Campaign Trail 1952

In a continuing History Wire feature, we drop in on presidential campaigns of yore at the same point of the 2004 campaign to learn what issues the candidates were challenged with and how they coped with them.

It's not easy campaigning against a victorious war leader, as bookish Adlai Stevenson was finding out during his campaign for president against Dwight D. Eisenhower, supreme commander in Europe in a world war that had ended only seven years before. Yet as the campaign hurtled into its two-week home stretch, a remarkable thing seemed to be happening: Eisenhower's commanding lead of 14 per cent on Sept. 30 was shrinking fast. By Oct. 25, it was down to 5 per cent. "Everybody agreed that Stevenson had at last caught fire and was gaining," wrote Stevenson biographer John Bartlow Martin. "Two weeks left. Enough? This was the question around Springfield (IL) that weekend as Stevenson and his staff prepared for the final trip."

The resonance of military leadership with voters certainly wasn't lost on the Eisenhower camp, though. The Korean War, started under the presidency of Harry Truman, was dragging on, with no end in sight. Eager to stem what appeared to be a Stevenson surge, Ike's team unleashed the coup de grace on Oct. 24. "Speaking in Detroit, he (Eisenhower) declared that, if elected, "I shall go to Korea.

"Emmet John Hughes, an editor of Life on loan to Eisenhower's staff, had conceived and written the speech. The effect on the country was electric. George Ball (a Stevenson advisor) once recalled that he and Stevenson had read the advance text with no great concern -- Stevenson, and his advisers, had considered and rejected the same idea. Only a day later, when they saw how great the impact of a military hero's promise had been, did Stevenson realize he must do something. Some Stevenson staffers proposed to tell the truth -- that Stevenson had discarded the idea earlier. This was, wisely, abandoned. It is impossible to judge how many votes Eisenhower's pledge made. Some people thought it turned a victory into a landslide." And so it was; when the votes were tallied on election day, Eisenhower had garnered 442 electoral votes to Stevenson's 89.

In his concession speech, Stevenson recalled what Abe Lincoln had said election defeat felt like: "He said he felt like a little boy who had stubbed his toe in the dark. He said that he was too old to cry but it hurt too much to laugh."