Waiting Game

As the Democratic presidential hopefuls stepped up their courtship of the U.S. voters last week, their most serious rival was the man who wasn't there. Muttered Candidate Hubert Humphrey: "It's frustrating as hell to keep hearing, 'We're with you, Hubert, as long as Adlai isn't in.' Always provisional, always conditional." Said California's Pat Brown to a friend: "It's the most remarkable thing I've ever seen in politics. A man is beaten twice, says repeatedly he doesn't want to run, and he still has enough hold on the people to make them wait."

Even Front Runner Jack Kennedy has been known to sigh in private that he might wind up on the short end of a Stevenson-Kennedy ticket. In the fall of 1959 Adlai Stevenson, twice victorious nominee, twice defeated presidential candidate, has as great a potential for the Democratic nomination as he had in 1952 or 1956.

Stevenson has announced on a dozen different occasions that he does not choose to run in 1960. "I will not seek the Democratic nomination this year," he said emphatically on a New York TV show last week. But he carefully leaves a door ajar, and he has told friends that if the Democratic convention should draft him for the nomination he would not refuse. No one who talks to Stevenson doubts that he will stay clear of the fight; his old bruises from the rough and tumble 1956 state primaries still pain him. But granted the purest of motives, he has chosen the wisest possible course for a two-time loser who might make a third try.

Ardent Amateurs. If Stevenson is content to wait, legions of his admirers are willing to put their votes--and their campaign money--into cold storage, and wait too. "His followers woo him," says a top Utah politician. "He doesn't woo his followers. You can't say that about any of the others." This complicates the task of the active candidates both in primaries and in backroom maneuvering, and increases the possibility of a stalemated convention. Stevenson could easily end the strain by endorsing another candidate, but he has not, and in that state of affairs his followers see hope and unspoken promise.

As time grows short, Adlai Stevenson may lose some nervous adherents. (Says San Antonio Lawyer Maury Maverick Jr.: "I think he'd be a terrific candidate, but if I had to decide between a going-Jesse of a Lyndon Johnson and a reluctant Adlai, I'd be for Lyndon.") But most of Stevenson's rank-and-file support is likely to stick with him right down to convention time. And many a veteran delegate pledged to another candidate will feel that urge to merge with Stevenson again at the convention if the going gets close.

Powerful Bosses. Since Stevenson has decided to stay out of the primaries, his 1960 fortunes depend not on the ardent admirers or the intellectual amateurs, but on a group of tough, unemotional professionals who play to win: the Democratic bosses and favorite sons of big states, with big blocks of delegate votes. Among them they have the potential to force any active candidate into a stalemate. So far they are uncommitted, disorganized and far from wild about Stevenson. Yet with few exceptions they feel that a Stevenson-Kennedy "dream ticket"*would be the strongest the party could put up. Says Pennsylvania's Governor David Lawrence (81 delegates): "Adlai Stevenson is the best qualified man to be President of the United States. But there are politicians who feel that the fact that he was defeated twice is fatally against him." But a TIME correspondent who talked to many of them last week found that they privately share the opinion of Ohio Governor Mike Di Salle (64 delegates) who shrugs off Stevenson's losses with a question: "Who could have licked Ike?"

Chicago Mayor Richard Daley (69 Illinois delegates) leans toward Jack Kennedy, but believes Stevenson could win. California's Brown (81 votes), and New Jersey's Governor Robert Meyner (41 delegates) are chilly to Kennedy, but warm to Adlai. The Democratic leader with the biggest block of delegate votes (114), Carmine De Sapio, is indifferent to Stevenson, will probably support Missouri's Stuart Symington. But De Sapio is seriously challenged by the insurgent group headed by Eleanor Roosevelt and Harry Truman's onetime Air Force Secretary Thomas K. Finletter (both admirers of Stevenson), and he will probably be unable to control New York's delegates.

As the primary season gets under way next year, Stevenson will be far away on a two-month tour of South America. But to keep the vigil light flickering, a group of his wealthy friends met in New York last week to organize a Draft Stevenson committee. Similar movements are burgeoning in Wisconsin, Texas and Oregon. If by next summer something goes wrong with President Eisenhower's summit approach to Moscow, foreign issues will dominate national politics, and Stevenson, the internationalist, will look even stronger. Whatever happens, the other candidates know that the candidate who isn't there will be there right down to the convention finish line.

-*The Republicans too have a dream team: Nixon and Rockefeller.

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