REPUBLICANS: Fighting Bob

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His years of service and loyalty to the party line have won Senator Taft a title: "Mr. Republican." That title, and the record that won it, are two of his great assets in the nomination battle. One pro-Taft member of the Republican National Committee put it this way: "If Taft were elected, I would know everybody in his cabinet. But who in hell would I know if it were Eisenhower?"

The leaders of any political party are bound to. attach a very high value to party loyalty and service. No candidate for the Republican nomination has served his party as faithfully and as well as Bob Taft. This is widely recognized among Republican leaders. To oppose Taft is to undercut one of their own political assets. If an outsider can step in and take the nomination from Bob Taft, what state or county leader is safe from usurpation?

But the "Mr. Republican" label is also a Taft liability. Most of the opposition he now faces in his own party comes from the fear that that titleholder cannot defeat a Democratic candidate for President.

In the U.S. two-party system, centripetal and centrifugal forces are at war. The party leadership clings to those principles that differentiate theirs from the opposing party. The fringes of the party tend to merge with the opposing fringes. Often, the way to win votes is to appeal to this merging-fringe area and to the independents who lie in between.

Taft's friends scorn this practice as

"Me-Tooism," and say that it is responsible for the 1940, 1944 and 1948 Republican defeats. In fact, all parties, in all campaigns, practice a certain amount of "Me-Tooism." The British Tories were victorious by "Me-Tooing" the Laborites far more than any Republican ever "Me-Tooed" the New Deal.

This centrifugal "Me-Tooism" is an indispensable ingredient in politics—but it can destroy the whole party structure unless it is balanced by the gravitational attraction of the hard core.

Taft's enemies sneer that his strength comes largely from the "professional politicians." This may be largely true, but it is also true that in the campaign's early stages, the Taft camp generated more emotional fervor than the Eisenhower campaign. In the eyes of many "hard core" Republicans, Taft is the pre-eminent symbol of their party's opposition to 1) the socialist drift, 2) the appeasement of Communism, and 3) graft in government. While Taft and the professionals rallied around party principle, Ike's amateurs raised the white plume of expediency: our man can beat the Democrats.

As the campaign warmed up, however, certain principles always present on Ike's side became more prominent, and his followers developed fervor of their own. Real rank-&-file revolts against the Old Guard swept through half a dozen states, notably Washington and Texas. Ike gets the benefit of a strong popular drive in favor of an active and responsible U.S. policy in foreign affairs. He also benefits from a widespread disgust with professional politicians. It is unfair, but it is a fact that Taft has been hurt by the anti-politician feeling aroused by the Truman scandals.