Take Back Your Government!

CHAPTER VII

How to Win an Election

The By-Election at Eatanswill

"There are twenty washed men at the street for you to shake hands with and six children in arms that you are to pat on the head and inquire the ages of. Be particular about the children, my dear sir; it always has a great effect, that sort of thing."

"I'll take care," said the Honorable Samuel Slumkey.

"And perhaps, my dear sir," said the cautious little man, "perhaps if you could-I don't mean to say it's indispensable - but if you could manage to kiss one of them, it would producea great impression on the crowd."

"Wouldn't it have as good an effect if the proposer or seconder did that?" said the Honorable Samuel Slumkey.

"Why, I am afraid it wouldn't," replied the agent. "If it were done by yourself, my dear sir, I think it would make you very popular."

"Very well," said the Honorable Samuel Slumkey with a resigned air, "then it must be done - that's all."

"Arrange the Procession!" cried the twenty committeemen.

- From The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club,

Charles Dickens, 1837

"The place to learn to wash dishes is at the sink." The stuff in this book is pre-digested; to cut your teeth you must get out there in the field and try.

You are likely to lose your first election - let's discuss that first. With the aid of a few simple rules you can be absolutely certain of losing.

How to Lose an Election: The first thing to do to lose an election is to put out of your mind the basic rule of politics that elections are won with individual votes, each held by a separate human being who must first be convinced, then persuaded to go to the polls on election day to record his conviction so that it may be counted.

If you will neglect that rule you can lose extemporaneously. However, there are some other positive steps you may take to insure a good, rousing, landslide defeat.

Put the major portion of your time, energy and money into the indirect, superficial aspects of campaigning, and slight the direct, vote-by-vote methods, such as doorbell pushing. Accept all the speaking engagements you can manage to get, even if they take you miles out of your district and are before groups who will not permit an outright campaign speech. It gets your name in the paper, doesn't it? A candidate has to have publicity, doesn't he?

Get for your publicity man some kid who had a high school course in journalism, no experience, but plenty of enthusiasm. Then stifle his one asset - enthusiasm -by back-seat driving on everything he tries to do.

Get a lot of expensive advertising literature, printed on expensive stock. Put your picture on it, using different cuts for each sort, and fill up the space with plenty of words in small type. Limit your precinct activity to having this junk distributed loose on the doorsteps. You have too few volunteers to ring all the doorbells; this gets you name all over the district, doesn't it?

Tie up a big chunk of your available funds in radio time. Hire fifteen minutes or half an hour and make a political speech, once or twice a week, or whatever you

can pay for. (Radio stations like cash on the table.) Take the radio time at the non-political rate; it does not permit you to mention the election but you get twice as much time for the same price. They will let you discuss issues as long as you don't campaign directly - and after all, your object is to educate the voters, isn't it? If they know what good things you stand for they will remember you on election day, won't they?

Plan some Big Events for the latter part of the campaign, a mass meeting, a dance, or a picnic. Have your volunteer workers concentrate on making this jamboree a success by selling tickets, and arranging a fine program. Make it the climax of your campaign.

Run for some good-sized office as your first try, such as congressman, or superior court judge. After all you are too big a man for those two-bit jobs like selectman or legislator.

Make some member of your family your campaign manager. This insures loyalty, on the part of the manager, at least.

Try to win the support of every possible sort of group by hedging your statements and carrying water on both shoulders. Chamber-of-Commerce meetings and funny-money rallies don't draw the same audience, do they? You can do a lot - a lot of something at least - by a wink and a nod. You are for the welfare of all the Peepul, and that is what matters-as for your methods, well, you have to fight fire with fire - it's a dirty business, isn't it?

(You're blinking well right it's a dirty business if you play iuforf way!)

Let each hopeful aspirant for patronage think that he has the inside track for your favor, but don't promise anything you can't weasel out of. (It doesn't really matter; you aren't going to be elected in any case.)

Don't sample your district to see how you are doing. Instead, surround yourself by your loyal supporters and listen to them. Kick out the pessimists; they are just trying to discourage your workers.

By running a campaign in the fashion described above you can enjoy every minute of it and have a wonderful time, right up to the announcement of the results. Even then, after your defeat, there are ways to turn a licking into outright political suicide.

You can skip the election party - the party after the polls are closed in which the workers either celebrate or console each other. This saves you the cost of the refreshments but doesn't cost you any votes, since the party would not take place until after the election is over, if you held it. It saves you embarrassment, too, since some of them are sure to get drunk.

