Pursuing the Artful Dodger

Officially, Ohio's Republican Senator George Bender begins his campaign for reelection this week, after Dwight Eisenhower's flight to Cleveland to bestow wholehearted presidential blessings. Officially, Ohio's Democratic Governor Frank Lausche begins his campaign against Bender next week, when he will "go out through the back-country roads and the off-beaten tracks, making up my itinerary as I go along."

Actually, the notion that either George Bender or Frank Lausche is just now getting around to campaigning should have Ohioans in stitches. In the last two years

Bender has visited every one of Ohio's 23 congressional districts at least six times, taken off from his campaign to sleep in his Chagrin Falls home only 25 nights. And in his five terms as governor, Frank J. Lausche has never once let up in his campaign to promote the political career of Frank J. Lausche.

Banks, Barbershops, Etc. Burly, thunder-voiced George Bender, 60, is perfectly frank about the length and breadth of his campaign. "I never started," he says, "and I never stop. Since his 1954 election to complete the unexpired term of his idol, Robert A. Taft, Bender has worked hard to live down his reputation as the bell ringing buffoon at the 1952 Republican National Convention. He has built up a record as a solid pro-Eisenhower Senator, and few Republicans have a better right to call upon Ike for help. Most observers agree that although he has cut deeply into a big Lausche lead Bender is still behind. But George Bender himself is booming with confidence. Says he: "Everybody who's ever run against Lausche has played dead for him. But he's picked the wrong slot this time."

To prove his point, Bender was on the road last week as he had been for months before. One day started at 8:30 a.m., took Bender through seven counties, meeting with local Republican leaders, answering questions at high-school assemblies, bouncing into stores, banks, barbershops and courthouses to invite the occupants out to hear him speak on street corners. At every country store with a few cars parked outside, he stopped, entered, shook hands all around, and said: "I'm U.S. Senator Bender. I happen to be touring in your neighborhood and stopped by to say hello." All day long he preached the doctrine of Eisenhower Republicanism--and it was 3 a.m. before he finally got to bed.

Great, Beautiful, Etc. Frank Lausche, also 60, has developed a unique campaign style that centers on Ohio's 40-odd county fairs; he has managed to make 30 of them so far this year. He avoids all connection with his state's Democratic organization, offers no help whatever to his running mates on the Democratic ticket, ducks all discussion of campaign issues. He pays his own way into the county fairs, wearing a five-year-old suit and a haircut that looks almost as old. At the Hardin County Fair last week he declined to sit on the officials' platform, turned down a chance to award a trophy, shook his head modestly when asked if he would like to make a few re marks at the livestock show. What he did was wander around, clasping hands, tousling little boys' hair, and telling everyone how glad he was to be at "your wonderful, just wonderful, great, beautiful and fine county fair." And that is the style that has made Lausche the greatest Democratic vote-getter in Ohio history.

Hardly anyone likes Lausche--except the voters. Labor scorns him (the C.I.O. is not endorsing either candidate in this year's Senate race, and the A.F.L. has resoundingly backed Bender). Although they have little choice but to vote for Lausche, regular Democrats dislike him for his open and heretofore successful wooing of Republican voters; e.g., last June he implied that he would, if elected, vote for Republican control of the Senate. (Later, when things got hot, he claimed his words had been distorted.)

Most of all, George Bender is finding Lausche an artful dodger. When, as Bender thinks, Lausche should be discussing issues, the governor instead is appearing on television to extoll the virtues of an Ohio hero, Johnny Appleseed. Cries Bender, "How can he expect Ohio to accept him on palaver alone?" Replies Lausche, serenely, "The people of Ohio know me, know my principles and what I stand for." If they follow form, a majority of the voters may indeed decide that they do understand where Lausche stands--even if that understanding requires them to be psychic. Bender's hope lies in tromping hard on the toes, with Ike's help, of that Lausche foot that edges into Republican territory in search of solid bipartisan support. Forced to stand or fall as a Democrat, Senatorial Candidate Lausche may not be the easy bipartisan winner he has been as governor.

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