The Candidate

Even before journeying to Africa, Adlai Ewing Stevenson made up his mind: he would stalk the G.O.P. elephant again next year. Last week Stevenson friends in Chicago and top Democrats in Washington were passing the word that Adlai has decided to try for his party's 1956 presidential nomination.

The reports indicated that Candidate Stevenson has steeled himself to face any G.O.P. standardbearer, even if his name should be Eisenhower. An early hint of Stevenson's resolute state of mind came last month when he repudiated the proposal of his ex-national chairman, Stephen Mitchell, to saddle the South with an oath of party loyalty at the 1956 national convention. The point was not lost on Southern leaders. To them, Stevenson seems less immoderately liberal than the visible alternatives: New York's Harriman, Michigan's Williams, Tennessee's Kefauver.

Adlai, say his political intimates, will tend to his fence-mending and make a few speeches, but he will not formally announce his availability until around the first of next year. Waiting until then would not be diffidence in the pre-convention 1952 manner. It is simply sensible timing: the early political bird often loses the worm.

Once an announced candidate, Adlai must then decide whether to beat through the thickets of state primary elections. If the competition is mild, there may be no need to expend strength on small state primaries. Even such a threat as might come from a bushwhacking Estes Kefauver, if briefly menacing, might be safely bypassed until convention time. Currently, Candidate Stevenson figures to give most of the primaries a wide berth.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.