Democrats: Helping Lyndon

Polling the nation’s Democratic county chairmen for their vice-presidential preferences, the Associated Press got 710 positive replies. The leaders:

Minnesota’s Senator Hubert Humphrey, 185 votes; Attorney General Bobby Kennedy, 166; U.N. Ambassador Adlai Stevenson, 75; New York City Mayor Robert Wagner, 47; Peace Corps Director Sargent Shriver, 43; California’s Governor Pat Brown, 37; Minnesota’s Senator Eugene McCarthy, 28; Connecticut’s Senator Abraham Ribicoff, 24; Assistant Secretary of Commerce Franklin D. Roosevelt Jr., 21; and Missouri’s Senator Stuart Symington, 14.

There were scattered votes for Dean Rusk, Ohio’s Senator Frank Lausche, Washington’s Senator Henry Jackson and Jackie Kennedy. All of which may or may not be helpful to Lyndon Johnson, who will pick his own running mate about five minutes after he has been nominated by acclamation next August at Atlantic City.