PIVOTAL PRIMARY

WISCONSIN'S famed reform Governor (1901-05), Robert M. La Follette, shocked professional politicians in 1905 by pushing a novel measure through his legislature. All Wisconsin delegates to future national conventions of either party, said Fighting Bob's first-of-a-kind law, must be picked by primary elections, not by state party conventions as was then the U.S.-wide custom.

Great-granddaddy of the presidential-preference laws that survive today in 15 states and the District of Columbia, Wisconsin's primary also became the country's biggest burying ground for the hopes of hopefuls. By favoring New York's Thomas Dewey, G.O.P. primary voters put Michigan's Senator Arthur Vandenberg out of the nomination race in 1940, ended Hoosier Wendell Willkie's bid for a second nomination in 1944; their votes for Minnesota's Harold Stassen stopped the 1948 campaign to nominate General Douglas MacArthur; the vote for California's Earl Warren (locally viewed as Dwight Eisenhower's standin) slowed the 1952 bandwagon of Ohio's Senator Robert Taft.

Principal contenders in the 1960 Wisconsin primary, to be held April 5: Massachusetts' Jack Kennedy and Minnesota's Hubert Humphrey, plus Oregon's Senator Wayne Morse if he files (as he hints he will) by March 4. Principal elements in the contest:

Delegate Selection. In a population of 4,000,000, Wisconsin has about 2,400,000 citizens of voting age. Once sturdily Republican, it is now about half Democratic. In the race for 31 delegate votes, Humphrey and Kennedy both start with half a vote, because the national committeeman (pro-Humphrey) and committeewoman (pro-Kennedy) automatically get half a vote apiece. Each of the ten congressional districts gets two full votes, for a total of 20; the winner of the statewide popular vote gets the ten votes of the delegate-at-large slate.

Political Geography. Almost 30% of the party vote will be cast in Milwaukee County, which is divided into two of the congressional districts, the Fourth and Fifth. As a result, Milwaukee County is the key to winning not only four district-delegate votes but all ten at-large votes. In the polls, Kennedy leads in both districts.

Religious Lines. Kennedy might figure on an automatic advantage with the 1,200,000 fellow Roman Catholics who make up 30% of the total population. Congregationalist Humphrey expects an automatic advantage with the 1,500,000 Protestants, especially the 850,000 members of the Lutheran synods; on the other hand, he hopes to benefit from extensive campaigning by his fellow Minnesota Senator, Eugene McCarthy, a Roman Catholic. The Catholics of various national origins (Polish, Italian, German, Irish) are concentrated in the populous industrial areas, such as Milwaukee and La Crosse.

Labor Vote. Offsetting Kennedy's advantage in the industrial areas is Humphrey's close tie with labor unions, which count a state membership of 400,000 and claim a "labor vote," including wives, of 800,000. Some 80% of 200 union brasshats in Milwaukee put their names on Humphrey campaign literature, and ex-United Auto Worker Official Sam Rizzo is Humphrey's campaign director. "Will it be their bellies or their church?" cracks Rizzo of Catholic unionists. "We think they'll vote their bellies."

Farm Vote. In the Dairy State, farmers account for only 15% of the vote, and many of them are Republicans. But some Republicans will doubtless cross over to vote for Humphrey, a neighborly sort who for years treated himself as Wisconsin's "third Senator," and argued the farmers' case for high price supports louder than their own two Senators. Straw polls show farmers favoring Humphrey 46% to Kennedy's 29%, with 25% undecided.

Humphrey's campaign calls for his Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party workers to storm across the state line, cover "every country crossroads." But Humphrey will concentrate his personal stemwinding in the cities, mainly Milwaukee. Reason: to win the statewide majority and thus the ten dele-gate-votes-at-large, he must cut deep into those expected Kennedy majorities (up to 25,000 in the "southside" Fourth District). None too hopeful on this score, Humphrey forces are trying instead to get the party's rules changed, cut the delegates-at-large vote to five, boost the districts to 2% votes apiece.

Supporting this maneuver is Humphrey's strong majority in the state party organization (six out of ten district chairmen announced for him, as did 35 out of 71 county chairmen), but they stand less than an even chance to outwit State Chairman Pat Lucey, shrewd mainstay of Kennedy's organization.

Strategists in both camps expect Kennedy to win the at-large delegates, win at least four district races. Result: a probable two-to-one Kennedy majority in delegates--unless Wisconsin maintains its habit of upsetting the best laid plans of candidates.

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