For weeks pundits had been adjusting their political Geiger counters to pick up every psychological click from South Dakota's Republican primary. Those 14 delegates were important, everyone agreed, but the bigger prize was the effect on voters everywhere of victory in the last state primary.
Last week, after the votes were counted, the pundits could detect little, if any, psychological radiation. The vote was almost a standoff: Taft, 64,619; Ike, 64,004. Ike carried 38 counties, Taft 30. Taft's power in the rural areas, enhanced by his speeches for farm price supports and against universal military training, was largely offset by Ike's strength...
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