National Affairs: Kentucky–No Straws

With 1948 firmly in mind, leaders of both major parties cocked a hopeful eye toward last week’s elections. The Democrats, still smarting from their 1946 walloping, were quick to see the beginning of a Democratic boom in the election of Earle C. Clements as governor of Kentucky. The Republicans counter-shouted that throughout the nation they had held the line and consolidated last year’s gains. The plain facts of local politics deflated the rodomontades of both sides.

The decisive vote for Clements, a liberal Southern Democrat, was tempered by current Kentucky political history. Traditionally Democratic Kentucky has elected only two Republican governors since 1923; the G.O.P. had won in. 1943 against a Democratic opposition weakened by internal strife.

Had the Republicans won again this year in Kentucky, it would have been a horse of another political color. For the Democrats, the victory, while comforting, was nothing to get cocky about.

Elsewhere election results added up to no trends. Of three congressional seats, the G.O.P. filled vacancies in Ohio and Indiana which had been previously held by Republicans, and in New York the Democrats kept control of the 14th District. Thousands of state legislature and city elections seesawed to a near standoff, with a slight edge for the Democrats, who registered gains in Indiana, Pennsylvania and New York.

Two conclusions could fairly be drawn from last week’s vote: 1) the race for 1948 is wide open, and neither Republicans nor Democrats are in a position to coast; 2) politicians who trumpet about national trends are only talking politics.