Make yourself inaccessible the next day, too, and for several days diereafter; otherwise your supporters will swarm over you and cry on your shoulder. Don't they realize that you are nervously exhausted and have just been subjected to a shocking disappointment?

Of course you will have to thank them for their efforts. Just limit it to a mimeographed form letter. After all, it's impossible to write everybody a personal note; they ought to realize that.

Then bolt the party. This was a primary you just lost, naturally, since your methods would never take you to the finals. Neglect to support the member of your party who defeated you. You are morally justified; he had some of the worst elements in town around him- utterly shameless politicians. Not only did they tear down your signs, but they practically bought votes. And they dug up some things in your past and put them in die worst possible light-libel, really. You can never forgive him for that and no reasonable person would expect you to.

So take a walk. Do it literally - you can always be called out of town. If anybody ever needed a vacation, you need one now; it is a natural thing to do. So take a walk; hole up with kin folks, back in the sticks, until the finals are over.

The above routine entitles you to pose the rest of your life as a man who is disillusioned through bitter experience. You can hold forth on how democracy is a nice idea but won't work in practice, and how this country will some day have to feel the firm hand of authority - either the Best People will have to assert themselves and rule with no nonsense, or some rabble-rousing demagogue will ruin the Republic. You know - you've been through the mill!

(I'm sure you have all met this guy at some time or other.)

The above horrible example may seem too perfect to be true, but every wrong move depicted above occurs in every campaign, committed by some of the candidates, every year throughout the country. Many campaigns show the majority of the above errors. I recall one copy-book example which had all of the above mistakes - except that, wonderful to see, the candidate did not become disillusioned. He was bright enough to learn. After bolting the party he eventually came back, admitted his error, took off his coat, got to work, and rehabilitated himself.

How to Win a Campaign: Let us say it again: The key to success in politics is to remember at all times that votes are what you are after and that the votes are in the precincts.

They aren't downtown in the politico-financial district. They aren't at club meetings, not many of them. Of course you pick up odd votes wherever you find them, but the club meetings are primarily to arouse and hold together your volunteers; individually there aren't enough votes in political organizations to carry an election. Rallies are for morale building primarily and secondarily for publicity, but the persons who attend them have already made up their minds how to vote and can be counted on to vote, whether the rally is held or not.

The vote you need to win lies on the other side of a dosed door in a private home; you have to punch that doorbell to get it. There is no substitute.

Having lined it up, you have to be sure it reaches the polling place-and that calls for more individual action.

It isn't hard to get adherents to your cause. The vote you are looking for is either already on your side and needs simply to be located, or it is one which can be switched to your side (from a condition of "no opinion") just by stating your case and asking for support. The "hard cases" should be left alone; it's like butting your head into a stone wall.

Your real problem, then, is not selling your bill of goods, but finding your customers and getting them to die polls.

And that, compatriot, is some problem!

You are hardly ever licked by the opposition; you are licked by your own friends who did not vote. I once lost an election by less than 400 votes; in the post-mortem I was able to tabulate names of more people than that who were personal acquaintances of mine, had promised me support - but did not vote. The shortcoming was plainly one of the election day organization. Forty election-day volunteers could have swung the district.

Unfortunately the district had been conceded as hopeless by everyone but myself and a handful of stalwarts, and we could not manage to be enough places at once on election day.

Earlier in this book I have described how Charles Evans Hughes lost the presidency when a shift of less than one ten-rfiousandth of the vote could have elected him - if the effort had been applied in the key state. The 1944 election is much more typical - with respect to statistics, not issues.

Mr. Dewey received only 99 electoral votes out of a possible 432. Looks like a landslide-but let's analyze it

In 1944 there were 87,000,000 American citizens over twenty-one; only 48,000,000 of them voted. That leaves 39,000,000 "sleepers" - persons who did not register, or just failed to vote. If the preferences for president ran in the same ratios among the "sleepers" as among those who voted, then Mr. Dewey lost 18,000,000 potential votes - but Mr. Roosevelt beat Mr. Dewey by considerably less than 4,000,000 in the popular vote.

It looks as if the persons who were against the Fourth Term weren't against it enough to bother to turn out to vote!

If the Republicans had carried California, Illinois, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania, Mr. Dewey would have been elected. These are key states, swing states. None of them can be counted as normally Democratic; in the last ten presidential elections the Democratic Party has lost each of these states either half, or more than half, the time. Furthermore, all six of them either had Republican governors in 1944 or elected a Republican governor in the 1944 election.

