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Show NEwSJ THENits By Paul Mallon Released by Western Newspaper Union. CURRENT PICTURE OF CAMPAIGN STRATEGIES WASHINGTON. The average curbstone opinion ' around here seems to be that Mr. Roosevelt can beat Governor Dewey, but anyone who would wager more than a nickel before September would be far from a wise man. No one who seeks truth pays much attention to the polls any more, in view of their record of straying far off until the eve of election, then hastily getting as right as possible. Nor is the prospect that Mr. Roosevelt Roose-velt may campaign from the midst of world peace dealings a conclusive expectation, politically. The facts of the matter to date are lhat the Republicans are holding back their campaign, building up their file cases, while the Democrats are having inner difficulties getting their campaign started, or even deciding de-ciding its definite lines. For instance, the Republicans said not a revealing word when Demo-' cratic National Chairman Hannegan blamed Dewey for having held in 1940 that Mr. Roosevelt could not produce 50,000 planes. NO DENIAL OFFERED No denial was offered, but the record rec-ord will show that Dewey (Dallas, Texas, May 27, 1940) charged the government then did not have a plan for such production, that the initial Morgenthau conference with the industry in-dustry had been a fiasco, that if 50,000 planes were to be produced the government would have to let industry take the leadership in production, pro-duction, appropriate $7,000,000,000 as a starter, raise 750,000 men for the air corps. In short he told exactly how the production could be reached and indeed government policy later followed fol-lowed that line, so Dewey, far from being in the position to which Hannegan assigned him, can claim credit for having helped in the achievement. (Look it up, if you doubt me.) This, no doubt, has been put in the file cabinet for use when the Republicans Repub-licans open up. ASKED FOR STATEMENTS Recently, likewise, a press syndicate syndi-cate (not this one) and a broadcasting-movie campaign asked advance statements from Republican Chairman Chair-man Spangler and Democratic Chairman Hannegan outlining the issues is-sues of the campaign from their respective re-spective viewpoints, Spangler accepted ac-cepted and prepared his outlines, but Hannegan, after first accepting, then delaying, finally declined both invitations. Both Hannegan and Senator Bark-ley Bark-ley have been offering outlines which are supposed to be official, but which are at variance, and perhaps per-haps this accounts for the declination declina-tion of a statement now for future newspaper and radio use. Hannegan did not mention the new deal in his New York outline, but presented the theory of Mr. Roosevelt only as the indispensable man internationally. SOME BELATED MENTIONS In later talks Hannegan belatedly be-latedly mentioned the new deal (with which he is presumably not well acquainted, being accounted ac-counted a conservative St. Louis politician without intense ideological views), but Bark-ley Bark-ley has been running on the straight new deal platform almost al-most entirely, saying Mr. Roosevelt Roose-velt is indispensable because of social gains domestically accomplished. accom-plished. This is the same new deal that Mr. Roosevelt announced an-nounced dead, in favor of "Dr. Win - the - War" some months back. The CIO political action favors the Barkley technique even if it requires re-quires some resurrection from the dead, end is trying to enflame the old new deal reform interest, telling i workers Mr. R. is indispensable to their security (see their magazine May 19 issue), wholly ignoring the conservative coterie with which Mr. Roosevelt is surrounded the jaunty anti-CIO-ers Jesse Jones, James Byrnes, Judges Fred Vinson, Marvin Mar-vin Jones, Patterson, Forrestal, Stimson, Hull and who not in fact all the men wlio are running the war government. To make it even more embarrassing embar-rassing to these men or to the communists com-munists who are in the same camp with them. Earl Browder is sharing with the CIO's Hillman the leadership leader-ship of the fourth term campaign. HANNEGAN NEEDS TIME A convincing outline for a campaign cam-paign satisfactory to all these gentlemen will have to run the gamut of the imagination from 'the most extreme radical to the most 1 extreme conservative, or continue to be conducted on opposite planes, ! with conflicting campaigns at top and at bottom, opposite stories being be-ing circulated by the conflicting classes of men involved. A chameleon cha-meleon could not do it. Two would be required. Mr. Hannegan certainly cer-tainly needs more time. |
