Vote Getter's Victory

Jack Kennedy had figured the West Virginia odds at 60-40--against himself. His odds were right; he had just predicted the wrong winner. When the final returns were in, he had swept West Virginia by 220,000 votes to Hubert Humphrey's 142,000.

It was a triumph that confounded the experts. Kennedy had carried all but seven of West Virginia's 55 counties. Despite the pressure of venerable United Mine Worker John L. Lewis for Humphrey, the miners in the depressed coal fields turned out for Kennedy. Despite the warnings of their militantly Protestant pastors, the hillbillies south of the Kanawha River voted for a Catholic; Kennedy, in fact, brought his campaign to a climax with a statewide Sunday evening television assurance that if any President of the U.S. took "dictation" from anyone, the Pope included, it would be contrary to his oath of office and "he would be subject to impeachment and should be." Negroes gave him their emphatic endorsement. Women found him irresistible. And for all the rancor and bitterness it generated, the West Virginia primary cleared the political air. It swept the religious issue aside, at least until after the Democratic Convention, and it removed any doubt about Kennedy's ability as a vote getter.

Razzle-Dazzle. Reporters, pollsters and politicos who had predicted a narrow Humphrey victory (although most had hedged their bets in the last days by noting a Kennedy campaign surge) cast about for explanations. There were several in sight. The smooth, battle-proven Kennedy organization had never worked more efficiently. Most West Virginians thought that the Kennedy moneybags had been used not to buy the election ("We're running for President, not for sheriff," snorted a Kennedy aide) but to finance a razzle-dazzle, all-out fight. In the last 72 hours Kennedy poured out $40,000 for radio and television time. Then there were such shrewdly employed pitchmen as Franklin Roosevelt Jr., who exploited New Deal nostalgia to good effect.

Negative factors worked for Jack Kennedy, too. Humphrey drew good crowds and held them like an evangelist, but he just could not get across the idea that he was a serious presidential candidate. His silent partnership with Candidates Stuart Symington and Lyndon Johnson did him no good, and the pro-Humphrey campaign of West Virginia's Senator Robert Byrd, an avowed Johnson man, boomeranged savagely. Kennedy even carried Byrd's home town, Sophia, 237-135. As a former Ku Klux Klansman, Byrd probably accounted for a large part of Kennedy's big Negro vote.

On the Line. The biggest factor was Jack Kennedy himself. His easy manner, serious speeches and kinetic charm, his decision to fight out the religion issue, and even his Harvard accent--all won respect and votes.

Two days afterward, in New York for a big, $100-a-plate Democratic dinner, Kennedy was greeted with a sea of FKBW ("For Kennedy Before Wisconsin") buttons, and the glum assurances of Tammany Boss Carmine De Sapio that he already had the support of "more than a majority" of New York's 114-vote delegation. New Jersey (41 votes) was 80% committed. In Maryland, Kennedy interrupted a whirlwind primary campaign to make a mysterious long-distance phone call from a roadside booth to Michigan's Governor G. Mennen ("Soapy") Williams. With Walter Reuther prodding him to commit Michigan's 51-vote delegation to Kennedy, Soapy issued a statement that he had "no present intention to make a personal endorsement."

Across the nation, in every state except his rivals' home grounds, Kennedy's bandwagon was making tracks, and the tune it played had changed from the campaign theme, High Hopes, to Everything's Coming Up Roses.

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