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Show GRASSROOTS Republicans Ignored Nation's Home-Town Voters again ignoring the home-town papers, through which to appeal to the farm vote? Should they do so, I am placing my money on the President as the victor in his race for a third term. If those in charge of the Republican Repub-lican campaign invite support for their candidates, the chances for success will be much improved, and the chances for the President again succeeding himself greatly lessened. Should that be done, socialism as a political issue will be dead. Candidates seeking the nomination nomina-tion of either or both parties will do well to realize that the hometown home-town papers can materially aid in securing delegates to the nominating nominat-ing conventions, as well as in providing pro-viding votes at the November election. elec-tion. In the towns and on the farms, the home-town newspaper exerts a powerful influence as a collective media. The answer is up to the candidates, and to whoever may be named to conduct their campaigns. "Birds of a feather" It would not be fair to indicate that President Presi-dent Truman is lacking in integrity and honesty because some of his cronies of former years, whom he appointed to government jobs, proved themselves to be crooks. By Wright A. Patterson IN THE 1948 political campaign Herbert Brownell of New York, the manager of the Dewey-Warren campaign, was so confident his candidates can-didates would receive the farm vote that he entirely ignored the media of greatest influence with the farm vote, the home-town newspapers. He confined his efforts to secure se-cure votes to the metropolitan centers. As a result the votes of the farm states turned to the President, and that vote reelected re-elected President Truman by a small margin. Dewey and Warren War-ren were deprived of a victory that they might easily have had as a result of either ignorance or gross mismanagement on the part of Herbert Brownell. The farm vote can never be counted in the ballot boxes for Republican Re-publican candidates, r e gardless. That vote Must be sought, and the one most influential media through which to seek it is the farmer's home-town newspaper. He knows the home-town editor, and has implicit im-plicit confidence in his political judgment. He looks to that hometown paper as his source of political leadership. When it is silent, the farmer must turn to other sources for political information and leadership. In many cases the home-town paper editor is sufficiently interested in the result re-sult of an election to take an active part in a campaign without any urging, but in many hundreds of cases they do not do so unless the party asks for his local support, and indicates that he has a local influence. in-fluence. Brownell did not ask for support from these local papers, or indicate that he thought of them as having local influence. The confidently expected ex-pected victory on the part of the Republican Re-publican candidates was turned into defeat by the farm vote in the farm states. Normally the farmer does not read, or follow the political leadership leader-ship of the newspapers from the metropolitan centers. The farmer does not know, nor has he that same degree of confidence in the editor of the city as is true of that of the home paper, whose leadership leader-ship he will follow. American farmers as a class do not believe in socialism as an American Am-erican policy. They are not willing to divide their two goats or two cows or acres for which they have worked and thriftily saved; but they can take the socialistic medicine with less of a grimace than they can take being ignored. The farm voter believes his vote is wanted when those opposing socialism, by any name, or in any form, are supported sup-ported by the home-town papers. Such support was not asked for by Brownell In the 1918 campaign, cam-paign, and the electoral vote of the northern farm states largely went to the President, on his personal appeal to the farmers and his promise of continued con-tinued subsidies. Will the Republicans and the opponents op-ponents of socialism make the mis-I mis-I iake Brov.neU made in 1948 by |
