Palmistry & Promise

Marking off the state of Wisconsin on his right hand last week, Massachusetts' Senator John Kennedy made a tentative reading of his future--April 5, to be exact, when Wisconsin voters turn out for the critical presidential primary. The thumb looked healthier by the day: Congressional Districts 4, 5, 6 and 8, along the East Coast, were strong Kennedy country; he even strengthened it by giving himself the doubtful First, at the base of his thumb. Still uncertain was the area running roughly from the middle finger to the pinkie--the Second, Seventh, Ninth, and Tenth. That is where Opponent Hubert Humphrey has been riding high, and where last week Jack Kennedy rolled his campaign machinery.

Through the snowbanked rural reaches of the state, Kennedy and his pretty wife Jackie toiled, shaking hands, gathering dairy farmers together for talks, and making homey jokes, i.e., as the cow said to the farmer, "Thanks for the warm hand on a cold day." The response, on the whole, was fairly predictable: in the "backyard" of Minnesota's Humphrey, Kennedy could do little more than try to get himself known. (Humphrey himself was bedded down with a cold, missed most of his scheduled weekend foray, sent his wife Muriel to stump for him.)

Big Sweep? Even so, while it was clear that Jack Kennedy made no startling inroads in the Humphrey country, some of Wisconsin's seasoned politicos began to sense a building Kennedy momentum across the state. That was the reading even in ruggedly impartial high places in the State House at Madison. "On the basis of what I've been hearing from state senators and assemblymen lately," said one of Wisconsin's most knowledgeable officials, "it would not surprise me--in an election held today--if Jack Kennedy swept the state. I don't mean, just the popular vote and six or seven districts. I mean all ten districts. This may not be true come April, because Hubert has just begun to fight--and he's a good fighter--and he can do nothing from here on in but gain. But it seems to be true now."

As for the Republican hope that Richard Nixon's name on the ballot will help keep G.O.P. voters from crossing over to the Democratic line on primary day, the same state official adds that this may not hold true for Roman Catholic Republicans. "Kennedy's candidacy has produced great emotional response among the Catholics," said he. "They'll cross over in droves to vote for Kennedy in the primary."

Magnetic Bandwagon? Lending credence to that view and Kennedy's own optimistic palmistry was a private poll taken in Wisconsin for Nixon and for Republican Strategist Len Hall. The poll showed Kennedy leading Humphrey by a surprising margin: 62% to 38%. Reasoning along with the Kennedy forces themselves, top Republicans were ready to grant that a big win for Kennedy in Wisconsin would virtually sew up the Democratic presidential nomination for him; for a Kennedy sweep there would quickly bring most of the Northern fence-sitting Democratic bosses around the U.S. racing to get on the magnetic bandwagon.

Barely showing the effects of his hard work, Kennedy flew eastward at week's end in the family Convair. On the agenda this week: three days of campaigning in New Hampshire, where the nation's first primary comes off next week--and where nobody doubts that the boy from neighboring Massachusetts has things in the palm of his hand.

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