Big Night in Seattle

In the state of Washington the political grass roots are precinct caucuses open to any voter registered as a party adherent. The caucus elects delegates to district and county conventions, which elect delegates to the state convention, which elects delegates to the national convention. Normally, the crowd at a precinct caucus wouldn't fill a table for canasta. But last week, some 18,000 voters crowded into King (Seattle) County's Republican caucuses. Said one astonished precinct committeeman, as 59 registered voters jammed his meeting: "Two years ago my wife and I had to go out and get two neighbors . . ."

Chief reason for the change: a quietly planned, intensive campaign by Eisenhower supporters to get rank & file voters to the caucuses to swamp the pro-Taft regular organization. The plan worked. Ike won a presidential preference vote (by a margin of five to three), and his supporters claimed two-thirds of the 2,588 delegates' seats in the King County convention. This would give Ike supporters almost a third of the delegates to the May 24 state convention. The managers, inspired by their Seattle victory, settled down this week for similar campaigns in other counties. They were confident that they could win a majority of the state convention, send a full slate of 24 Ike delegates to Chicago.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.