How It Looks

The sound trucks bellowed over the plump pumpkins and the crookneck squash of country fairs, at street corners where the fallen leaves gathered in the gutters. Campaigners' voices rasped hoarsely in the crisp autumn air, and high-school bands thumped and oompahed down main streets to flag-draped platforms. The Great American Game of Politics was in full swing.

Neither party was making any sweeping predictions. Among politicians there was more worry than confidence, more caution than claims. The inscrutable voter, who had chastened them all in 1948, seemed even more inscrutable in 1950. Said Senatorial Candidate D. Worth Clark of Idaho: "I've never seen a year when it was so difficult to tell what the voters have on their minds." An Indiana politician admitted candidly: "Hell, there's not a single soul in the state who can tell whether it's going to be a rout or a close election, let alone tell who'll win."

Modest Claim. But since the victories in Korea, Democrats had perceptibly perked up and Republicans had lost some of their confidence. Last week G.O.P. strategists privately admitted that they had no real hope of winning control of either the House or the Senate, though they expected to make gains in each.

In the Senate, the Republicans counted confidently on taking Democratic seats in Pennsylvania and California, and the Democrats did not seriously dispute them. If so, the Democrats stood to lose their majority whip, inconspicuous Francis Myers. His opponent, Pennsylvania's able, red-haired Governor Jim Duff, was popular, and Republicans had not lost an off-year election in the state since 1934. In California, Representative Richard Nixon, the man who did most (in the House Un-American Activities Committee) to drag the Alger Hiss case into the open, was conceded a big lead toward the Senate over Fair Dealing Representative Helen Gahagan Douglas.

The Democrats' best hopes for taking Republican Senate seats seemed to be in Colorado, where popular, down-the-line Trumanite Representative John A. Carroll appeared to be running in front of canny, conservative Senator Eugene Millikin, and in Missouri, where ex-Congressman Tom Hennings, a vigorous campaigner and onetime prosecutor, had reportedly overtaken methodical Senator Forrest Donnell. Republicans agreed that both seats were in danger.

Aside from victories in safe states, conceded by both sides, the pattern of 1950 was beginning to be clearer. Remembering 1948, chastened Washington prophets were hesitant, but they were still trying.

As of last week--and only as of last week--they expected these Democrats to win:

Illinois: Majority Leader Scott Lucas, who has forged ahead of ex-Representative Everett Dirksen since the landing at Inchon.

New York: Senator Herbert Lehman, 72, to defeat Lieut. Governor Joe Hanley, 74 (see above).

Oklahoma: Representative Mike Monroney, despite the high-powered orating and high-pressure campaigning of the Reverend Bill Alexander (see below).

Kentucky: Governor Earle C. Clements, handily out ahead of Charles I. Dawson.

Nevada: Silver-haired Senator Pat McCarran, though George E. Marshall, a hard-talking Las Vegas lawyer, has had him running scared.

Washington: Handsome, Fair Dealing Senator Warren Magnuson over Republican Walter Williams.

Maryland: Senator Millard Tydings over John Marshall Butler, although Tydings has had to campaign harder than ever.

Rhode Island: Governor John O. Pastore, one of the state's best votegetters, an easy victor over Austin T. Levy.

These Republicans were conceded an edge:

Wisconsin: Senator Alexander Wiley, who has campaigned only perfunctorily. But Democrats insisted they had a "sleeper" in State Attorney General Thomas E. Fairchild.

Ohio: Senator Robert A. ("Mr. Republican") Taft, who seemed to be holding his edge over State Auditor Joseph ("Jumping Joe") Ferguson.

Oregon: Senator Wayne Morse, an easy winner over Democrat Howard Latourette.

Iowa: Senator Bourke Hickenlooper, though Democrats nursed hopes for Democrat Al Loveland, former Under Secretary of Agriculture.

Indiana: Senator Homer Capehart. The G.O.P. National Committee thinks Capehart is safe, but Democratic strategists claim that Alex M. Campbell, former U.S. Assistant Attorney General, still had a chance to win.

Elections expected to be too close to guess:

Connecticut: Two seats are at stake. The Democrats' Senator Brien McMahon was conceded a slight edge last week over ex-Congressman Joseph Talbot; the race between Adman William Benton and Wall Streeter Prescott Bush was a tossup.

Utah: Republican Wallace F. Bennett, ex-N.A.M. president, had been campaigning hard against scholarly Senator Elbert Thomas, seemed to have a good chance.

Idaho: Both seats are at stake. Bing Crosby's friend Herman Welker is opposing the Democrats' former Senator D. Worth Clark (who defeated Senator Glen Taylor in the Democratic primary); Republican Senator Henry C. Dworshak is running against Political Science Professor Claude J. Burtenshaw. Last week's dope: anything can happen.

Everywhere, as usual, voters were reported outwardly apathetic, but in many states they turned out in record and near-record numbers to register (last week in New York City, registration hit an off-year high). Was it a protest vote, and thus good for Republicans? Nobody was sure. Last week both parties were busily pouring money and men into 72 Congressional Districts where a shift in only 5% of the vote would swing the district. G.O.P. National Chairman Guy Gabrielson took off for a countrywide swing. The Democrats dispatched their trouble shooters to bolster weak spots. Vice President Alben Barkley swept into California and half the Cabinet members left their official duties to ride the hustings.

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