Mr. Roosevelt's majority in these six states, taken all together, was a gnat's whisker more than a million. But 7,200,000 of the Republican "sleepers" were in these six states! If the Republican organization had concentrated its efforts in these six states - everybody knew that they were uncertain states; ready to fall either way - Mr. Dewey would have won provided one in seven of the Republican "sleepers" were delivered to the polls.

Please draw no inferences about which side had my support; I am neither weeping nor cheering-this is a clinical examination. There is only one conclusion that need be drawn: In this election the Republican precinct organization wasn't worth a hoof, the high command muffed the strategy and the precinct captains muffed the tactics.

Now let us suppose that it is your home congressional district and that you have vowed to unseat Congressman Swivelchair - we'll assume that you have good reasons. What are your chances and what does it take?

You live in the mythical "average" district; it has therefore 320,000 human souls. 200,000 of them are over twenty-one; of these 140,000 are registered to vote. We will assume that the district is evenly divided between the two major parties, so that you have a chance to carry the district if you gain the nomination for your candidate but will not have the election handed to you on a platter.

There are, then, 70,000 members of your party. Of these about 25,000 will vote in the primary. You need 13,000 to win a clear majority in the primary - less, if there are more than two candidates and your state permits plurality nominations.

What does it take to get the 13,000 votes? Well, if your organizational activities - the clubs we talked about in preceding chapters - can show one hundred active volunteers who are not afraid to punch doorbells and will work on election day, I'll bet the rent money on the outcome.

Cost? Anything you want to make it. Volunteer campaigns should not cost much. Can you bank $1,000 before your candidate files his nominating petition? If so, you should never have to worry about unpaid bills - provided you have an absolute veto over commitments and expenditures. If the candidate's wife is permitted to order printing, you're sunk! The same goes if you have a campaign committee which can overrule you without digging down into their pockets personally to spend money in ways that you do not approve.

The campaign will cost more than $1,000 but the excess can be raised by passing the hat as you go along, and by nicking the very persons who want to make expenditures not included in your budget.

Still, a thousand dollars is a lot of potatoes to most people. Where are you going to get it? The answer lies between two extremes: A thousand men at a dollar each and one man with a thousand dollars. Of the two the first is by fer the better; volunteer campaigns come to life when the workers themselves, and their friends, foot the bill.

Suppose your first tentative campaign meeting, long before the campaign, has twenty people at it. You ought to be able to clip them for an average of $10 a head (some at twenty-five, some at nothing), cash and checks, paid on the spot. Perhaps the candidate is sufficiently well-heeled dial he can put in $300 (but don't let financial condition be any criterion in selecting a candidate-a rich man can lose an election for you just as fast as a poor one).

Your clubs should be able to raise a little for you. Then perhaps you know some people who will kick in once they see earnest money in the pot. But get the thousand before you make any announcements to the newspapers; you are going to have to have it and it is much easier to raise it first when you have time for such matters, than later, when time is everything.

The opposition may spend many thousands of dollars, but don't let that worry you. Elections are not won with dollars. The only reason you have to have any money is because printing and postage take cash. One thousand dollars is, of course, an arbitrary figure. More is convenient, if you can raise it; you may even get by for less if you have real talent for making good soup out of vegetable tops and left-over bones. Most of the things that cost big money in campaigning are almost useless for vote-getting purposes in the local campaign. (And, come to think of it-what campaign is not a "local" campaign. Votes are in the precincts!)

After the primary, money - dean money - will be much easier to raise. In addition to local sources, the National Committee is always anxious to subsidize a local organization which shows unexpected signs of displacing one of the opposition, without help in the primary and with a live, volunteer organization. Each national organization has a fund to be used only on congressional districts "in the balance" - which is not to be spent on hopeless districts nor on sure districts, but on ones such as yours. There may be only a hundred such in the country, but the fund comes from all over. Present your figures.

Now let's tabulate the situation. We are assuming that the Honorable Horace Swivelchair is not of your party; you may want co displace an officeholder of your own party, but the circumstance is less usual and the task should not be attempted except for the most grave reasons. (Are you quite sure you know all about the voting record of your co-partisan whom you wish to displace? Have you tried all methods shortof war? Don'tgetsucked into such a campaign simply because someone is ambitious to hold office. The minimum reasons should be nothing less grave than proved moral turpitude or a consistent refusal to support party measures.)

