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Show National Politics: (2) liberty Us. Socialism' The Republican party is entering enter-ing this year's congressional campaign with a new battle-cry, battle-cry, "Liberty vs. Socialism." How far it will get with the thinly-veiled strategy behind this slogan will be detemined in the November general election. elec-tion. Me-tooism has certainly been discarded as an unworkable political po-litical policy. Twice Governor Thomas E. Dewey, unquestionably unquestion-ably one of the party's and the nation's greatest statesmen, used it without avail in efforts to reach the White House. Consequently, Conse-quently, the party has reversed its once psuedo-liberal policies, and now seeks to convince the voters that only it can save the nation from the damnation of socialism. Following the last Dewey debacle, de-bacle, when it seemed certain he would be the next president, the Republicans decided to resort re-sort to desperate measures. An indication of a radical change in political philosophy came shortly with the firing of Hugh Scott, Jr., as GOP national chairman and his replacement by Guy Gabrielson, a Robert Taft man. Since Scott's ouster, step by step Republican" strategy stra-tegy has evolved from me-tooism to dyed - in - the - wool conservatism. conserva-tism. The reason for the GOP's new look is fairly obvious. The party had failed, time after time, to convince the electorate it could carry out the Democratic party's program more efficiently than the Democrats. The New and Fair Deals, having started the trend in favor of more social legislation, encouragement of labor, la-bor, etc., were in possession of gigantic strength among the middle and lower classes. Desperate Des-perate measures were necessary to combat this power, if the party were to survive as such. I I With the Administration undeniably unde-niably headed toward the left, with the advent of deficit spending, spend-ing, and with England as an example of so-called creeping socialism, top Republicans gradually grad-ually shifted the party's position posi-tion entirely. "Liberty vs.- Socialism" So-cialism" seems the final preelection pre-election result. Of course, the party has had its old guard all along, and it is elementary that the GOP has always been more conservative than the Democrats. But so long as middle-of-the-road candidates like Dewey and WiUkle were in the saddle, the conservatives had to stay in the background while me-tooism was tried. Once its failure had been effectively demonstrated, dem-onstrated, Gabrielson was elected, elect-ed, Taft became the knight in shining armor who would save the country from socialism; and the GOP is now spending millions mil-lions of dollars, directly or indirectly, in-directly, warning the electorate that socialism is just around the corner. With everything considered, it would seem the GOP has two big obstacles to overcome before be-fore it can hope to ride back into office again: (1) prove its sincerity; and (2) convince the electorate that conservatism is the best way after all. Whether this can be done is doubtful. The Democrats have now been 18 years in power, sufficient time to captivate the hearts of the masses. An irresistible irre-sistible scare campaign by the Republicans must succeed before be-fore , a divorce of the two can be expected. The Republican party will probably pick up a few congressional con-gressional seats this fall, as is often the case in non-presidential election years. But can it unseat the Democrats from Congress, Con-gress, as it did in 1946? Possibly. Pos-sibly. GWH |