ROOSEVELT COULD WIN, BUT STILL LOSE. Dr. Gallup says in Wednesday’s Washington Post that despite President Roosevelt’s 55%-45% lead over Wendell Willkie, we may be facing for the first time since 1888 an election where the winner of the popular vote is the loser in the electoral college. He writes, "If Wendell Willkie had not stopped the Roosevelt trend which [Gallup] polls reported during September and early October, Roosevelt would obviously be winning by a landslide of electoral votes. But today the trend is moving the other way -- toward Willkie -- and unless the Roosevelt forces stop the Willkie trend, the campaign may end in the closest race since 1916."
Gallup also explains just how easy it would be for a Democrat to win the popular vote and still lose the election --
"The odd but highly important political fact is that in view of the political composition of certain States, Roosevelt cannot win the election without carrying about 52 per cent of the popular vote. The national vote must be near or at that figure before the key States would normally show any margin over 50 per cent for Roosevelt. The reason is, of course, that the Democrats pile up a greater popular vote in the South than they need to carry the electoral votes of that section. With the surplus majority of the South figured in, a vote of 52 per cent for Roosevelt in the entire Nation is normally the equivalent of only about 50 per cent in the key States. Roosevelt’s present strength of 55 per cent is thus only three points above the 52 per cent he needs to win....At any time between August and the past week -- a period when Roosevelt’s electoral votes nearly doubled -- a shift of less than one million votes would have changed enough electoral votes to put Willkie ahead."
Gallup also highlights another finding from the Oct 18 survey which shows just how much President Roosevelt is dependent on the current crisis to win the election. When voters are asked which candidate they’d prefer "if there were no war in Europe today," Willkie scored 53%, to Roosevelt’s 47%. That raises in intriguing question -- if there were to be a sustained lull in the fighting between now and election day, would some voters switch to Willkie on the basis of that alone?
A TIE-UP OF GERMANY AND FRANCE? Newspaper reports on Tuesday’s meeting between Hitler and French Vice Premier Laval speculate this could lead to the signing of a Franco-German peace treaty, and the formal acceptance of Marshal Petain’s regime into the emerging "New Order" of Nazi Europe. C. Brooks Peters’ story in Wednesday’s New York Times carefully avoids rash predictions on the chances for a rapprochement and what it could mean, but an Associated Press dispatch is loaded with possibilities for a tie-up, and even French military involvement on Hitler’s side --
"It is believed here [in Berlin] the French are finding Vichy highly unsuitable as a seat of government, and Chief of State Marshal Henri Petain might seize an opportunity to conclude a definite peace with Germany rather than continue armistice conditions which make return of the government to Paris unfeasible. Moreover, by supporting the Axis in a military way in Africa...France might hope to fall heir to some British colonies as compensation for the loss of Alsace-Lorraine and possibly Burgundy. If, as has been reported, the meeting today was the climax of a developing attempt to mass the surviving French warships with those of Germany and Italy for a showdown with the British fleet, the Axis would obtain powerful aid at sea should the French Navy join in the war against Britain."
According to the United Press, Vichy quickly denied any intention of re-entering the war on Germany’s side -- not that a denial from Vichy means much of anything either way. On the other hand, Petain's surrender regime admits the conference covered the need for "increased collaboration" with Germany.
RISK OF A U.S. WAR IN THE PACIFIC. New York Herald Tribune columnist Walter Lippmann agrees with Wendell Willkie that isolationist hoopla about sending U.S. troops to Europe is a "manufactured panic" with no basis in reality. But in the Pacific, he argues, we’re running a real and necessary risk of war by making military supplies available to China while embargoing vital war materials to Japan --
"There is very little doubt...that once Japan had entered into the alliance with the Axis, the risks of this policy became less than the risk of standing by, refusing to help China and continuing to supply Japan with the materials she needs to complete the conquest of the Far East. For if we helped Japan to win in the East, and that is what Japan demands of us, our one-ocean navy would never be free to leave the Pacific Ocean. Japan would become invincible in the Pacific and free to strike when she chose, at a time when a catastrophe in Europe might require the shifting of the fleet to the Atlantic. Therefore, we have been driven to realize that the strengthening of the Chinese resistance and the weakening of the Japanese power of aggression are a necessary insurance against the possibility of an Axis victory in Europe. Having only one navy in two oceans we need the Chinese resistance to keep Japan entangled in Asia in the event that our support of Britain should turn out to be insufficient to keep the Axis out of the Atlantic."
MORE BALKAN WORRIES. The new trade agreement between Germany and Yugoslavia contains a "protocol providing increased political cooperation," writes Sam Brewer from Istanbul in Wednesday’s Chicago Tribune. According to Turkish "informed opinion," the Nazis will not occupy Yugoslavia, but are "more likely to invade northern Jugo-Slavia where resistance to [Germany’s] vast forces would be virtually impossible. That would give her a road down the Danube valley into Rumania." And from there, the Tribune explains, German and Italian troops could push across northern Greece, blocking the Turks from providing any effective aid to the Greeks in case of an Axis assault there.
The British are "increasingly concerned" about this, according to Mr. Brewer. But at least there are signs Britain might not sit around this time waiting to see what happens. A United Press dispatch cites the Times of London as warning that the Royal Navy "may occupy Greece’s strategic islands in the Aegean Sea as naval and air bases to thwart Axis thrusts which might be ‘ruinous’ to Britain’s strategic position." A good idea, although the criteria given for doing so -- "if Greece should ever cease to remain a free agent" -- is too restrictive. The British should move the moment Axis troops cross the Greek border.
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