The Situation:

District population................................... 320,000

Persons over twenty-one......................... 200,000

Registered voters..................................... 140,000

Registered strength of your party.......... 70,000

Number voting in your party primary.... 25,000

Required to cinch party nomination...... 3,000

Your assets are:

Volunteer workers................................... 100

Cash on hand........................................... $1,000

The problem is to turn the assets into 13,000 votes.

For simplicity we will assume that there are just two candidates out for your party nomination, Jack Hopeful and your own candidate, Jonathan Upright. If there are more, you are a cinch to win, but let's do it the hard way.

Thirteen thousand votes divided among 100 people means an average of 130 ballots in the box per worker. But it is not that bad; your candidate, in a two-man race, will get 10,000 votes just for having his name on the ballot. Your workers have to locate one hundred and thirty votes apiece, but one hundred of them will get to the polls in any case under their own steam and vote for your man. The precinct worker must sort out the other thirty votes and get them to the polls - perhaps half by phone calls and the other half by providing transportation.

It begins to look easier - one man to haul fifteen voters to die polls, in order to gain control of a district containing a third of a million people, in order to seat a congressman in a Congress where the draft law was extended, just before Pearl Harbor, by a majority of one vote.

It is easy - from that stand point, and that is the reason why the volunteer amateur can take over this country, or any part of it, and run it to suit himself. Your part is very easy if you are just one of the volunteer precinct workers-a noble ambition in itself!

But if you aspire to manage a congressional contest you will find, before you are through, that it requires all of your intelligence and diplomacy. While the job can be done - many have done it-it will call into use your highest human faculties.

Choosing a Candidate: All too often your choice is very narrow. In this country people who offer themselves for public service get a shameful kicking around. The pay is so niggardly that an honest man usually leaves office poorer than when he accepted it, and the dead cats and rotten eggs far outnumber the pats on the back for work well done - to our collective shame!

The sober, able citizens whom we need in public office know these things; very few of them are willing to make the sacrifice that public service entails. We have indeed been blessed that enough able men have always been willing, thus far, to forego their own interests that the Republic might survive.

You will probably have to persuade the candidate of your choice to make the race. If he is bright enough for the job he won't be very anxious to have it.

If he is the man you need for the job he will be aware that some citizens have to give up their natural desire for privacy, peace of mind, and financial security in order to keep democracy alive. The motivation is the same which causes men to volunteer to meet their deaths in time of war; it exists in peace time, but is a little harder to stir up.

You can expect him to be reluctant but willing to be convinced - convinced that his personal sacrifice will not be in vain. You must convince by showing him that he can be elected, in terms of district statistics, local factors, availability of campaign funds, your proposed budget, and your organization - organization above all. Since he is neither a nincompoop nor politically naive he knows that organization is the controlling factor. If you can show him a fighting chance, he will probably go.

On the other hand you will be beset by hopeful, potential candidates who are just waiting for the lightning to strike. They will come smirking around, digging one toe in the dust, and murmuring that "Barkis is willin'." These people are usually political light-weights whose only assets are consuming ambitions to hold public office and to receive a public salary.

They will look you up - of course they will look you up; you have an organization-and get in your hair.

They will be hard to handle. It is a hard thing to tell a man bluntly that you don't think he has the character, or the intelligence, as may be, to hold public office. Furthermore you might be mistaken; some unlikely people have served the public well. I suggest that you use a counter-attack.

Ask him if he is willing to refrain from running if the organization chooses some other man to back. Press this point and press it hard. Insist that he must commit himself to support and campaign for the candidate chosen by the organization before his name goes into the hat. This commitment should be in writing.

His commitment probably isn't worth anything but it may keep him from doing what he can to sabotage your efforts.

Don't promise him anything at all except that he will be allowed to present his case before the organizational caucus which chooses the candidate - provided he binds himself to the caucus. This is the essence of caucusing, that no one shall participate in it who is not bound by it; it is an entirely fair, democratic procedure.

The pipsqueak will probably jump the caucus if he loses in it. You are then morally justified in sending several of the more influential members of the caucus to see him in order to coerce him back into line. If they are his business customers, so much the better. A caucus is a contract and should be enforceable, but the law gives no means. You are entitled to improvise means, as rude as necessary, as long as you don't step outside the law. ("Look, Joe - you signed that caucus. If you break your word to us between now and election day, your name is going to be mud in this community. We'll see to it that everybody and his brother knows just what kind of a heel you are when it comes to keeping your word. You won't be able to do anything about it, because every word of it will be true-in feet, we'd love a libel suit because that would spread it around to more people. If you don't toe the line as you promised, you are finished politically - and it's not going to do your business any good either. People don't like to do business with a man who isn't honest-starting with me!")

