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Southern Comfort. The year 1956 is almost certainly Frank Lausche's cue to enter the stage of national politics. Last week, as the filing day for candidates came and went. Ohio's Democratic Party conceded him its nomination for the Senate without a fight: no one else was willing to challenge him. And nearly all political forecasters give him a vigorous nod over bumbling Republican Bender to win next fall's election. Yet Lausche is hedging his bet with an across-the-board wager. If Adlai Stevenson falters in the primaries or fails to win the presidential nomination on the first ballot at the Democratic Convention next August, Lausche will stand as good a chance as anybody else—better than most—to get a spot on the national ticket. He already has a full-throated cheering gallery below the Mason-Dixon line: Georgia's Senator Richard Russell, Texas' Governor Allan Shivers, Arkansas' Senator John McClellan and other Southerners have warmly endorsed him as a presidential candidate who eminently fits their conservative specifications.
Against Candidates Estes Kefauver, Averell Harriman and others in the Democratic leftfield, Lausche could muster a formidable dissident vote. He is willing enough, but typically morose about his prospects. Just the same, he has ensured himself a good start by going to Chicago as the favorite son of Ohio's 58-vote delegation. And even if he fails to win the No. 1 spot on the Democratic ticket, the governor is a good bet for the vice-presidential nomination. With his bag of delegates and friends, he might just get it.
Perfect Pitch. As Lausche looks beyond Ohio, many a non-Ohioan is pondering the secret of his success. It is partly a matter of luck. For one thing he has had the good fortune to preside over the state during a period of unparalleled prosperity: the great cities have fattened on industrial expansion; mining has boomed; and even agriculture in family-farm Ohio is relatively prosperous. From Ashtabula to Xenia, the air is filled with mill smoke and the mooing of contented cows; Ohio looks like the happy ending of George Babbitt's dream. Lausche realizes that time and circumstances have blessed him. At the White House Conference for Governors last May, he remarked that he was surprised to see so many new faces among his peers. "Does it frighten you?" asked a reporter. "Yes," said Frank Lausche, in the manner of a man who has pushed his luck a long way.
Lausche's secret is by no means luck alone. He has a powerhouse personality that comes across equally well on a TV screen, at a political rally, at a Croatian steelworker's wedding party, or in the intimacy of a taxicab. He is an instinctive politician right down to his often-unlaced shoes. He is a great orator, a spellbinder of the William Jennings Bryan tradition. His mother was proud of her perfect musical pitch; Frank Lausche has perfect pitch, too—political pitch. Audiences are mesmerized by his warm manner and his mellifluous voice; if Lausche laughs, his listeners laugh with him; if he occasionally weeps, he also moves his audiences to tears. He senses when to thunder and when to whisper, when to be partisan and when to be patriotic. The printed speeches themselves, are usually florid, often mediocre, sometimes just dull.