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.

How to Win an Election (continued)

The Grass-Roots Campaign:

From here on a bewildering variety of possible activities will press their claims on you. All of them will appear to be of use to the campaign; each will be eagerly supported by some member of your group as being 'Just the thing we need to do!" Unless you have some touchstone rule to go by you will waste your efforts and drive yourself nuts with meaningless activity.

Consider each move, no matter how small, in these terms:

(a) Will the action help to get a specific, individual vote (or votes) in your district and registered in your party?

(b) If the effect is general rather than specific, is the shotgun spread aimed at your own district? Can it be carried out at no cost? If the activity involves time or physical effort for you or the candidate, are the probable results in votes large enough to warrant it, or would it be better to use die time in sleep, going to the movies, playing cribbage, or trying to keep up with the endless study of political news and political issues?

If you start right out thinking in diese terms you will soon apply the rules subconsciously and automatically. Let's consider some examples:

Effective Methods: Anything which brings your candidate, you, or your volunteer, into direct contact with a doorbell of a private home is the best possible campaigning. Nothing should be allowed to interfere with this activity-neither storm, nor sleet, nor dark of night, nor the bland insistence of Very Important Persons. I don't care how important he is; in this country he's only got one vote!

The best doorbell-pushing is done by the candidate himself. Consider a vacuum-cleaner salesman; he shows up at your door with vacuum cleaner, ready to give you a demonstration. Compare him with a mythical salesman who attempts to sell vacuum cleaners with nothing but a sales talk and some pretty pictures - no vacuum cleaner! Which salesman will sell the larger number of vacuum cleaners?

Your candidate is the product you are trying to sell; the easiest way to do this is to let the prospective buyer see the product.

In doing so you gain an enormous advantage over the usual opposition, since the Grass-Roots Campaign has gone out of style in most parts of this country. Most of our citizens actually lay eyes on their officeholders and the hopefuls thereto about as often as they see circus elephants and with the same lack of intimate contact A man behind the footlights on a platform is a little bit unreal; he might as well be a movie.

But the people, the individual Americans, are still interested in their candidates; to have one show up at the front door is as delightful a novelty to most of them as would be a chance to ride a circus elephant. That unreality, the candidate on the platform, on the billboard, or in the newspaper, suddenly becomes warmly human and a little more than life size.

In addition to being a novelty the presence of the candidate at the door of a private home is a flattering compliment, because it acknowledges the fact that, in this country, sovereignty is vested in the individual, not the state. (The voter may not think in those terms but the idea will be kicking around in the back of his mind. "Here is a man who really seems interested in us ordinary citizens- notlike those downtown politicians.")

We can assume that your candidate has at least a moderately pleasing personality; the situation is a pushover. Most laymen will even cross party lines for anyone they have met and have no reason to dislike. The only way the opposition can off-set the advantage is by a personal call by the opposition candidate himself.