Your own candidate must agree to the caucus, and you yourself. This may be a little hard to take, but democracy is not a one-way proposition. Require from him also a written commitment that he will endorse, support, and make at least one public appearance on behalf of the straight party ticket and in particular on behalf of his successful opponent, in the event that he is defeated. If he won't do this he is not your man, no matter how well you thought of him. Don't waste your time on prima donnas.

A word of warning - when you bind yourself to the caucus, do not bind yourself to manage the campaign of the successful candidate. It is likely that you will be willing to undertake the grief of managing only for the candidate whom you hand-picked. If another candidate is selected, itis all right for you to drop back to the status of a precinct worker, there to do honest work but considerably less of it, if, in your opinion, the candidate is not electable or not completely satisfactory to you.

But you must bind yourself to endorse and campaign for the candidate selected by the caucus, at least on the minimum level of canvassing and carrying your own precinct.

I can almost hear your doubts and misgivings about this. Isn't such a commitment likely to land you some day in the uncomfortable position of having to choose between breaking your word or supporting a candidate you know to be unworthy of public trust?

No - not if you know your procedure. In the first place, these are your friends and associates, aren't they? Can't you count on Tom and Art and Dr. Nugent

and Alice and old Mrs. Krueger to back you up in keeping any real jerk from getting the nod? If not, you are probably in the wrong pew and should be more careful in picking your political associates.

But let us suppose, nevertheless, that there is a chance that a certain party will pop up as the choice of the caucus; you are among friends but, while you are convinced that this person is a moral leper, you can't prove it. However, he is a very personable chap and many of your staunch friends are still taken in by him. This can happen-it's happened to me.

You need only insist that all the potential candidates be listed before die caucus is bound and that the caucus be limited to consideration of the listed candidates. This gives you a chance to thresh it out before you are bound.

Let's run over a typical caucus-it is one of the least understood and most necessary of the democratic techniques. We'll make it the caucus to select the organizational candidate for congress for the party primary in your district. Caucuses can be used for any sort of joint action; this one will illustrate all the principles involved.

In the first place membership in a caucus is strictly by invitation. The man, or group of men, who call the caucus is the sole judge of the membership. No one has a natural right to be a member of a caucus. You are no more obligated to invite a man to caucus with you than you are obligated to invite him to be a guest in your home. It may be politically imprudent to exclude someone who wants in-he may form a rival caucus of his own-but you don't have to. A caucus has no existence until it votes to bind itself; up to that time, if you called it, you can exclude anyone merely because you don't like the way he parts his hair.

After the caucus comes into formal existence by voting to bind itself, it may add to its own membership any person who agrees to be bound by it by either of two methods, by majority vote (or greater majority vote, as may be required) provided the original terms of the caucus permitted it, or by unanimous vote of the entire membership - not just those present - if the original terms of die caucus failed to provide explicidy for increase of membership.

The original terms of the caucus constitute an inflexible contract among the members and may never be varied except by unanimous consent of all the membership. This is a striking difference between caucuses and all other parliamentary bodies. The essence of a caucus is its unanimity. That unanimity has been arrived at by each member binding himself to support die wishes of the majority under certain conditions all of which must be explicidy stated in die original agreement. This includes both membership of the caucus and the matters which the caucus may consider and how diey may consider diem.

A caucus which decides by less dian unanimous consent to do anything at all not set forth in die original agreement is not extending its powers; it is committing suicide. At that moment it ceases to have any existence, for the contract which gave it birth is no longer binding on anyone.

From which we draw two rules: Be extremely careful what goes into the caucus agreement, and be still more careful diat each member understands the exact nature of a caucus. Give a lecture on it each time - someone present is sure to be mixed up on die subject But get it clear before action is taken.

At this point the Lone Rangers in politics will gallop away. There are many of diem and diey don't like to surrender "freedom of action." They will leave, noses in the air, protesting that their high ideals prevent diem giving up dieir independence.

Good riddance! There is probably no easier way to

avoid these political spoiled brats dian by inviting diem to caucus and denning to diem exacdy what it means. You will thereby remain true to your own ideals of honest dealing and democratic consent.

Candidates are not members of the caucus which select them. This is not a law, but it is good sense. If you called the caucus you have also notified any candidate who has approached you earlier and to whom you have given a commitment for a hearing in exchange for his commitment not to run but to support the choice of die caucus, if not selected. You may also have invited other candidates, in order to make die base of your faction as broad as possible. Each person who has been invited to caucus is also free to bring along his favorite candidate.

