National Affairs: The Kennedy Count

On the backs of envelopes Jack Kennedy’s campaigners have already scribbled some proud claims of delegate counts for 1960. Their candidate, they say, will go to the Los Angeles convention with 550 to 600 delegate votes (needed to win the nomination: 761). Today about 450 of these, they insist, are firmly committed to Kennedy. Another 100 are committed, but could stray to some other candidate. Another 50 more are “potentialities,” which Kennedy hopes to pick up in state primary elections.

New England (114 votes) is solid for Massachusetts’ Senator Kennedy. One top Kennedy aide adds Oregon (17), New York (114), Maryland (24), Nebraska (16), Iowa (26), Kansas (21), Washington (27), Idaho (13), Arizona (17) Nevada (15), Wyoming (15), Wisconsin (31), West Virginia (25), Louisiana (26) Florida (29) and Alabama (29) as states where Kennedy’s lead is “substantial.” Only the states with favorite sons—Missouri (Symington), Minnesota (Humphrey), Michigan (Williams), New Jersey (Meyner), California (Brown) and Texas (Johnson)—plus South Dakota (where Candidate Humphrey was born) are definitely eliminated in their count.

This week Kennedy’s claims got some impressive backing in a Gallup poll of 1,454 Democratic county leaders (half the national total). Kennedy was chosen by 469 leaders as the man most likely to win the nomination. Stuart Symington was second with 387, and Adlai Stevenson third with 257.

Although the polls and predictions are the most impressive ever to be made for any candidate (other than an incumbent President or Vice President) nine months before convention time, Kennedy is still no shoo-in. The Democratic leaders of the big, key states are still unimpressed, and some, notably Pennsylvania’s Governor Dave Lawrence, are against the Kennedy candidacy; Lawrence, a Roman Catholic, holds that Kennedy’s Catholicism will inevitably lose him votes. Only Chicago’s Mayor Richard Daley, with a hold on most of Illinois’ 69 votes, showed any signs of throwing in with Kennedy. Says one of his ablest anonymous top-kicks with truth: “Most of it has yet to be nailed down.”