National Affairs: 1960’s First Candidate

North Carolina’s Senator W. Kerr (pronounced car) Scott, 60, is a Democrat of the hardfisted, harsh-tongued, Harry Truman school (in 1951, then-Governor Scott announced that his three top choices for President were “Harry S. Truman, Harry Truman and Truman”). As such, he never much cottoned to the low-key, upper-level sort of Democratic leadership typified by Adlai Stevenson. And when Republican Dwight Eisenhower this year came within 15,487 votes of carrying Democratic North Carolina, Kerr Scott thought he knew why.

The “sorry showing” the Democrats made in the 1956 election was made by “sorry politicians,” said Kerr Scott last week. As for himself, he would rather be safe than sorry, thereupon proclaimed the immediate opening of a four-year campaign for re-election in 1960.