The candidates are gadiered in another room out of earshot. Among them are Mr. Pipsqueak, Judge Weather-vane, and a Mr. Nemo who is acting on behalf of his law partner, Mr. Briefcase. Your own candidate, Jonathan Upright, is not diere; you will present his case.

You would be willing to support any of these candidates, in a pinch, except Weadiervane. You speak to die group: "Look, folks, I suggest dial we listen to die candidates first, before we take any action to caucus. That way we will have more facts. I for one think drat we should limit the caucus to a set list of candidates, determined before we caucus, so that no one can say he has been taken by surprise. How about it?"

Someone objects that the purpose of die meeting is party harmony and that the thing to do is to agree to accept the will of the group before we get into any rows over candidates. There is sense in what he says; diere-fore you must expose the rest of your hand.

'Judge Weathervane is sitting out there, by my invitation, but he is not my candidate. He called on me a while back and asked for my support. I didn't promise it to him. Instead I agreed to see to it that he got a hearing before any caucus I took part in provided he would agree to support the caucus if he wasn't picked. I am bound by that commitment; he's got to have his hearing or I can't caucus. On the other hand I can't agree to support him under any circumstances. If he is still eligible for consideration at the time we bind ourselves I'D have to drop out and leave die meeting. Can you help me out?"

Let us suppose that they turn you down. You have no choice then; you must leave the caucus. Don't get angry - wish diem luck and withdraw. You can't even go to the candidates' waiting room and then present Upright's name before the caucus but not as a member of it, because you can't bind yourself and your candidate to support the result of the caucus as long as Weathervane is still in the running. But you hang around on the slight chance that the caucus, when it forms, will not decide to bind candidates to the outcome. Upright may still squeak dirough.

More probably they will agree to your point, since it is evident that you got into your predicament from an honest attempt to promote organizational discipline. The group holds a preliminary caucus and agrees (a) to a two-stage procedure to hear any candidate who is willing to sign a commitment to support the caucus (this is for outsiders, like Pipsqueak, Weathervane, and Briefcase, and has no effect on the favorite candidates of die members of the caucus), (b) after hearing them to include a list of candidates to be considered as a condition of the final agreement to caucus.

The candidates waiting outside are presented with a written commitment to sign (better write it yourself) and are then invited in, one at a time, to state their cases and be questioned. An agreement like this will be adequate: "We, the undersigned, candidates for congress in the umpteenth district, agree to abide by the outcome of the caucus held at (exact address) on (date) by withdrawing from the race if not selected and by endorsing and supporting the candidate chosen by the caucus. We do this in return for the opportunity to present our several cases in advance of any decision by die caucus."

The last clause is correct and is no swindle on Weathervane. You know your own mind, but the caucus has made no decision.

Weathervane looks at it, hems and haws, then signs it with a flourish. He is confident of his ability to sway any crowd. Pipsqueak looks it over, decides not to sign it, and stalks away in a medium-sized dudgeon. He has gotten cold feet while chinning with the other candidates and this gives him an easy out. You mark hun down mentally as a man to call on and dose widi soothing syrup.

Briefcase's law partner asks to use the telephone, then comes back and signs. The other candidates sign.

After they have each had their hearing before the group you get down to the business of caucusing. you, or one of your friends, propose that the caucus be limited to the persons now present, rfiat adjournment be provided for if no decision is reached tonight, and that consideration be limited to candidates' names now to be nominated before the vote to caucus is taken. This last point is a repetition to avoid misunderstanding. You may add that the business of the caucus shall include setting up a campaign committee, or anything else which suits your purpose, and close by limiting the actions of the caucus to die points set forth explicitly, except by unanimous consent.

It may be modified, but you will get your agreement as long as you are careful to make everything clear. Nominations come first; when the list is complete Weathervane's name isn't on it. You are safe.

Or perhaps Weadiervane's name is diere. Unknown to you, Jim Swiftly has an agreement with Weather-vane. Here is an impasse; you won't caucus with Weather-vane on the list, Swiftly won't caucus unless he is on the list. A separation is the only answer. "Those who wish to caucus with me, come over and stand beside me; those who wish to caucus with Mr. Swiftly, go over and stand beside him."

If your political fences are in good enough repair to justify the enterprise you are undertaking, Swiftly will stand alone, or joined by one or two. Now he and his friends must leave. They will probably object; they will probably want to hang around as "observers" (kibitzers). They will point out that they were invited.

