In the Stretch

Dopesters, pollsters, pundits, bigwigs, wardheelers—all shapes & sizes of political wiseacres—were now getting phenomenally nervous. By all counts this was one of the queerest, bitterest—and closest—of all the Presidential races in U.S. history. So dead certain were all the experts that the race would be neck-&-neck that a comfortable victory by either candidate would make political expertism indefinitely suspect. And the polls were indecisive—if they showed anything it was that Dewey had drawn nearly level since midsummer. (Only the gamblers saw it as 3-to-1 for Roosevelt, and not much money was...

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