(9 of 9)
"Dewey was a cutie. I don't think Eisenhower is half as cute as Dewey. His strength is in being folksy, homey, and that puts a little different light on beating him, but essentially the situations are the same. Now Dewey was a master at looking good. If there was a scandal in his administration, he investigated the Democratic Party—and got away with it. That State Crime Commission stuff—all directed at me, don't kid yourself . . . O.K., what could I do?
"I waited for him to slip—just a little —then I banged him." De Sapio clenches his big fists in front of his chest. "Banged him. He made two mistakes. He put through the rent increases and raised the subway fare to 15¢. That was enough.
"Now I say the way to beat Eisenhower is to bang him. Hard. Hard! I don't know exactly when, but soon, soon. He is not invincible. We have plenty to work with. We have the record of this Congress, which put patriotism above partisanship in foreign policy so that he could effectuate the Democratic policy he's following. The Democratic Congress freed him from guys like McCarthy and Jenner. who had the executive branch in their hip pockets. We have the fact that his Administration has slipped on things like Dixon-Yates, Talbott, and so on. These facts are enough to work on. They're enough because they detract seriously from the very things—his talents for appearing folksy, homey and highly moral—that are supposed to make Eisenhower so strong.
"All of this of course assumes he is going to run. I am assuming he is going to run until he says he isn't. He is the toughest man to beat. I think he can be beaten."
Carmine De Sapio passionately believes that Ike can be licked. What is more, he thinks that Averell Harriman (managed by Carmine De Sapio) is just the boy to do it. He may be wrong, he may be right. He is certainly going to try to find out whether the people can be made to want what he wants.
* Tammany Hall began as a club, but for more than 130 years it has been the official organization of the Democratic Party in New York County (Manhattan). Many U.S. political clubs have come to dominate their party locally; Tammany is one of the very few that has actually become legally merged with the party machinery. Its members are proud of the name Tammany Hall, but the official name of the organization, placed on the primary ballot as such, is The New York County Democratic Committee. The other four counties in New York City—The Bronx, Queens, Kings (Brooklyn) and Richmond (Staten Island)—all have their own Democratic committees, which are sometimes allied with Tammany, sometimes dominated by it and sometimes at war with it.
* His first name is pronounced to rhyme with "far mine." The second syllable of his surname rhymes with "map."
† The place: Danny's Hideaway, which is merely expensive.