Evening star., 1960-07-31
Nixon Taking Nothing for Granted,
Shows He Is Running Scared
BY ]. A. OLEARY
Star STAFF Writer

; CHICAGO, July 80. - Vice
President Nixon has given am
pie evidence here in the last
few days that he intends to run
scared" in this election.
In political jargon that
means taking nothing for
granted. Smart politicians
agree that's the best way to
run in any election.
The classic example Of what
happens when a candidate
fails to follow this axiom was
provided by Thomas E. Dewey.
the Republican nominee in
1913.
In that year nearly all po-
litical pundits figured the New
York Governor was a sure WIN
ner. even before the campaign
tours got under way.
He had a united party be-
hind him, while President Tru-
man stood to lose Southern
votes to a DiXiecrat Party, and
some Northern liberals to the
Progressive ticket.
Republican strategistS urged
Mr.. Dewey not to rock the boat
with a hard campaign. But Mr..
Truman ran scared from
coast to coast and won.
"ClOsest Election in Century"
Here are some of the signs
that Mr.. Nixon is not going to
be caught coasting at any point
in this campaign;
He said on his arrival here
last Monday that this will be
the closest election in this CEN
tury in America" and added:
I'VE are going to put on a cam
paign such as this country has
never seen before
He said later that he expects
to visit each of the so States,
and will start next week with a
quick flight to Hawaii.
He told the Republican Ma
tional Committee that the big
man" in this campaign will not
be himself or his running mate,
Henry Cabot Lodge, but the
precinct worker who rings door
bells.
More Democrats Registered
Mr.. Nixon also said that
ANYONE running on the Re-
publican ticket at the national
level would have a hole in his
head unless he said he was
starting behind, because we
know that from the standpoint
of party registration, there are
more people registered as Dem
ocratS than as Republicans"
But the Vice President went
on to say he believes the Re-
publican ticket will win because
people have developed in recent
years the idea of voting for the
man rather than the party.
If the campaign which Sen
. ator Kennedy of Massachusetts
; staged in the primaries to win
the Democratic nomination is
any criterion, he, too, will be
running hard in all parts of
the country.
With these two vigorous,
young and attractive candi-
dates trailing each other from
State to State, the voters
should be in for the liveliest
campaign they have been in
many a year.
Television Debates Slated
1t also may be as historic
as the Lincoln-DouglaS contest
of more than a century ago,
in view of the announced will
ingness of both Mr.. Nixon and
Senator Kennedy to engage in
a series of television debates.
Both men have agreed that
the debates should be a battle
of wits, without prepared texts
and with question periods as
well as direct statements.
If this formal is followed
the NiXon-Kennedy debates
will be far more engrosSing
than the polite exchange that
took place between Senators
Kennedy and Humphrey when
they appeared together on tele-
vision in the West Virginia
primary.
In this electronic age a series
of debates could have far
greater significance than the
meetings between Abraham
Lincoln and Stephen A. Doug
las.
The debates, which made
Lincoln famous, actually took
place during a senatorial race
in 1858, two years before he
and Senator Douglas ran
against each other for Presi-
dent.
The two gladiators of pre-
Civil War days spoke only to
few hundred, or at most a few
thousand citizens of Illinois,
gathered in town halls or in
groves of trees. They had no
amplif1ers to project their
voices across a field, much less
across the Nation.
But if Mr.. Nixon and Senator