Raskob's Rainbow

Nominee Hoover hugged Washington to hear about the East and issue orders. National G. O. P. Chairman Work and a squad of speakers traveled to Maine, by tradition a political barometer though its Presidential readings have been only one way (Republican) for 52 years.* Nominee Smith spent the week concentrating on the first premise of a Democratic victory, New York State. Busiest of all, National Democratic Chairman Raskob, fourth of the Big Four, traveled from Manhattan to the Midwest, to attend Nominee Robinson's notification, to see the farmers for himself, to lubricate local machinery, to arrange Nominee Smith's autumn itinerary. Mr. Raskob referred repeatedly to "the goods" he had to "sell" and what good goods they were.

Seeing the farmers caused Mr. Raskob to ejaculate that the Farm Problem is indeed a Problem. He talked about his Eastern issue, Prohibition, hardly at all and assured the Midwesterners that they need not give it a thought during the campaign.

Lubricating local machinery was pleasant. Mr. Raskob again assured everyone that there would be some $4,000,000 on hand. About $500,000 would go into the Corn Belt, he said, and $600,000 for the nationwide radio campaign. Lest these sums sound too large, he took care to add that he had learned "from well-advised Republicans" that the G. O. P. campaign fund, now announced as between three and four millions, would reach six or seven or even eight millions. G. O. P. Chairman Work quickly retorted that Mr. Raskob was being "absurd."

More interesting to voters, however, than any of these subjects, was Mr. Raskob's inauguration of the great political game of Claiming States. First of the Big Four to begin the game in a formal way, Mr. Raskob made his beginning a bold one. It takes 266 electoral votes to elect the President. Mr. Raskob said that "any reasonably prudent businessman would, at this time," classify 27 States, with 309 electoral votes, in the Smith-Robinson column. He named his claims as follows:

The Solid South (10 states) and the following:

Maryland Wisconsin

Kentucky Minnesota

Tennessee Nebraska

Oklahoma Montana

Missouri Colorado

New York Arizona

New Jersey New Mexico

Rhode Island Nevada

Massachusetts

He said there was "little doubt" about the following States, whose 38 electoral votes would bring the Smith total to 347:

Delaware North Dakota

Connecticut South Dakota

Indiana Wyoming

Most political predictions are met with hearty laughter by the Other Side, but Mr. Raskob was answered with jeers and booes for concluding his prediction with the following statement: "This leaves States with 184 votes, every one of which is fighting ground, and there is good indication that the Democratic ticket will corral over 100 of these."

Senator Moses, Hooverizer of the East, was loudest in the Republican chorus of amazement. He said that Mr. Raskob was "chasing rainbows." He said: "My claim of Massachusetts for Hoover is emphatic and vociferous. . . . We laugh at the Raskob claim of Nebraska. . . . We have great expectations of Missouri. . . . I share Mr. Hoover's confidence that we shall carry New Mexico and Nevada . . . etc., etc."

What puzzled people was Mr. Raskob's failure to mention Illinois as a Smith possibility. What interested them, in the light of recent events, was the claiming of Wisconsin and Minnesota.

* Except in 1912, when Wilson got a plurality of 2,600 over Roosevelt. The Roosevelt vote plus the Taft vote was some 24,000 greater than the Wilson vote.