WILLKIE TAKES THE LEAD! The radio says this morning that the citizens of Sharon, New Hampshire, who historically cast their ballots at one minute past midnight each election day, have announced their vote totals. They are -- 24 for Wendell Willkie, and 7 for President Roosevelt. It’s probably not indicative of a trend, though. Four years ago, Sharon went for Alf Landon 13 to 3, and in 1932 gave Herbert Hoover 11 ballots to only one for Roosevelt. It’s a thoroughly Republican hamlet.
Wherever you live, and whether you’re the first or the last to show up at your polling place, get out today and vote!
(For Willkie, that is).
CLOSEST ELECTION SINCE 1916? Gallup’s final survey of the ’40 campaign came out in Monday’s Washington Post, among other places, and indicates the trend toward Willkie is continuing right up to the end. The main question now is whether the Republicans have gained ground fast enough to overcome President Roosevelt’s lead. According to Dr. Gallup, Roosevelt maintains a 52% to 48% advantage in the popular vote. But, as the pollster has said several times now, that’s a dangerously low level of support for a Democrat -- the President will win a number of Southern states with vote totals of 85% to 95%, greatly inflating his popular-vote total nationally without getting him closer to winning in the electoral college.
Gallup points out two historical precedents -- "The Democrat, Grover Cleveland, in 1888 had 51.4 per cent -- a majority -- and yet lost the election to Harrison in the electoral college. In 1916 Wilson had 51.7 per cent and barely won in the electoral college, with only 11 electoral votes to spare."
The final survey shows President Roosevelt continuing to lead in electoral votes, but now with only 276 -- just 10 more than the total needed for victory. (Roosevelt was said to be leading for almost 500 electoral votes a month ago). The big question now, writes Dr. Gallup, is whether the Willkie trend continued "between Sunday noon, when this survey was completed, and Tuesday morning, when the voters go to the polls." Alternately, "will Roosevelt’s Monday night speech pull the election out of the fires as it did in the famous Lehman-Dewey race in New York in 1938?"
I’m starting to smell a come-from-behind Willkie victory. If if happens, and if it is a narrow win, hopefully it’ll be another 1916 instead of an 1888. This is not a typical election year, and America needs a clear-cut winner in both the electoral and popular vote.
THE ITALIANS ARE FALTERING -- FOR NOW. I’m skeptical as to how long the good news will last, but it appears that the second week of the Greek battle may be clarifying the situation in a very welcome way. According to an International News Service dispatch from the region, Mussolini’s invasion has been "gravely threatened" by "a stunning Greek advance in Albania which threatened the city of Koritza with momentary capture." Greek troops have also reportedly administered a bloody defeat on Fascist units which were trying to march on Ioannina, with 2,200 Italian soldiers and officers taken prisoner.
Is it too good to be true? I’ve always been a bit wary of I.N.S. reporting, and they credit this information vaguely to "advices reaching the Yugoslav-Greek frontier." But the latest United Press story from the battlefront has good tidings as well, seconding the I.N.S. reports on a Greek drive to capture Koritza. The U.P. adds that Greek troops are now close to surrounding an entire Italian division, some 15,000 men. It puts the number of Italian prisoners taken by the attacking Greeks so far at only 1,200, but says two generals are among them.
Best sign that things are going sour for this latest Axis aggression -- the U.P. also says that Italian Foreign Minister Count Ciano, who has been actively commanding Fascist air forces attacking from Albania, has left the front and hurried to Germany for a hasty conference with Foreign Minister von Ribbentrop. He’s said to be begging for Nazi help, lots of it, in subduing the suddenly-fearsome Greeks.
A SMART PROPOSAL FROM WILLKIE. Philip Kinsley of the Chicago Tribune reports in Monday’s editions that Wendell Willkie has made a dramatic last-minute campaign promise – "that when elected President his first message to Congress will recommend a constitutional amendment limiting the term of any one president to eight years or less." In a way it’s a shame if we’re now forced to codify in law the protections against caesarism that tradition once safeguarded for us. But President Roosevelt’s pledge to not run again in 1944 if he wins a third term today offers a bit of comfort that breaking the custom this time won’t do as much harm as it could. And Willkie’s solution would insure that a Roosevelt victory wouldn’t be used as a precedent to justify a future third-term ruckus.
In the meantime, we’ll have to rely on our votes to keep the two-term principle intact.
THE WORLD WATCHES AND WAITS. Anne O’Hare McCormick writes in Sunday’s New York Times on the perception -- ballyhooed by the Democrats -- that Europe’s warring powers have taken sides in the presidential election. Whether or not that’s so, she says the important thing is that Americans realize "that both candidates put American interests first." Miss McCormick adds that this loose talk of Nazi and Communist agents helping the Republicans is just so much bosh, even if there is some truth to the Democrats’ charges of who supports whom --
"For the past week or two, despite the thrust into Greece, the major struggle seems to have been held in suspense, almost as if the war were waiting for the result of the election. In the heat of the electoral battle it was charged that the British hope for the re-election of Mr. Roosevelt and the Axis Powers favor Mr. Willkie. If this is true, in each case the preference is based on the fact that both the Germans and the British know the President. Mr. Willkie is an unknown quantity; while he has given every assurance that his foreign policy will be identical with Mr. Roosevelt’s, the Germans may figure that any change would be for the better and the British are quite satisfied with things as they are. True or not, the preference does not affect many voters in this country. As between the two sides of the war, the American preference is solidly and almost unanimously "set." Few oppose helping the British or blocking the Axis. As between the two candidates, however, Americans were never so bent on deciding for themselves, according to their own conception of the national interests."
But Miss McCormick argues this "red-herring issue" does have significance -- "It proves that Tuesday’s balloting is an international event of far-reaching importance. The choice of Mr. Willkie may be taken in Germany as a sign of American unwillingness to enter the war. The choice of Mr. Roosevelt may be interpreted in England as an augury of more active participation. Europe inclines to echo our most contradictory campaign arguments -- that the President will move more rapidly toward intervention than his opponent and that the Republican candidate will put more speed into the building of a war machine."
It’s difficult to figure how either position really benefits Hitler much in the long run, though.
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