Favorite Son

Only once in the past 43 years has New York State gone to a Democratic National Convention without a favorite son; that was in 1948, when New York supported Missouri's Harry Truman. Last week, for the second time since 1916, the nation's most populous state (98 delegate votes in 1956) was barren of native sons, decided to go unpledged to the 1960 Democratic Convention in Los Angeles.

Instead, New York's Democrats took the unusual step of putting up a favorite son for the vice presidential nomination: New York City's Mayor Robert Wagner. In deciding to back Bob Wagner for second place, New York's Democratic leaders were well aware that they were shutting Massachusetts' Senator John Kennedy off from any substantial New York support for the presidential nomination. Both Wagner and Kennedy are Roman Catholics, and there is plenty of Democratic doubt about naming even one Catholic to the national ticket, much less two. In fact, New York Democrats had decided that Kennedy is running too far too fast --and were betting that he would never make it.

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