KENTUCKY: The Jumbo Prize

The two candidates who prominently shared the spotlight with Dwight Eisenhower when the President flew down to Lexington last week looked more like State Department types than Kentucky politicians. Actually they are both: former U.S. Ambassador to India John Sherman Cooper, dignified and urbane, is running for the four-year unexpired Senate term of the late Alben Barkley; Thruston (pronounced throo-ston) B. Morton, clean-cut and sharp, was John Foster Dulles’ assistant for congressional relations before he decided to oppose Democratic Incumbent Earle Clements for Kentucky’s second seat.

Both Republican candidates had much to gain from Ike’s brief sortie into the border state (which he lost by only 700 votes in 1952); indeed, it was Ike who urged both into the double race. For one strong candidate usually helps another, and if the Republicans could win the jumbo prize of two Kentucky seats, they would have a two-for-the-price-of-one advantage in the desperate battle to regain control of the Senate.

Peeps & Points. Striking northwest from Lexington, John Sherman Cooper, 55, tramped through solid Democratic counties, e.g., Scott, Henry, Carroll and Owen (“I’ve always gotten more applause than votes in these parts”), shaking hands. Men were interested in his grave, quiet manner, women in his good looks and unfailing courtesy. Often he walked into beauty parlors, peeped under hair dryers, introduced himself to the surprised clients thereunder, explaining: “I need your vote.” Popular as he is, Yaleman Cooper is regarded by some of the Kentucky Old Guard as being “too progressive” and distinctly a member of the party’s Eisenhower wing, i.e., he is an internationalist. But Old Guardsmen tend to forgive a man whose popularity so thoroughly crosses party lines.

Cooper’s fellow Republican, however, had a tougher hill to climb. Former U.S. Congressman Thruston Ballard Morton, 49, also a Yaleman, astonished politicos in Kentucky’s normally Democratic Third District (Louisville) by winning three successive terms to the House (1947-52), but he is virtually unknown outside the district. In the backwoods mining settlements of “Bloody Harlan” County, the mountaineers did not take kindly to the “furriner” with the citified manners and precise diction. But Kentucky’s strongly TVA-minded citizens nonetheless liked the way that Morton frankly tackled questions on such local boiling points as Dixon-Yates (“It’s a bad deal”).

Magnolias & Monkeyshines. Running against Morton is former Governor (1947-50) Earle Clements, 59, a shrewd, tough Democrat who has kept his fences well mended during his six years in the Senate. Even so, Clements was leaving nothing to chance. He campaigned 18 hours a day last week, allowed himself only two daily luxuries: a hot bath in the afternoon, a quart of ice cream at night (he shuns bourbon when on campaign duty). Clements’ campaign technique: magnolias and corn (“Now I understand why Kentucky is known far and wide for its lovely, gracious ladies. I hope you will not think me forward for speaking to you. I’m Earle Clements”).

Cooper’s opponent for the Barkley seat is Lawrence Wetherby, also a former Kentucky governor (1950-55). But Wetherby is a lackadaisical campaigner who is also being dogged by his own governor, fellow Democrat and worst enemy, Albert Benjamin (“Happy”) Chandler. Since last June, when he defeated the Clements-Wetherby machine in a bitter fight over control of the state party, Happy has been as determined as ever to wreck Wetherby’s cause. Although Happycrat Chandler now denies that he is ready to sling a monkey wrench at his own party, his monkeyshines prove otherwise; e.g., he has neglected to instruct his 20,000 state employees to 1) contribute the traditional 2% of their salaries to the Democratic campaign fund, 2) help get out the vote. Last week, though he made it a point to greet President Eisenhower on his arrival in Lexington, the jovial Happy pointedly announced that he would have a previous engagement when Adlai Stevenson comes a-calling.

Shenanigans & Sour Mash. Happy’s shenanigans will probably have little effect on the Clements-Morton battle, in which even Republicans concede that Earle can more than take care of himself. But in Wetherby’s case, where help is sorely needed, Happy’s tactics are hurting, and Cooper is leading.

This, as Happy’s acquaintances see it, is just as Happy wants it. With Wetherby downed, Kentucky may have a G.O.P. Senator in the capital, but it will also have Chandler at home, brewing a political case of sour mash to quench his senatorial thirst for Cooper’s seat in 1960.