POLITICAL NOTES: Who's for Whom, Oct. 17, 1960

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¶ Princeton University's undergraduate Daily Princetonian found students and faculty flunking each other in political science: 72.3% of polled faculty members (119 out of 635) supported Jack Kennedy for President. Of the 1,677 students (out of 2,937 enrollment) who voted, 70.6% went Nixon.

¶ "The Doctors' Committee for Nixon-Lodge" claimed support of 14,000 physicians for the G.O.P. ticket.

¶ With scarcely so much as a nod to doctors-for-Nixon, the influential Christian Science Monitor—which supported Ike in 1952 and neither candidate in 1956 —endorsed Richard Nixon as the man more likely to give the U.S. "positive, progressive and skilled leadership."

¶ To the surprise of no one except rumormongers, Republican Clare Boothe Luce, onetime Connecticut Congresswoman and former U.S. Ambassador to Italy, declared: "Plainly there should be no question of my loyalty to the Republican Party and its distinguished candidates, Mr. Nixon and Mr. Lodge, for whom I have the greatest respect."

¶ The Hearst newspaper chain (13 dailies with a total circulation of 4,400,000) predictably endorsed Richard Nixon, praising his "distinction and courage" in foreign affairs, but had a few passing kind words for "the patriotism, integrity and political sagacity of Senator Kennedy and Senator Johnson."

¶ In an hour-long TV interview, Mississippi's unreconstructed Senator James 0. (for Oliver) Eastland urged Mississippians to vote for the Democratic ticket as well as for his own candidacy for reelection on the ground that solid Southern representation in the Congress would keep integration at bay. Boasted Democrat Eastland: as a result of his strong leadership of the Senate Judiciary Committee, he was able to stall or kill 23 civil rights bills in 1957 and 49 in 1960. "I don't always agree with Lyndon Johnson, but you have to give him credit. He took everything relating to integration out of those civil rights bills [that did pass] ... He has always opposed Congress' implementing the segregation decisions of the Supreme Court."

¶ In the politically pivotal state of Michigan (20 electoral votes), a Detroit News poll of voters gave Kennedy the lead over Nixon by 52.7% to 46.4%. Among Roman Catholics, Democrat Kennedy drew 79.7% of the vote, and Democratic Senatorial Incumbent Pat McNamara got nearly as much, while Democratic Gubernatorial Candidate John Swainson (a Protestant) got 69.6%—in short, a difference of 10% between Democratic candidates of different religions.

¶ Labeling Jack Kennedy a "political chameleon," the militant, outsized (membership: 23,000) Warehousemen's Union issued a call for the support of Richard Nixon, "the lesser evil."