The Power of Negative Thinking
By D. W. BROGAN
:rRl. have studied. It recalls what I have been s has been an odd campaign. It is the dullest ici,i,c1 of the campaign that elected Coolidge in 744. But that campaign was about nothing in :articular, while this one is, or ought to be. about A great deal. With an effort of seriousness, an i'llt)eriean friend will tell you not how he or she 1 as. 80Ing to vote (he may tell you he is not,' no ‘,1 xirree, he is not going to vote for either Nixon or —"Ileh), but that he or she can see no differ- ''} vac I e. More commonly I was asked, 'How should vote More often still it was, 'How would you c,(;he, If You were an American?' But far more of""llnlY it was, 'Who do you think will win?' hmllassionate zeal for either candidate I did not it u a trace. The candidates may not be 'playing cv°01,' but the voters are. 44,,e,st this general coolness is associated with pric:uer Phenomenon that I find gratifying if sur- tn;iflisg. They are drawing very big crowds. `Ston- tto'hi.ue prophets is ancient news' and I don't mind h4;;Irig myself, for I confidently predicted, on the oiei's of the campaigns of 1952 and 1956, that the wool whistle-stop tour was dead, that the big appeal Ilacl. be by TV, that the old need to 'show the This I:e• the candidate, didn't exist any longer. one view I can well remember was contested by , id r two old pros, but I dismissed their archaic .3,,t sea' They were right. Having seen Senator Ken- :: 1:„, at Work in Wisconsin last April, 1 have no a' N."I that the personal touch pays. And Mr.
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trains Is of the same mind. The old campaign thellillaY have gone (a loss to the pressmen), but l'Ig r„,.rs?nal appearance, off the screen, the touch mat.— the king's evil, the projection of the charts.- oc ,s 41 ,isPersonality is still profitable. Profitable tif 114, ,-"sulotely necessary, for neither candidate either charismatic personality. Nobody is hot for liking' Some like Mr. Kennedy a lot, but it is a evoC a light-year away from the adoration eiroeed in certain circles by Al Smith, in wider Date , b, Y PDR and from the affection (I think tight sal as much as filial) evoked by the very hti, °I President Eisenhower. Indeed, the only truss ,politician that I know of who inspires love. Milliontniration and adoration is Mr. Stevenson... 'fine , of Democrats are still 'madly for Adlat tileiehlIcling. oddly enough, some who weren't old Pe" to vote for him in 1956. it th0°Ie are more against than for. I believe that I reis a lot of vote-changing this year, trans- I f t.suPnort, it will be because a lot of people heY of of ''ellator Kennedy (or the Kennedys) and a into °pie PeoPle dislike Mr. Nixon. Quite a lot of )no' N0-r `LIso hate him. Among some Republicans
I be 'tnerit California you get, at the mention of
60 1.1,411,e' that sudden glare of hate you used to leill ht 1.(3,; still get at the mention of the name of lille Xitiii-i.11arl Lloyd George to an old-fashioned the lk A.'"an Liberal. This may be unjust, but there jot ilt.tir,n,° the good haters who saw Mr. Nixon on has g like of the so-called TV 'great debates' look- losii traces a clergyman asking for seventeen other into tl•I, to be taken into consideration, simply li.i he camera cannot lie.' Ihiqt, Oily that so great an office. as that of t of the United States should be fought for on such negative issues, but it is being fought for, in great part, on negative issues. If it is true that Senator Kennedy appeals to women because of his looks, to matrons as a nice boy who needs mothering, to younger women as a young man who needs marrying, there is. on the other side, the handicap of the contrast between Mrs. Ken- nedy and Mrs. Nixon. For there seems to be a consensus of opinion that the women voters like 'Pat' more than 'Jackie.' Pat,' or to give her her given name, Thelma, is a model of what the suc- cessfully climbing organisation man's wife should be. She has studied the numerous glossy maga- zines that guide the young matron. She is her hus- band's helpmate. She is poised. smart, competent. `Jackie,' or to give her her given name, Jacqueline (Mrs. Kennedy is believed, unlike Mrs. Nixon, to prefer her real name). gives a charming impres- sion of not having read many glossy magazines and of not having come up the hard way. It is believed that Senator Kennedy is reluctant to drag his wife into the campaign at all. And apart from being pregnant, Mrs. Kennedy is not doing much to help her husband. Her ostentatiously careless hair-do is an insult to women who have to organise their time to get their hair done at all. Mrs. Kennedy is too much above the battle. Or so they say.
