Campaign Opener

The candidate knew it. Local politicos knew it. The retinue of reporters knew it. Without formal declaration, Massachusetts Senator John Fitzgerald Kennedy launched his all-out campaign for the 1960 Democratic presidential nomination, as he crossed Wisconsin in a three-Cessna airplane expedition, getting lined up for the critical Wisconsin primary next April.

Wherever Kennedy went last week, he drew enthusiastic crowds. Nearly 1,000 turned out for a Milwaukee dinner; 400 showed up in Sheboygan; one man drove 100 miles to hear Kennedy speak in Madison. The tousle-headed Senator punched hard and earnestly. He pushed his Kennedy-Ervin labor bill ("We will find out in the Senate who is anti-racketeering and who is merely anti-labor--who wants a law this year and who wants a campaign issue for next year"). He proposed a Kennedy refinement of the Brannan farm plan. He hammered the Administration for "no new ideas, no bold action, no blare of bugles." Kennedy impressed crowds and seemingly, most of the state's Democratic leaders--apart from Wisconsin's Governor Gaylord Nelson, who leans toward Stevenson or Humphrey. Said State Chairman Pat Lucey, who trailed at Kennedy's heels through the three-day tour: "He'd win the primary if it were held tomorrow."

But Wisconsin's primary is a year away, and Kennedy strategists are not certain their man will have to be in it. Kennedy-financed Wisconsin polls show Kennedy far ahead of Minnesota's Hubert Humphrey. If Humphrey picks up support before spring, Kennedy will take him on, hoping to knock him out of the running in his own backyard. If Humphrey does not get off the ground Kennedy will force no showdown in Wisconsin.

The man he sees as his most potent rival for the nomination is Missouri's low-flying Stuart Symington (see below), who will probably fight shy of primaries and hope for a convention compromise. To whip a weakening Humphrey, say Kennedy strategists, would only help Symington by removing Humphrey as a potential smoke-filled-room rival.

Kennedy is determined to campaign as the man "going to the country for a decision," thus be able to march on the Los Angeles convention as the people's choice. To do it, he is willing to run in the primaries that would do him the most good: Oregon, South Dakota, Nebraska, Wisconsin, Indiana, Ohio, Illinois, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire. Due soon in Wisconsin to give the first big test to Kennedy findings and theories: Minnesota's Hubert Humphrey.

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