But you must insist. Caucuses don't have "observers"; only the bound members may be present. Tell them to take their caucus (that's what it is) elsewhere.

When they have left you can all sign the caucus - put it in writing - and get on with the selection of a candidate.

Let everybody talk all he wants to, without limit. Present the case of Mr. Upright yourself, carefully and thoroughly. When everybody is talked out you can start balloting. Secret ballot is not necessary; at this stage a man should show his colors-butdon't object ifitis asked for.

There may be several ballots, with candidates dropping out of die running and regrouping taking place. Someone may ask for an adjournment; if it passes you will be busy during the intervening days, gathering up support for your man. But eventually some ballot shows a majority for one candidate who is then the unanimous choice of the caucus.

Itis Mr. Upright. You've started.

Weather-vane bolts his agreement the next morning. Swiftly has gone straight to him after leaving the meeting; from the two of them come loud shouts of "Fraud! Frame up! Unprincipled chicanery! Never in my many years of public life, etc." Don't worry about it. Send Weather-vane a photostat of the agreement he signed and suggest that he call on you before you send copies to the newspapers. He will probably come around and offer his services, after suitable shadow boxing, in exchange for patronage or a paid job on the committee. Don't give him anything. He won't run in any case.

Swiftly will probably go whole hog and work for the other party.

Of course you can always skip all this monkey business of caucusing -just gather together Upright's friends and form a campaign committee. You can lose, too. Caucusing is worth the trouble; it can either vastly enhance your candidate's chances, or it can keep you from attempting a race that should never start.

But why did you settle on Upright in the first place, before you ever persuaded a caucus to choose him? Your criteria should be suitability, availability, and elec-tability, in that order.

Suitability: He should be a man with whom you see eye to eye on matters of public welfare. I refer to issues - states' rights, unions, foreign affairs, national defense, poll tax, atomic control, peace-time conscription, etc. His views in these matters should be generally in harmony with the established program of your party (as are yours) and, in your opinion, wiser on some important issues than your party has shown itself to be in die past, as it is your object to improve the Republic, not to embalm it

He should be selected from the persons you know through politics in your district, as it is quite unlikely that a suitable public servant can be found in the ranks of those who never bother their heads with public matters, no matter how able or even brilliant they may be in other fields. (Unfortunately the "Congress bug" bites quite a few who have become eminent in other lines. I suggest that you eliminate at once those who wish to start in politics at the top. A suitable candidate must have a record of unpaid, devoted public service of some sort, even if not as a precinct worker. Perhaps he has made an outstanding record on the Grand Jury, in city planning, as a Boy Scout commissioner, or in the improvement of inter-racial relations. But beware of the Prominent Citizen who has stayed out of public life entirely, even if you find him in Who's Who and he is willing to foot the whole campaign bill.)

There should be no question in your mind as to his integrity or character in general. H.L. Mencken once remarked that, in order to judge a man, it was necessary only to know how he makes his living. I can't endorse that as a sufficient test but it is a very illuminating one. Look into how he gets his money. Does it turn your stomach? Investigate his business reputation among his competitors. He's a lawyer - what sort of cases does he take? He is a doctor-what charity work does he do and what is his practice like? He runs a restaurant - is the kitchen clean? What are his practices with respect to his waitresses' tips? Some occupations are so notoriously dishonest that his reputation will shine out like a halo if he is an honest member thereof. In any case - check up. (I made a terrible mistake once in not doing so, the details of which are so grisly that I decline to repeat them.)

In temperament he should be conciliatory and cooperative. Don't saddle yourself with a man who gets into rows, is stiff-necked, and unwilling to meet people halfway. Be sure that he understands the principle of the coordinate nature of authority and responsibility and that he has sufficient confidence in your ability to delegate the management of the campaign to you and then abide by your judgment This will come up again under "electabilky."

In intelligence, education, and experience he should be of congressional caliber. Of the three intelligence is the most important.

Availability: This stumbling block, a serious one, can be dealt with in only the most general terms. In particular it means that he should be able to devote full time to the campaign for three months before the primary, another three months before the final election, and then be able to dose up his affairs and go co Washington. The economic difficulties here automatically eliminate at least 90% of our best prospective public servants. A family man working as an employee can hardly ever get over this hurdle. Available candidates usually are elderly retired people, housewives, young bachelors, persons of independent income, and persons in the free-lance professions-actors, writers, lawyers, lecturers, etc. Sometimes a farmer, a school teacher, or an independent businessman can arrange his affairs to take the plunge, and once in a while an employer will cooperate by holding a job open. But you may expect to hear something like this rather frequently: "Old man, I'd like to and I appreciate the compliment-but I'm tied to a treadmill!"

