JUDGMENT & PROPHECIES

ON THE CAMPAIGN

ABOUT THE ELECTION

THE ISSUES

JOSEPH C. HARSCH, Washington correspondent for the Christian Science Monitor: The issue least mentioned on the American hustings this autumn is the one uppermost in the thoughts of the practical professional politicians of both parties. On Nov. 2 the voters of the United States, largely without being aware of it, will decide whether the enormous investigating enthusiasm of their federal legislators will be turned against Democrats or against Republicans over the next two years. The object over the past two years has been to manufacture Republican ammunition for this campaign out of the record of the Roosevelt-Truman era. The object during the next two years, if the Democrats win, will be to manufacture Democratic ammunition for 1956 out of the record of the first two Eisenhower years.

Fair-Dealing Columnist DORIS FLEESON : This is a pocketbook election. The emotional issues which swept Gen. Eisenhower into the White House have receded far into the background. The American people may not be proud of the truce in Korea but they have apparently thrust that unpopular war into the back of their minds. They seem to have similarly discounted the setback in Indo-China. Sen. McCarthy is another dead duck. The campaign is lethargic in large part because these emotional, highly personal issues have been superseded by economic questions. And there is no doubt the Democratic trend results from the economic picture.

WILLIAM RANDOLPH HEARST JR., in his "Editor's Report": The consensus would seem to indicate Democratic dark horses as the probable winners in most of the races. There is no doubt that the failure of divergent factors in the [Republican] party to reconcile their differences and form a united front is one of the prime reasons for the present state of affairs. I think the answer can be stated: McCarthy. In 1952 Joe McCarthy was a tremendous Democratic problem. In 1954 Joe McCarthy is a tremendous Republican problem. Whereas the Democrats were unable to steal the anti-Commie ball from the Republicans, the latter seem to have kicked it around until they have lost it.

WHO WILL WIN?

ROSCOE DRUMMOND, New York Herald Tribune Washington bureau chief: Most of the forecasters are in agreement : the Democrats will win the House by twenty to forty seats, take control of the Senate by three to five seats, win several important governorships from the Republicans, including Pennsylvania and possibly New York, and will lose none of the governorships they now hold. The party in power almost always loses [House] seats in the mid-term voting. If [the Republicans] can hold their losses to, say, twenty seats, that would be considered a Republican victory, since the average loss of House seats by the party in power in the off-year elections has been thirty-eight. The Republicans had hoped to hold their thin control of the Senate. Unless the forecasters are nearly all wrong, it does not look as though they would.

RALPH McGiLL, editor of the pro-Stevenson Atlanta Constitution: A diagnostician, putting his ear to the hairy chest of the South, can hear enough murmurs, burblings, wheezes and croakings to come up with a fairly confident political prognosis. The basic question no longer is whether the South, after a great surge for Gen. Eisenhower in 1952, will return "for good" to the Democratic Party in 1956, a sadder but wiser prodigal son. As of now the answer to that question is, "Yes, it will return to what the party leaders refer to as the 'house of our fathers.' But it will not be 'to stay.' "

WILLARD EDWARDS, Washington political correspondent of the Chicago Tribune: A highly placed Republican officeholder said his party apparently would lose both houses of Congress [because of] a party split caused by Republican sponsorship of attacks on Sen. McCarthy. "We have been split wide open on the McCarthy issue," he told a reporter. "At a time when we needed party unity more than ever before, we allowed ourselves to be maneuvered into a position of investigating a Republican senator who has a great national following. We will get our reward on election day when voters resentful of the treatment of McCarthy stay away from the polls in great numbers."

WHAT WILL HAPPEN IF...

PAUL R. LEACH, top Washington correspondent for the Knight papers: One of the perplexities of the campaign is a feeling among some Democrats that winning control of the House and Senate for: the next two years could weaken their 1956 presidential election chances. Whether [Eisenhower] has a Republican or Democratic Congress to contend with next January, his messages are going to propose the same sort of middle-ground program that he has been advocating. He had to have--and got--Democratic support in the present Congress to get across the legislation at which he and his party have been pointing with pride. Should the Democrats organize House and Senate, and regain committee chairmanships, that same sort of unofficial coalition will prevail for a good many of Ike's recommendations. The items of his program that are enacted would be more likely to reflect credit on his administration than upon the members of Congress who further them. And his opposition would have to take blame from him for defeat of his bills which happen to hit popular favor.

JOHN O'DONNELL, pro-McCarthy pundit for the pro-Eisenhower New York Daily News: Come a Democratic victory, and Ike's chief of staff in the White House, former Governor Sherman Adams of New Hampshire, will retire or be given a fat federal appointment. Adams has made more personal Senate enemies, Republicans and Democrats, than any other presidential top assistant in modern history. In the event of a G.O.P. defeat, the strength of McCarthy on Capitol Hill will be tremendously increased at the showdown session of the Senate starting Nov. 8 to debate his censure for unbecoming conduct. The reason, of course, is that the treatment of McCarthy will be blamed for the Administration rebuff at the polls.

THOMAS L. STOKES, Fair-Dealing syndicated columnist: "Is President Eisenhower's popularity holding up?" The answer is "Yes," by and large. Republican candidates for Congress, and even some for state office, are huddling under his mantle and singing his name. Democrats, on the other hand, refrain from direct attacks on the President, with very rare exceptions. As for the attitude of the public at large, the President finds himself in almost an unique position. He occupies a place separate and above the Republican Party, the Congress, and even the government. He is detached. Though Democrats may challenge this, it is ventured that the "Ike" legend might very well win again [in 1956], even if the Republican Party loses control of Congress.

GOULD LINCOLN, longtime political columnist for the Washington Star: The Democratic talk that Democrats in Congress will give the President the backing he needs is a laugh. With the 1956 presidential election coming up, a Democratic-controlled Congress will cut General Eisenhower's political throat--just as a Democratic-controlled House of Representatives, elected in 1930, cut former President Herbert Hoover's.

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