Re-Enlistment in Kentucky

At week's end the Kentucky Republican State Central Committee got the news that it was hoping to hear. From John Sherman Cooper came a telegram saying that he would give up his job as Ambassador to India after all, and would run for the unexpired (four years) U.S. Senate term of the late Alben Barkley.

For able John Cooper, twice elected to unexpired terms and twice defeated for full terms in the Senate,* the decision was an about-face from his earlier statements. Reason for the change of heart: President Eisenhower had personally persuaded him to run (against Kentucky's former Governor Lawrence W. Wetherby). Cooper could not fail to get the nomination: moreover, his standing in Kentucky would give him a better-than-even chance of winning the election.

Cooper was at least the third candidate personally recruited this year by President Eisenhower in an effort to people the Congress with his kind of Republicans (others: Oregon's Douglas McKay, Washington's Arthur Langlie). Among both politicians and pundits, Cooper's decision was widely accepted as a sign that Ike himself is planning to run again.

*Elected in 1946 to fill the unexpired term (two years) of A. B. ("Happy") Chandler, who resigned to become U.S. Commissioner of Baseball; defeated in 1948 by Virgil Chapman; elected in 1952 to fill the unexpired term (two years) after Chapman died; defeated in 1954 by Alben Barkley.

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