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Show (Sakincl (lie JJecultine6 1 Although it appears too obvious obvi-ous to labor the point, it is well to remind ourselves during this presidential election year that election results can be either fairly predictable or uncertain. This year's presidential campaign cam-paign is exciting because the outcome out-come between Republican Nixon and Democratic Kennedy, two young, evenly matched, able and ambitious candidates, is uncertain. uncer-tain. But the real drama lies in the reason why. Unless they stop to reflect most Americans may not realize that except for Harry Truman's historic his-toric upset defeat of Republican Thomas E. Dewey in 1948, virtually vir-tually every presidential election in this century has been fairly predictable. Neither political party can publicly admit this, of course, since even if loss of the White House appears inevitable, party leaders must avoid demoralization demoraliza-tion of their workers in strengthening strength-ening the party at the local level. To contend that few presidential elections are really as uncertain as they may seem is not to claim that the outcome is inevitable or pre-ordained, but only that a that Ike did not plan to seek re-election. Many Democratic leaders will never forgive Stevenson, however, how-ever, for what they consider his fumbling on the eve of the election elec-tion by urging an A-test ban and an end to the draft, however worthy his motives, just as Hungary Hun-gary revolted and Suez-Israeli crisis erupted and Moscow made threats of war. i This is the perfect example of the "X" or unknown, uncertain factor which politicians fear more than anything else in any election. The business of the Pros which they generally do well enough, is to prepare more for the likely rather than the unexpected un-expected since it is only rarely that really unexpected events suddenly influence elections. What makes this year's election seem so close and exciting in the view of the most impartial observers ob-servers is that totally uncontrollable uncontrol-lable events appear more likely to decide November's balloting than at any other time, or few times, in our history. Or to put it most succinctly, developments that neither party can really control appear most likely to play the key role next November. While "N" and "K" compete against each other, it is "NK" who ' seems to be maneuvering to best both. For example, just when both parties, and especially the GOP, adopted a hard, anti-Khrushchev line for the campaign, Khrushchev Khrush-chev began cooing by indicating clemency for U-2 spy plane pilot Powers, hinted a peace dove mission mis-sion to Red China, and suggested that he might angle a UN invite to re-visit the U.S. and reopen disarmament talks. But when some believed "K" just mgiht be easing his hard line, the Soviets just as abruptly switched back to a tough one, then started cooing again, confusing con-fusing the world at large if not the U.S. voters and starkly reminding re-minding both political parties it is not an unmixed blessing to run against Khrushchev. Both Democrats and Republicans Republi-cans fear that they are playing with politcal dynamite by allowing allow-ing Khrushchev too much leverage lever-age on our presidential campaign. cam-paign. The real danger in making foreign policy an issue is not that it "divides the country," but that both parties risk surrendering surrender-ing control ov?' their campaigns to uncertain characters like Castro Cas-tro in Cuba, Lumumba in the Congo, etc. The space race is another risky political area. Right now, many GOP leaders are urging the Administration Ad-ministration to step up its manned man-ned space flight program to disprove dis-prove critics and guard against the political effects of a major Soviet space achievement. But the GOP is wary of focusing focus-ing too much attention on space in case Moscow scores first or if the first U. S. man in space should perish amid charges of politicking during our unpredictable unpre-dictable campaign. campaign uciuiiuiniig iuliui s often appear long before the actual balloting begins. It took little or no hindsight, for example for the Democratic leaders to realize that the powerful power-ful "Boy Orator" William J. Bryan had scant chance of winning win-ning against McKinley in 1900, once the immensely popular war hero, Teddy Roosevelt, agreed to become the GOP's vice presidential presiden-tial nominee, just as Republicans sought this year to strengthen Nixon's presidential candidacy with Rockefeller. The Oldtimers tell us that it took little vision to predict Mr. Wilson's victory by default in 1912 when the Taft-Roosevelt rivalry split the Republican vote. Harding defeated Cox in 1920 when the Democrats championed the League of Nations at a time when the electorate sought its "Return to Normalcy" following World War I. Coolidge won over a divided Democratic party's Davis Da-vis because "Cal" kept the status quo. It is now fairly well agreed that Hoover's defeat of Al Smith in 1928 occurred not solely as a result of Smith's controversial Catholicism, but his party's disunity, dis-unity, his Prohibition stand, the prosperity which did not collapse col-lapse until the year after the Hoover election and Hoover's great personal prestige. The deepening Depression assured as-sured Franklin Roosevelt's victory vic-tory over Hoover in 1932. Their own disunity helped defeat the GOP in 1936 and "40 and FDR's was leader status so doomed the GOP to defeat in '44, that Dewey refused to be his party's nominee until assured that he would have a second crack at th Presidency in 1948, which he lost to Truman in the century's only genuine up set election. Just as GOP party leaders promised Dewey another try in 1948 if he ran the good race against FDR in '44 Adlai Stevenson Steven-son probably could have won a third try easily this year had he campaigned aggresively before the Los Angeles convention nominated nom-inated Sen. Kennedy. While not even Adlai believed he had a pray of beating War Hero Eisenhower in 1952 he was given a chance, following the Resident's illnesses, of winning in '56, especially because most politcal leaders were convinced |
