POLITICS: The Minnesota Explosion

Monday, Mar. 31, 1952

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When clerks began to tabulate the vote, they discovered what the voters had written: Dwight D. Eisenhower, Eisonhauer, Eausonhower, Isenhower, Eneshower, Izenour, Ikenhoner, Ike. As the returns came in, politicians across the U.S. listened in amazement. This week the unofficial count gave Ike 106,946 write-in votes to 128,605 for Favorite Son Stassen, whose name was printed on the ballot* and listed on the voting machines. While Stassen got more votes than any other candidate, the total write-in vote was greater than his. This blow in his home state, after he ran a poor third in New Hampshire, made it clear that Harold Stassen is doggedly running nowhere.

"Humble Thank You." The New York Times's Arthur Krock, a man not given to careless superlatives, called the Minnesota vote "qualitatively the most spontaneous outburst in history of political preference in this country."† Mrs. Alma Thompson, who led 79 other elderly women from a Minneapolis home for the aged to the polls to write in for Ike, explained what happened: "We were just waiting for the chance to vote for General Eisenhower, because he's a born leader, and leadership is what the country needs."

In France, General Eisenhower was "astonished." Said he: "I count it an additional compliment that some refused to be dismayed by the long Eisenhower name and simply wrote in Ike." Then he sent a cable to Friend Mintener: "To you, personally, and to the more than 100,000 Minnesotans who paid me the great compliment of writing my name on the ballot, I send a very humble 'thank you.' "

Many politicians and pundits thought this would be a signal for the Ikemen in Washington to set up write-in campaigns against Stassen in Nebraska April 1 (where a Taft write-in movement is under way), against Taft and Stassen in Illinois April 8, and in West Virginia on May 13. But Eisenhower headquarters seemed way behind their candidate's popular strength. This week Eisenhower supporters in Nebraska started a write-in campaign, but complained that they had not received authorization or money from national headquarters.

^{* There were other considerable write-in votes, but all were
dwarfed by Ike's total. Bob Taft had 24,019. On the Democratic side,
Favorite Son Hubert Humphrey, a Truman stand-in whose name was printed
on the ballot, polled 99,199 votes, while Estes Kefauver's name was
written in 19,868 times and Harry Truman's 3,644.
† In 1932, Acting Mayor Joseph V. McKee of New York polled 232,501
write-in votes after a vigorous press campaign against Tammany Hall.
But Tammanyite John P. O'Brien was elected with 1,056,115 votes. In
1944, Tom Dewey received 146,706 write-ins in the Pennsylvania
presidential primary, after a long, well-organized campaign in a
primary with no names printed on the ballot.}