POLITICS: Techniques & Tactics

As Robert Alphonso Taft moved through the Southwest last week, his voice hoarse from marathon speechmaking, there was no sign that he intended to revise his campaign technique. Yet observers who carefully sorted and examined the bones of the New Hampshire primary felt that the Taft technique had its flaws.

Everywhere Taft stopped in New Hampshire he drew attentive crowds. But he was abrupt and cold in greeting local leaders, brushed off autograph hunters and handshakers, cut short or sidestepped questioners. He charged that nobody knows what Dwight Eisenhower stands for, inquired slyly whether Ike would dare to attack the Truman Administration. In retrospect, some of Taft's own organization men granted that he offended the New England sense of fairness by insinuating that Ike is a captive of the Administration and could not campaign against it. Many an observer also concluded that his speeches about Ike were a mistake in another way: they aroused the Eisenhower supporters to charge that Taft is "isolationist." The voters of New Hampshire are not isolationist.

3,500 Miles Away. The men close to Taft apparently did not sense the voter resistance. When the tour ended, F. E. ("Ted") Johnston, who had headed the Senator's efficient, professional New Hampshire organization, dropped the carefully cultivated underdog role and made a prediction: Taft would win the preferential primary by 5,000 votes, and six of the 14 delegates.

Instead, Dwight Eisenhower, who was 3,500 miles away, who had neither spoken a word nor grasped a hand in support of his own candidacy, won a complete victory. The final count: Eisenhower 46,661; Taft 35,838. In the delegate contests, it was a clean sweep for Ike: 14-0. Said Taft: "I am somewhat disappointed."

A closer look at these returns reveals other facts that may have a bearing on future campaigning. Ike Eisenhower carried eleven of the twelve cities (over 6,000 pop.), 138 of the 223 towns. The only city Taft won was Manchester, where he had his best organization and the all-out support of the Union Leader, New Hampshire's biggest newspaper (circ. 46,707). The Senator carried only three of the 20 places at which he stopped—Manchester, Derry and Meredith.

At Tilton (pop. 2,062), where-the Republican voters include a high proportion of prosperous, middle-class Yankees, all the influential Republican leaders were for Taft. Before he made his speech there, Tilton was considered a Taft stronghold. There was no Eisenhower organization. The vote: Eisenhower 161, Taft 153. At Berlin (pop. 16,545), a paper-mill town in the far north, Candidate Harold Stassen spoke to 800 and the next night Taft talked to 1,200. The vote: Eisenhower 933, Stassen 814, Taft 333.

From these post-mortem examinations it was plain that Bob Taft failed to win the people who came to see and hear him.

The Next Effort. The mounting totals from New Hampshire were reported to Eisenhower when he landed in Germany from Paris for a one-day round of military conferences. Said he: "I am very naturally touched, and more than that, deeply moved . . . Any American who is honored by so many other Americans' considering him fit for the presidency should be proud, or by golly, he is no American."