National Trends

Nineteen-sixty is three years from now, and we are still short of the half-way mark between congressional elections. But as any politician will tell you—especially a Democratic one—it is never too early to start work on the “issues” that will make the two parties look different when the next campaign rolls around.

The Democrats’ most conspicuous handicap in 1956, the President’s popularity aside, was the absence of any substantial party commitment that differentiated them from Republicans. Take foreign policy, for example. Stevenson tried to kick up a couple of issues (the H-bomb tests and the draft) once the campaign got under way; but the timing was such that most voters felt sure they had been contrived for the occasion. With regard to the over-all direction of Eisenhower’s policies, there was no disagreement at all—a fact painfully evident during those October days that shook the world when the only suggestion Stevenson had to offer was himself. Remember that ghastly moment a few days before election when Stevenson had taken to the air to answer the President on the Suez crisis? Having spent most of his quarter-hour lambasting Eisenhower unmercifully (and cogently) for betraying the Western alliance, he blurted out the very question GOP monitors had been circling on their scratch-pads: What different policy do the Democrats propose? The succeeding minutes were an eternity of acute national embarrassment. And no man, if he had a heart, could repress a cheer when Adlai finally dug himself out—by promising to answer his question, next day, in Detroit.

LB

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L. Brent Bozell Jr.

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Nineteen-sixty is three years from now, and we are still short of the half-way mark between congressional elections. But as any politician will tell you—especially a Democratic one—it is never too early to start work on the “issues” that will make the two parties look different when the next campaign rolls around.

The Democrats’ most conspicuous handicap in 1956, the President’s popularity aside, was the absence of any substantial party commitment that differentiated them from Republicans. Take foreign policy, for example. Stevenson tried to kick up a couple of issues (the H-bomb tests and the draft) once the campaign got under way; but the timing was such that most voters felt sure they had been contrived for the occasion. With regard to the over-all direction of Eisenhower’s policies, there was no disagreement at all—a fact painfully evident during those October days that shook the world when the only suggestion Stevenson had to offer was himself. Remember that ghastly moment a few days before election when Stevenson had taken to the air to answer the President on the Suez crisis? Having spent most of his quarter-hour lambasting Eisenhower unmercifully (and cogently) for betraying the Western alliance, he blurted out the very question GOP monitors had been circling on their scratch-pads: What different policy do the Democrats propose? The succeeding minutes were an eternity of acute national embarrassment. And no man, if he had a heart, could repress a cheer when Adlai finally dug himself out—by promising to answer his question, next day, in Detroit.