The Leadership Issue (Cont'd)

Hatless and coatless, but beaming into the teeth of a nippy wind, New York's Nelson Rockefeller, Republican gubernatorial candidate, along with Kenneth Keating, candidate for the U.S. Senate, met his party's leader at La Guardia Airport. "Hello Nelson." said President Dwight Eisenhower, himself wearing a hat and raincoat as he arrived in New York for Columbus Day ceremonies. "You look tough." In fact, Rockefeller was feeling tough, and he reported optimistically to the President on the G.O.P.'s New York chances during the ride through sparse Sunday-morning crowds to the Waldorf, where the political chat continued.

Nelson Rockefeller's report was about the only good political news Ike heard last week, as word of Republican problems and Democratic across-the-board gains poured in from politicians and pollsters (see chart next page) across the U.S. It was in that chilly climate that the President set himself in earnest to the fall campaign season.

Ike's political week had begun with a White House lunch with top Republicans, including Vice President Richard Nixon, G.O.P. National Chairman Meade Alcorn, and congressional leaders called in from the campaign trail. What, asked Ike, were the main Republican campaign problems --and what could he do to help? The answers came swiftly and positively. Their gist: he could campaign most effectively by dramatizing his Administration's record in terms of the personal leadership that had brought it about (TiME, Oct. 13). The voters, some said, did not understand the meaning of the President's stand on Quemoy. Replied Ike: "We need a chapter on that in every speech." Again, the congressional leaders told the President that his record on stabilizing the economy and heading off inflation had been "outstanding"--but that there was a real danger that many voters did not realize it.

When the session ended, the campaign advisers posed for pictures with Ike on the White House steps, and National Chairman Alcorn handed out a sharp joint statement that set Democratic teeth on edge because it raised the old Republican cry that the Democratic Party is the party of Socialism. "More today than ever before," said the statement, "the Democrat Party-is dominated by certain politico-labor bosses and left-wing extremists ... The left-wing Democrat instinct to regiment and to direct all of America from bureaucratic command posts is insatiable. They need only the opportunity."

Returning to Washington from New York, Ike began readying himself for more political activity. This week he was set to journey to the national cornpicking contest near Cedar Rapids, Iowa, thence to California for more political appearances. This would be a real 1958 campaign opportunity to appeal to the voters in terms of his own and Republican leadership. For embattled G.O.P. candidates, it was none too soon.

*The Washington Post & Times Herald took editorial umbrage at the Republican use of the phrase "Democrat Party," describing it as a "McCarthy hallmark, usually spoken as if in expectoration," and suggesting that Democrats should start talking about "Mr. Eisenhow" and "Mr. Nix" of the "Publican Ministration."

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