Talkathon in Wisconsin

Five weeks ago, just as his campaign for renomination as U.S. Senator in the Sept. 9 Wisconsin primary was beginning, Joe McCarthy entered Bethesda Naval Hospital for an abdominal operation (hernia of the diaphragm). Announcing that he would be laid up for two months, McCarthy retired to the north woods to sit out the campaign. But last week Joe was campaigning for his political life. He received reporters in Milwaukee's Hotel Schroeder, where he walked around in his shorts, showing the 2-ft.-long scar of his operation. Pouring warm Martinis from a bottle on his dresser, Joe announced: "It's going to be an awful rough fight."

Joe was worried about the attention that his Republican opponent, 50-year-old Leonard Schmitt, was winning with his talkathon campaign. Seated on a raised platform in Milwaukee's municipal auditorium last week, Schmitt rattled out answers over radio & TV to questions which were fired at him from the audience and from a battery of twelve telephones in the hall. The questions--5,000 of them --continued for 26 hours straight. Many Wisconsin voters do not consider Schmitt's talkathon a mere publicity stunt. He goes at it in a quiet, thoughtful way, gives McCarthy credit where credit is due (although McCarthy, of course, complained that Schmitt was trying to "smear" him). "I've heard more common sense tonight than I have for a long time," said one housewife who sat up until 2 a.m. to listen to Schmitt.

McCarthy has the full support of Tom Coleman's Wisconsin Republican machine, and he has plenty of money to spend on newspaper ads and postcard campaigns to the voters. Schmitt may benefit from Wisconsin's primary laws, which permit residents to vote in either party's primary. Although Democrats have a senatorial primary race of their own, between Lawyer Henry Reuss and former State Attorney General Thomas Fairchild, Schmitt's talkathon has attracted so much attention that many Democrats may move into the Republican primary, just for the chance of voting against Senator Joe.

At week's end, betting odds in favor of McCarthy had dropped from 3-to-1 to less than 2-to-1. Schmitt planned two more talkathons before primary day. Joe decided he was strong enough (his diaphragm hurts when he raises his voice) to campaign a little harder; he scheduled a major speech in Milwaukee.

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