foot-in-mouth disease—but they still win...

...Reading the advice of these successful men one has the uneasy feeling that what worked for them might not work for someone else...

...The chairman of the United Republican Fund of Illinois shows how his party applied to political fund-raising methods that have been perfected in united fund-raising for community charity...

...The late James Michael Curley of Boston, in a paper on how to spend campaign funds, describes with more than a touch of his old-time blarney how to deal with fair-weather contributors (give them their money back and wish them goodbye...

...Our political amateurishness is reflected in an informative chapter by Gus Tyler, the astute political adviser to the International Ladies Garment Workers Union...

...Useful though these essays on party machinery may be, they point up a blunt fact about most American political organization: It is still amateurish...

...They have established the link between organization and objectives, between means and ends, most notably in party platforms that reveal rather than conceal the policies they would favor in office...

...Probably so...

...Charles Halleck, wife of the House Minority Leader, on how to get a husband-politician's dinner ready within 20 minutes no matter when he comes home (have salad in refrigerator, vegetables in pressure cooker and something to broil...

...Brown on the need of a strong constitution (internal, not national), Nixon on the importance of elaborate preparation and briefing, Stevenson on talking up rather than down to the voters and Mrs...

...Ribicoff, for example, praises candor in politics...

...But certainly it has been practical for the posing of the issues we must meet in this election year...

...The reason, Tyler says in effect, is that labor cannot wholly trust either party...