The Pot Boils

No radio escaped, no television set was free of the hoarse exhortations and stylized imprecations of eager candidates. Professional and earnest amateur, statesman and anxious hoddypoll, they were shoving and jostling for the last, few, fatal votes from the indifferent and the uncertain:

P: In Massachusetts, the Republicans' spry old (69) ex-Lieut. Governor Arthur W. Coolidge reacted to taunts about his age by challenging his Democratic rival Governor Paul A. Dever, to a 100-yd. race. "And furthermore," said Coolidge (a fourth cousin of Calvin Coolidge), "I'll give him a handicap of a foot for each year of difference in our ages." Dever, a World War II naval officer who is 47 but notably on the portly side, did not choose to race.

P: In Iowa, the Democrats were perking up. Their senatorial candidate was Al Loveland, who quit his job as Under Secretary of Agriculture to campaign on the Brannan Plan, and then decided not to mention it at all. Instead, he incessantly reminded farmers of 10-c- corn and 2-c- hogs back in 1932, and tried to tag Republican Bourke Hickenlooper, a Cedar Rapids lawyer, as the candidate of big business and a man uninterested in the farmer's problems. Republicans were worried.

P: In Arizona, voters were apparently getting ready to elect a woman as governor. Democrat Ana Frohmiller was so far ahead of Republican Howard Pyle that Democratic bettors could find no takers, even at odds.

P: In Oregon, Republican maverick Senator Wayne Morse was running against a Democrat who was far to the right of him. Democrat Howard Latourette complained bitterly that the Truman Administration was giving him no help. The Veep conspicuously skipped Oregon in his western barnstorming and, when asked, elaborately failed to remember the Democrat's name. He added: "I like Wayne Morse. He is an attractive man." Morse was considered a shoo-in.

P: In Maryland, veteran Senator Millard Tydings, beset by the McCarthy issue and handicapped by a local intraparty feud, reminded voters that in 1938 Franklin D. Roosevelt had tried to purge him for being too conservative.

P: In Michigan, young (39), bow-tied Governor G. Mennen ("Soapy") Williams, an upset victor in 1948, was running into trouble because of his dutiful following of C.I.O. leads. The Republicans hoped to beat him with ex-Governor Harry F. Kelly, one-legged veteran of World War I, who is one of the best votegetters in the state's history.

P: In Dallas, Restaurant Owner Robert Sprinkle Pool predicted he would be swept into office again as a County Public Weigher on the slogan: "A false weight is an abomination to the Lord, but a just balance is His delight." Nobody disputed him --he had no rivals for the job, and it pays no salary.

P: In Alabama, retired Rear Admiral John G. Crommelin, the man who touched off the Navy's revolt against unification, was running as an independent against Administration-stalwart Senator Lister Hill, and doing his best to blast the Truman Administration clean out of the water. He was conceded the votes of some diehard States' Righters, but no chance to win.

P: In New York, Governor Thomas E. Dewey got closer to the people with a television program. A sidewalk crowd was televised to the studio where Mr. & Mrs. Dewey answered questions and were televised in turn to the sidewalk. Did Husband Dewey have any faults? "He wears his barn clothes into the house," confided Mrs. Dewey, "and he doesn't always pay the strictest attention to what I am saying." Reported the New York Daily News: "The audience didn't see the rosy glow that came over the governor's face. Mrs. Dewey did. She added softly: 'But I'll keep him.' " In the well-organized Dewey tradition, all the sidewalk questions were, of course, prepared. Sample: "Governor Dewey, did you choose the tie you are wearing?" Answer: "Gosh, I don't know." Dewey put on his glasses to examine the label, then moved over to Mrs. Dewey. "Sweetheart, did you buy this tie or did I?" Mrs. Dewey said she bought it. "Thank you, dear," said the governor, kissing her lightly on the forehead.

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