Final Returns

The age of robots is not yet at hand: as projectors of public opinion, humans unquestionably outperformed machines last week in predicting the close result of the presidential race. Three out of four pollsters picked Kennedy to win by narrow margins, while TV's electronic brains forecast a landslide Kennedy victory, offered odds ranging from 5 to 1 to infinity. Many a late-night returns watcher echoed Republican Campaign Manager Len Hall: "I think we should put all these machines in the junkpile."

In forecasting the photo finish, Pollster George Gallup bettered a 25-year record by coming within eight-tenths of a percentage point on the correct popular vote. John F. Kraft, a newcomer among the major pollsters, came within three points of the actual spread. The Princeton Research Service predicted a 52-48 percentage score in Kennedy's favor, although the final count was 50.2%-49.8%. Only Veteran Elmo Roper, who reported on election eve that Nixon looked to squeeze ahead by two percentage points, chose the wrong winner; yet even Roper claimed to "feel wonderful," because all such samplings allow themselves a 4% cushion.

Second Thoughts. Influenced less by the actual votes counted than by the projections of the TV computers, headline writers across the country splashed KENNEDY WINS across early front pages. At 2:04 a.m., the usually cautious New York Times declared Kennedy "elected" in an eight-column banner over the lead story by Washington Bureau Chief James ("Scotty") Reston, called to New York for the occasion. The edition was hardly on the street, however, when the Times high command, including President Orvil E. Dryfoos, took a worried look at the eroding Kennedy margin, gathered in emergency conference and hurriedly decided to stop the presses for almost three hours while Reston clattered out a new version of the latest developments. "Our obligation was to produce a historical document," said Reston. The Times move abruptly halted printing 279,000 papers, causing a temporary vacuum happily filled by the opposition Herald Tribune, which sold more papers that morning (500,000) than it had in years. By 7:17 a.m. the Times was safely back and square with history. The new headline: KENNEDY IS APPARENT VICTOR.

Worst of the Best. In rehashing the election, editorialists fell generally into two camps. Those who had backed Nixon hastened to warn Kennedy that he possessed no "mandate" from the American people to change things overnight. "This was no landslide," commented the Salt Lake City Tribune. "There is no great popular mandate which the ambitious and dynamic young Senator takes with him into the White House. This should be a sobering influence on him. He needs some restraint on an oft-indicated impulsiveness." Added the Houston Chronicle: "The people did not tell him to inaugurate vast new programs or to stage another '100 days' of 'must' legislation as President Franklin D. Roosevelt did."

But pundits who supported Kennedy immediately started riding hard on the New Frontier. Columnist Walter Lippmann reassured Kennedy that he has "a clear mandate to undertake what he has promised to do," and Columnist Joe Alsop ecstatically said of Kennedy: "I believe he is the only new political entrant in my time who has shown the promise of becoming a President of the first rank." (Alsop also gloomily allowed: "This reporter's worst misjudgments have always erred on the optimistic side.")

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, which had backed Kennedy, concluded reassuringly: "Both because of the close popular vote and because the South was essential to his victory, Senator Kennedy will be compelled to persuade rather than command, to treat rather than dictate. He cannot claim an unlimited mandate. Yet from the great urban majority which constitutes the heart of America he has a mandate to push his program of moderate social and economic reform."

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