THE VICE PRESIDENCY: High Type v. Tintype

From St. Petersburg, Fla. (where he canceled his booking at the Tides Hotel because it discriminates against Jews) to Philadelphia, Pa. (where he avoided the Warwick Hotel because of a labor dispute), Vice President Nixon moved across the eastern half of the U.S. last week in the home stretch of his 15,000-mile tour. He scolded an ardent Republican lady who asked questions about Adlai Stevenson’s divorce (“I think that any personal life of a candidate should not be a proper political issue”). He sidestepped the political credits and debits of the World Series (“I lean to the Dodgers, but my wife is a Yankee fan”). He pointedly omitted to invite Wisconsin’s Senator Joe McCarthy to the speakers’ stand at Milwaukee’s Marquette University, not even mentioning his name. Along Nixon’s way in Milwaukee a placard proclaimed: LOCK UP

EVERYTHING —TRICKY DICK’S IN TOWN, but the increasing size and attentiveness of the crowds and the unfailing moderation of the candidate made the poster seem like a tintype out of the past.

As Nixon burgeoned as a distinct G.OP. asset, he began more and more to take on Adlai Stevenson in debate (effectively overlooking Opposite Number Estes Kefauver). “You find corruption in either party,” ran the tenor of his argument, “but we clean it up.” And again, “Both the parties want to be good to our people, but we start with the individual and work up; they start with the Government and work down.” In Philadelphia, Nixon termed Stevenson’s stop-the-H-bomb-tests proposal “catastrophic nonsense.” In Syracuse, N.Y., he jabbed at the “special-interests” tone of the Democratic campaign. “Anyone who tries to divide the American people on a class basis is guilty of the most wicked nonsense.”

At week’s end the Vice President returned to Washington, reported to the President on the mood of the U.S. as he had found it (they like Ike), on his own behind-the-scenes prodding of some lax and lagging G.O.P. precinct-level organizations, on his belief that a presidential visit would help some edgy states, e.g., California. The same night Nixon staged a nationwide TV press conference, a bright stunt that ranged eight newsmen against him in eight U.S. cities by remote TV pickups. He distressed professional newsmen because he turned the questions into take-off points for snippets of campaign speeches, but he nonetheless put on the most vigorous and impressive national political performance of his career.

It was fast becoming evident to Republicans (local candidates in increasing numbers were calling for his help) and Democrats alike that Dick Nixon is taking most of the tricks in the political game that had him typed by the Democrats as 1956’s Public Villain No. 1.