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Golly! Chuck Percy really looks and acts the part of the Algeresque hero. He is 45 years old this month, but he has the mien of a boyish 30. He has frank brown eyes, a frank, open face, a trim, exercise-toned body (5 ft. 8 in., 165 lbs.). He is hardworking, fun-loving, self-disciplined and perfectly organized. He reads deep-think books, takes religion, politics and self-improvement seriously. He is a Christian Scientist. He neither smokes nor drinks. He prefaces his sentences with "Golly!" and "Gosh!" and "Gol darn it!" and when he once said "Damn!" his friends thought the walls were about to come tumbling down. When one of his innumerable plans or projects goes sour, he simply shrugs and says: "Well, we've got a lemon. Now let's see if we can make lemonade."
In a day and age when traditional virtues are often the subject of scorn, Percy is suspect to many. A political adviser recently told him that it was to his disadvantage to be considered "too good to be true." Percy just laughed. "Well," he said, "that's my imperfection." Recalling his remarkable business career, some critics think of him as an opportunistic Boy Scout who likes to help little old ladies across the street and into the bank. "This little pip-squeak," says a man who knows him, "is just too damned ambitious. It'll get him in the end."
Strong Cadres. Percy's wife Loraine understandably takes another view. "Chuck," she says, "just likes to think he's making a better world." Indeed he does. That is precisely why he is running for Governor. He has a deep, dogged idealism and a relentless energy that have brought refreshing excitement to Illinois politics. As a result, Percy has become a front-line soldier on the Midwestern battleground that may be crucial in Election Year 1964.
If Barry Goldwater is to stand even the slightest chance in November, he must carry the Midwest, once, but not any longer, an unassailable bastion of Republicanism. Goldwater has strong cadres of Midwesternstrength, but most indicators show him trailing President Johnson in general popularity; moreover, Hubert Humphrey, a founder of Minnesota's Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, figures to be a definite Midwestern asset to the national Democratic ticket (a proposition subject to some conjecture by those who recall that John Kennedy beat him in the 1960 Wisconsin primary).
In any event, Goldwater plainly needs help in the form of strong showings by Midwestern state candidates, such as Ohio's Representative Robert Taft Jr., now running for the Senate against Incumbent Democrat Steve Young; Indiana's Lieutenant Governor Richard Ristine, currently favored to win the statehouse back from the Democrats; Wisconsin's Gubernatorial Candidate Warren Knowles, a definite threat against Incumbent Democrat John Reynolds; and even Michigan's Republican Governor George Romney, who despite his announced distaste for the Goldwater candidacy could, in the event of a sweeping personal victory for reelection, bring along a decisive number of straight-ticket voters.