POLITICAL NOTES: After You

The Democratic Party, vociferously urged on by organized labor, had been making muscles at Senator Robert A. Taft for years. But as the 1950 elections approached, the Administration’s menacing attitude seemed to subside a little. Ohio’s able Governor Frank Lausche, the Democrats’ hottest vote-getter, decided not to run against Taft; last week Cleveland’s Mayor Tom Burke, the next best bet, politely begged off too.

This led to a rumor that Harry Truman wanted Bob Taft to win and thus remain a leading G.O.P. presidential candidate: the one candidate the President felt certain he could lick, hog-tied and blindfolded, in 1952. On a trip to Ohio, Democratic National Chairman Bill Boyle piously denied the rumor. Last week Harry Truman predicted, in equally pious tones, that the Democrats would carry Ohio. Taft’s probable opponent, one Joseph T. (“Jumping Joe”) Ferguson, an amiable political mediocrity who is state auditor, cried that he would massacre his foe. But the winter book money was on Taft.