First Turns

All political campaigns are different, but 1960 is clearly going to be more so. Both presidential candidates sat confined in the Senate chambers last week, eager to be somewhere else, and they were getting away whenever they could from a congressional rump session increasingly vituperative and unproductive. August is usually the quiet month when the candidates organize the fall's storms. But already the campaign was taking shape, and an unexpected one.

The Wavering South. The biggest surprise was the South. Barely two weeks ago, Lyndon Johnson cockily asked politicos and pundits in Washington to pick just four states they thought Nixon would carry. Johnson certainly figured on carrying the normally Democratic South with himself on the ticket. Nixon even planned to stay out of the South, counting it lost after Johnson was added to the Democratic ticket.

But when Nixon made a quick foray into North Carolina, he was stirred by the enthusiastic reception he got (see Republicans). Kennedy's Roman Catholicism was obviously hurting him in Baptist country. And Johnson was not proving to be the Southern darling everyone was led to believe. Wrote Richmond News Leader Editor James Kilpatrick fortnight ago: "If

Kennedy's advisers imagine the South has any deep affection for Lyndon Johnson, they are wholly mistaken. The Texan is widely regarded as a renegade, a turncoat, an opportunist who plays footsie with the liberal Negro bloc." Even in Lyndon Johnson's home state, a poll of newspaper publishers showed that, by a majority of 16 to 14, they expected Nixon to carry Texas. New York Herald Tribune Reporter (and Nixon Biographer) Earl Mazo returned from the South breathlessly convinced that if the election had been held last week. Nixon would have swept the entire Old Confederacy.

The Changing Poll. The first Gallup poll since the conventions showed a surprising switch. Just before the Democratic Convention. Kennedy led 52 to 48. Last week's poll showed Nixon 50%, Kennedy 44%, undecided 6%. Nixon forces were concerned as well as pleased by the poll. They privately agreed with the Kennedy forces that it was probably taken too soon after the impact of Nixon's successful acceptance speech to be a steady indicator, and feared a downturn next time. Nixon forces are convinced that the "undecideds" are far more than 6%--perhaps 25% of the vote.

In sharp contrast to Johnson, Nixon's running mate, Henry Cabot Lodge, has proved to be an underrated asset because of the favorable TV image he has projected over the years, talking back to the Russians in U.N. debates. A recent Gallup poll, designed to measure something called the "enthusiasm quotient." found that 45% of the people polled were "highly favorable" to Lodge, and only 30% felt that way about Johnson.

The Waiting Game. Against all this, the Kennedy forces seem, immersed in a profitless Congress session, busy patching up wounds inside the party and working in subterranean fashion on leaders of bloc interests. That is the necessary groundwork of successful organizing and calculated to pay off later, but it is not what inspires now. Kennedy efficiency is accepted: in fact, it is part of the commonly heard phrase that Nixon and Kennedy are two of a kind--organization men.

The Kennedy camp argued: Wait till the candidate steps out; wait till the public sees how well he squares off against Nixon in TV debate. And waiting seemed to be what a lot of Americans were doing.

On the basis of voter registration the Democrats are in the majority, and if by November Kennedy has pulled together all the Democratic potential, he could win. But for the moment, Richard Nixon seemed to be first off the launching pad.

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