Something for Everybody

On election night the candidates were dead tired, hollow-eyed and worried. As the first returns began to trickle into Milwaukee from Wisconsin's countryside, Candidate Hubert Humphrey began to brighten up. The magic numbers were going all his way. By 9 p.m. Humphrey held a 6,500-vote lead over his rival Jack Kennedy. In his Pfister Hotel suite, Kennedy slumped in a chair watching television; Brother Bob hovered anxiously over a telephone, jotting down the reports of local legmen. Then, slowly, the numbers began to change, and by 11 p.m. Kennedy was out in front. At that point, only one thing was certain: placid Wisconsin had been so churned by the campaign that an unprecedented 1,192,398 citizens had gone to the polls in a primary where voters can freely cross party lines. And that, too, added to the uncertainty.

Two Themes. In the final dervish week it was Humphrey who covered the most territory and made the most political mileage. Traveling in a rented bus, he drove furiously across rolling dairyland and rustic wheat country, punching endlessly at two themes: Agriculture Secretary Ezra Benson's hated farm program, and Jack Kennedy's early support of that program. Local lieutenants of Missouri's Stuart Symington--whose strategy calls for staying out of primaries--publicly threw their support to Humphrey. Mildly anti-Catholic ads were distributed to 350 Wisconsin weeklies (planted by the unofficial Square Deal for Humphrey Committee and promptly disowned by Humphrey). Nearing the end, Humphrey even lost his voice but rigorous throat sprays saved the day. Kennedy continued his cool campaigning, but the mid-campaign cleansweep predictions were revised, bets were hedged, and apprehension crept into the Kennedy camp in proportion to the rising confidence that seized Humphrey.

When the final returns were in, Kennedy won, with a decisive 478,901 votes--56% of the Democratic vote that took six of the state's ten election districts, 20 1/2 of the 31 delegate votes at the national convention. Humphrey was second with 372,034 votes, four election districts, 10 1/2 delegate votes. Nixon, unopposed Republican, came in third in the popular count, with 341,463 votes. The pundits and politicians added up the returns and made them come out just about any way they wished. But there were some unmistakable conclusions to be drawn.

One Exception. With his 106,000 plurality, Kennedy showed some remarkable strengths and some revealing weaknesses. His support from Wisconsin's large Roman Catholic population (32%) almost amounted to a bloc vote--from the German and Polish Catholics in Milwaukee's Fourth District to the thousands of rural Republicans who crossed over to vote for him. (One interesting exception to the rule: in economically hard-pressed Ashland and Iron counties, both over 40% Catholic, Hubert Humphrey won.) Though Humphrey was endorsed by U.A.W.-C.I.O. leaders, Kennedy swept the labor vote, which is heavily Catholic. One pro-Humphrey U.A.W. official groused that it was impossible to get Humphrey literature distributed in plants with Catholic shop stewards. But Kennedy worked hard for the labor vote, shaking hands at factory gates, attending shop meetings, cultivating labor's rank and file; he was doubtless helped too by Teamster Boss Jimmy Hoffa's foray into Wisconsin to carry on his vicious vendetta against the Kennedys. Kennedy ran well enough in the farm districts to prove that he has some farmer appeal but lost by enough to prove that he is vulnerable to Humphrey's pounding at his agriculture voting record. Humphrey was beaten in the state adjoining his own Minnesota, by an urbane Easterner with a Harvard accent. But he was still a very lively candidate. His hard work among the farmers had paid off handsomely: only one farm district, the seventh, fell into the Kennedy column, but it was 64% Catholic Portage County, in the center of the district, that gave Kennedy his 6,000 plurality in the seventh. There are a few signs that Humphrey benefited from crossover support of Protestant Republicans (in Richland County, a Republican farm area, Humphrey polled 2,418 votes, Nixon 2,158, Kennedy 1,558), but mostly he exploited the farmers' strong anti-Benson feeling by trumpeting Kennedy's early farm votes for Benson programs. Supporters of Adlai Stevenson in Madison shifted to Humphrey and helped carry Dane County for him. Humphrey's labor strength was a bust, but he was cheered by results from Milwaukee's three Negro wards, where he won by a 2-to-1 margin. "If you're talking about blocs," crowed Humphrey, "the Negro's a much bigger bloc nationally than labor."

Nixon, whose supporters had hoped for 40% of the total vote and predicted 30%, got 29%. His big riddle: Were the thousands of embattled farmers and enthusiastic Catholics who crossed over to vote for Humphrey or Kennedy just "one-day Democrats" who wanted to put their bets on a real contest, and would they return to the G.O.P. in November? Nixon, recalling 1948,*felt confident.

Actually, unpredictable Wisconsin had done it again. Nothing was big enough--Kennedy's margin of victory, Humphrey's margin of loss, Nixon's share of the total vote, and as far as the two Democrats were concerned, the whole performance had to be repeated in West Virginia. Groaned a Kennedy supporter: "When I think of all those mornings we got up to be at those plant gates--and now they say West Virginia will be the test." Said Hubert Humphrey, to a war council of aides, when the last returns were in: "We'll be out from under this Catholic thing, and we'll be dealing with real Democrats, not these one-day Democrats.! We've got four weeks to saturate that state. We've got to get a lot of literature in, get public relations help, all the things we didn't do here. Symington and Johnson will still be on the sidelines; they're not going anywhere until that primary is resolved. I know we can win there."

*In 1948 thousands of Wisconsin Democrats crossed over to cast their votes in a three-way contest by Harold E. Stassen, General Douglas MacArthur and Thomas E. Dewey in the Republican primary, leaving Harry Truman trailing far behind in fourth place. But in November the Democrats crossed back again and Truman beat Dewey by 50,000 votes to carry Wisconsin.

/- West Virginia forbids crossover voting.

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