To turn from the battle of the wives to the great underground atomic bomb, religion. No one I have talked to in the East, in the border states, in California doubts that this is an explosive issue that may be decisive. But nobody knows how decisive or decisive for whom. After Senator Kennedy's victory in the West Virginia primary, it was thought by many that the ghost of the Pope was laid. This was an optimistic view, It is now evident that in a great part of the United States the Pope has still as bad a name as in Portadown. In the great cities, especially in the East, it was easy to forget that in many parts of the Midwest and in most parts of the South, traditional Pro- testantism is as strong as ever. The most powerful southern denomination, the Southern Baptists. have no more accepted real equality with Catho- lies than with Niggers. (I know that no nice Southerner ever says 'Niggers'; I have, however, met some non-nice ones.) An enlightened southern divine told me how startled and shocked he had been by the bitterness of many of his brethren (not in his own denomination; he is a Presby- terian). And undoubtedly Senator Kennedy will lose many normal 'Democratic' votes in the South. Many will vote against him from a genuine fear that a Catholic in the White House means a legate in the White House. (Few now believe, as many did in Al Smith's time, that the Pope will move over bodily to Washington.) And, of course, many southern Democrats, anxious to find some way of becoming Republican respectably, will find the fear of the Pope a convenient way of making the shift. But it does not follow that Senator Kennedy will necessarily suffer from the religious issue. General Eisenhower in 1952 and 1956 got a great many millions of Catholic votes normally given .to the Democratic candidates. Many of these tempol-ary Republicans would like to stay that way, but can they if the campaign settles down, even below the surface, to a religious war? Already the flood of mere abuse and myth is pouring through the mails. Already the Demo- crats are calling 'foul.' Much of this literature is merely sanctified pornography. For a century Maria Monk has been the Fanny Hill of good evangelicals as Peruna was the booze of good teetotallers. But with all allowances made, the campaign is taking an ugly turn.
True there is a comic side to this. The Rever- end Norman Vincent Peale was indiscreet enough to sign a manifesto that seemed to imply that no Catholic should be elected President. Dr. Peale is the aid for the perplexed of evangelical per- suasion. His specialty is 'the power of positive thinking.' He preaches to overflowing congrega- tions, but his real pulpit is, or was, his column. The great independent journals of opinion in whose columns he comforted the afflicted, got cold feet. They have Catholic readers and they may have a Catholic President. Dr. Peale is now a sadder and a wiser man. His column has been cancelled in many papers. He has made a fool of himself and has admitted it. And he may have helped Senator Kennedy by causing Catholics to revive their memories of exclusion. And, the story is going round, a personable young Alrippeuse at l'eA. the lag Technical Aid mission here wri.■ a great AII('Iess—the Neanderthals sent 145 WM(' experts to help bring us into the Stone Age.' Vegas (as we 'in' people call Las Vegas) calls her- self 'Norma Vincent Peel' and advertises her 'power of positive stripping.' In America, as else- Where, the clergy seldom intervene in politics without making fools of themselves.
But what of the great issues? They are being debated only formally. Mr. Nixon is, on the whole, for what Mr. Kennedy is.for, but for less of it and more cheaply. Both parties are deeply divided. Mr. Nixon rightly asks Mr. Kennedy about the southern Democrats who block legisla- tion and some of whom, like Senator Eastland of Mississippi, might have been invented by Pravda. But the gap between Senator Goldwater of Arizona and Governor Rockefeller of New York is as wide as that between Senator Kennedy and Senator Eastland. Yet the support of Senator Goldwater is indispensable to win over southern conservatives and that of Governor Rockefeller is necessary to carry New York. Events may push both candidates into definition and opposition. Mr. K may force a 'rally round the flag' attitude on the voters which will help Mr. Nixon. Some catastrophe abroad, revealing the 'illusion of American omnipotence' as an illusion, may shat- ter the image of the Great White Father. The depression that seems to be on the way may arrive before the election in time to revive old memories of the Depression or scare millions who are in debt for nearly everything they own. But at the moment it is, as the Americans say, a 'horse race.' And in any case, if I had an opinion on the result of the election, I should keep it to myself. After all, I bet ten dollars on Governor Dewey on elec- tion night in 1948 when Mr. Truman had already been elected.
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