This is one of the reasons why lawyers are so numerous in public office. Lawyers have law partners; they can usually arrange time off whenever the bank account can stand it. Lawyers, of course, tend to be poor law-makers, but their "availability index" is high.

If you select a housewife, count on a maid for her household as a necessary campaign expense.

The remarks about availability of a candidate apply with equal strength to yourself, the manager. Since you are likely to be a woman your problem may be simpler. But I am unable to recommend trying to carry on a campaign part time, while continuing a regular occupation, to either you or your candidate, except in compelling and exceptional circumstances; it is too likely to result in fatigue-impaired judgment during the campaign and physical collapse before it is over. A campaign is pleasantly invigorating to the precinct workers and other volunteers; it is more like an endurance contest for the candidate and manager.

Electability: From a stand point of electability the ideal candidate is male, over thirty and under fifty-five, a veteran with a combat record, strong and healthy, pleasant in appearance without being outstandingly handsome, moderately tall, a good public speaker, a friendly but not an aggressive personality, married with at least one child, very well known and universally respected in his community, a church member, previous experience in public office, previous experience as a candidate (two different things - the office could have been appointive), long service in the party, and willing to let the manager run the campaign.

I have never met such a candidate.

In fact, one of the best candidates I have ever known was female, past seventy, ugly as an old horse, no children, a poor public speaker, and not very well known. What she had was integrity that surrounded her as an almost visible aura and an evident selflessness.

None of these aspects of electability is too important St. Peter could be elected Mayor of Hell with proper precinct organization. As long as your candidate wears shoes habitually - in public, that is - and qualifies under "suitability" and "availability," it doesn't really matter if he eats with his knife. Usually the things that make a candidate truly not electable are things which have already disqualified him under suitability.

Each deviation from the synthetic "perfect candidate" increases your problems a little, but the opposition has the same sort of problems. You may reasonably hope that the opposition will worry so much about "electability" that they will neglect more fundamental attributes of a good candidate and give you a sitting duck to shoot at. That beautiful facade may conceal a hushed-up indictment for fraud.

The only item under "electability" that need keep

you awake nights is the one about previous experience as a candidate. Being a candidate for the first time is like nothing else under the sun. "Nervous bride" is a common expression, but you have seen lots of brides who were not nervous. I'll wager you have never seen a first-time candidate who was not nervous.

Candidates are subject to a nervous disorder which I choose to term "Candidatitis." (New managers sometimes catch a milder form of it, if they have not come up the doorbell-pushing route and thereby gained immunity. Be warned.)

Candidatitis is something like measles; persons almost always catch it when first exposed, one seizure usually gives lifetime immunity, and it is best experienced early in life for the mildest symptoms and die least disastrous after-effects.

The usual symptoms are these: Extreme nervousness and irritability, suspiciousness raised almost to the persecution-complex level and usually directed toward the wrong people, a tendency for the tongue to work independently of the brain especially in public where it can do the most harm, and a positively childish aversion to accepting advice and management.

Mr. Willkie (God rest his gallant soul!) was an almost perfect candidate in most respects and an able contender for the Champ. Take a look over the yardstick of the "ideal candidate" with respect to electability and see how well he measures up. In addition he had a well-financed campaign which had been organized and directed by some of the most able public-relations men in the country; his supporters had a crusading fervor and the opposing candidate labored under the very great handicap ofbucking the anti-third-term tradition which more than off-set the advantage of incumbency. (Incumbency is a questionable asset for a presidential candidate in any case, no matter how important it may be in lesser offices.)

It is generally agreed by most observers that something catastrophic happened to Mr. Willkie's campaign during the man-killing swing around the country. Some of the reporters who went with him say that it appeared that the candidate hurt his own chances, unnecessarily, on almost every occasion.

Note that Mr. Willkie had never run for any office before. Note also that he steadied down right after the campaign and assumed the roleofelder statesman, which fitted him well, and was a strong force for unity and cool-headed wisdom in a country at war. Does the diagnosis of "candidatitis" during the campaign seem to fit?

In any event, if you have picked a man you want to run for congress in a year or two, or for any major office, and this candidate has never run for office before, then it would be wise to run him at once for something like dog-catcher, in order to get him blooded for the fight

Side remark-I find I have used as major examples three cases in which Republican candidates-for-president lost; this is not bias either way. The cases happened to display the illustrative features I needed.