Evening star., 1952-10-27
BY q Staff Correspondent Of The Sta


was sitting in a parked bus, en-
gagged in the customary pastime
of waiting for the candidate. A
, young man in the crowd on the
sidewalk walked over and hailed
, the correspondent through the
! open window.
Say" the young man said
Who's going to win the election?'
Search me-" answered the cor
respondent.
; "Come on" said the young man
Don't be that way. Is he going
to carry New York?"
Gould be-" replied the reporter
;, The young man. injured and un-
happy, said something rude and
Wandered off.
There is only one thing i'm
jportant about the incident. 1t
was probably as honest an ex-
lchange of ideas as has come out
Iof this campaign to date. And
it summed up quite completely
the real Journalistic dilemma of
the election.
Experts Are Stumped.
The election is one week from
tomorrow. The active campaign
has been going on for two months.
1t is understandable that at this
point most people should be in
terested in just one more bit of
information-who is going to win.
1t is also understandable that they
should expect to get a straight
answer from the boys whose as
signment has been to live with it
all and whose business it is to
come up with the answers.
1t is not surprising that the man
on the street expects the political
reporter to know who is going to
win the election. In some cases
newspaper editors have been
known to expect the same kind of
inside information. Polling of
travelling correspondents by the
news magazines seems to have be-
come almost a regular weekly
feature.
Since September this reporter
has travelled in the wake of Gen.
Eisenhower and Gov. Stevenson.
He has yet to meet any corre-
spondent who has any real idea
which candidate is going to win
the election. He does not expect
to find any between now and next
November 4.
i After that there will be plenty
of experts who will be able to
say with authority why it was
that Gen. Eisenhower or Gov.
Stevenson has been elected. BY
next Wednesday each piece of the
puzzle will magically have fallen
into place and everything that
has happened in the last two
months will be material for con-
Ifident analysis. It is not in any
attempt to detract from that
IpoSt-mortem exporting to say
that the experts, right now, are
Istumped and stumped badly.
There have been some predic-
ItionS, to be sure. Any one who
makes a guess has at least a So
SO chance of being right. But the
degree of personal conviction in
volved may be reflected in the
fact that, among this tradition
ally sporting group of gentlemen
very few of them are betting on
how the vote will go.
Landslide-For Whom?
/ The curious thing about it is
that there is not even any convic-
ton that the result of the elec-
ton is going to be close. Many
correspondents feel that the gen.
eral increase in registrations
means landslide vote. The only
thing they don't know is which
way it is going to slide.
/ The trouble certainly is not a
lack of evidence. There is an
abundance of evidence in the
crowds that turn out to greet the
candidates, the issues that decide
votes one way or the other, the
voting records of cities and coun-
ties and States. The trouble is
that the experts have developed
a profound distrust of their own
iyardSticks.
Crowds drawn by the candidates
lin their cross-country appear
ances are written off as unreliable
indexes of political preference. It
has been understood from the be-
ginning that when celebrity runs
against non-celebrity, he will get
the biggest billing and draw the
bigger audiences. There is no
consensus as to what extent the
box Office appeal and the polling
booth appeal may coincide.
Issues Are Doubtful.
! The issues of the campaign de-
pend on what part of the country
you happen to be in, and no one
lis really sure how important any
of them are. The issues that
seem to be Nation wide are the
Korean war on one side and pros
perity on the other. And when
these issues clash at the polls, NO
. one is sure what will happen.
. Reading the voting records
leads to conservatism in political
forecasts. 1t is hard to predict
. that a State will depart radically
5 from its voting tradition, even il
I other evidence indicates that il
/ will. But dopesters this year have
the uncomfortable feel that the
: traditional lines are being broker
!, that there is realignment o1
, political thinking which cuts loose
the most solid tradition and thai
reliance on past performance al
this point borders on supersti-
ton.
!, 1t is the unhappy fact that, the
more important politician may
be, the less reliable he is as 6
source of information. Few are
less reliable, for instance, thar
campaign managers or nationa
committee chairmen.
t 1t is not just a question o.
c 01oil,dioa Tho cinnolo trl1th i