Do It Yourself

From Maine to California, the Republicans last week kicked off their 1958 congressional campaign in a big display of televised speechmaking, with Dwight Eisenhower as the evening's coaxial keynoter. The President flew into Chicago in a snowstorm, sat down to a $100-a-plate dinner (cold roast beef and string beans) with 5,400 Republicans at the huge International Amphitheater. In a twelve-minute address at meal's end, he promised "prompt and effective modernization of our defense organization," urged improved educational and mutual assistance programs, asked an end to partisan bickering over U.S. security. Said he: "Americans must never and will never let the issue of security and peace become a pawn of anyone's political chess game."

From 40,000 diners around the circuit and from newspapers next day came a ripple of polite applause. But Republican professionals, anxiously listening, came away disappointed that the President himself had not been as partisan as his Staff Chief Sherman Adams, speaking in Minneapolis, or Arizona's Senator Barry Goldwater, who laced the Democrats in Detroit (see below). The hard fact is that the party which controls the White House is going into its 1958 campaign in rare disarray, with no visible political direction from the top. G.O.P. candidates have stopped chanting "We Like Ike." are relying instead on the cry of "Do It Yourself."

Ready to Fight. Nowhere is this new every-man-on-his-own attitude clearer than in Congress, where all House members and 21 Republican Senators are up for re-election and intend to make records they can run on. To Midwestern Congressmen Agriculture Secretary Ezra Taft Benson is anathema, and they will fight his election-year proposal to cut farm subsidies (TIME. Jan. 27); even so loyal an Administration supporter as Vermont's venerable George Aiken has publicly turned on Benson and his works. More worried about such a simple political issue as rising unemployment than anything else, many an Atlantic Seaboard legislator will fight Ike's program for a five-year renewal of the reciprocal trade agreement act. (G.O.P. leaders have told him he will be lucky to get three years.) Such reclamation-conscious Senators as Minnesota's Thye and California's Knowland are balking at Ike's proposal for a moratorium on reclamation projects to help keep the budget in balance.

Splits between Republican factions are not new. What is new is that congressional Republicans are now sure of two things: 1) they can bolt the President without fear of political punishment or reprisal, and 2) there is no political advantage in standing up for him. Congressional leaders declare privately that Ike has neither time nor stamina for heavy campaigning this year. Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Richard M. Simpson complains that he has not seen the President to discuss campaign plans since Ike's stroke. In Chicago last week, the President closeted himself in a stockyards suite before his speech, accepted a short courtesy call from Governor William Stratton, but was unavailable to 50 Illinois candidates who hoped to gain an endorsement or at least a handshake.

Old-Fashioned Thumpers. Disarray and disillusionment are also intense on the G.O.P. local level (notable exceptions: New York and California). The big contributors are refusing to kick in; Boston Republicans, who two years ago collected $1,200,000 at a pledge dinner, this year got only $75,000. Through the Midwest, Old Guard Republican organizations are busy wreaking vengeance on Eisenhower Republicans, and the Ikemen are getting no help from Washington. Many a GOPolitico is convinced that the President is no longer an asset. Said a top-ranking Colorado Republican last week: "The President will always have some popularity, but if I were a candidate, I wouldn't want to tie myself to his coattails." Added a Californian: "Ike hinders us today. His speech was a step in the right direction, but he could help us a great deal more. He's never seemed to care too much about patronage and things like that." Said a ranking Wisconsin Republican: "Let's face it; Ike's a hindrance to the whole show."

For the moment, the regulars didn't give much of a hang about the issues. What they liked was that both Barry Goldwater and Sherman Adams tub-thumped in the manner that old-style Republicans remembered--and like, especially at campaign time. Both had raised more G.O.P. whoops and hollers, had churned up more Democratic outrage than a lethargic, dispirited party had heard in a long time.

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