FLORIDA: Anything Goes

The great game of politics was being played without benefit of rules in Florida last week, and the knee-action and eye-gougings could be felt from Pensacola to Fort Lauderdale. Fast-talking George Smathers had learned the art of campaigning from Senator Claude Pepper. Running against the master (TIME, April 3), he showed that he had learned how to pour salt in Pepper's old wounds. Fishing out an old newspaper clipping at every campaign stop, Smathers read Pepper's reported 1946 advice to the U.S.: pray for Joseph Stalin because he is; the kind of man Americans could trust.

"Did you pray for...

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