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When Candidate Ike Eisenhower invaded Louisville, he forgot to make any mention of Cooper in his big speech until after he sat down. He corrected his omission by jumping up to the microphone with a perfunctory endorsement. Cooper labored diligently, and when the final tally was in, Ike had lost Kentucky by 700 votes, and John Sherman Cooper had carried the state with a solid 29,000 majority.
In Washington for his second tour, Cooper opposed the Bricker amendment, the tidelands bill and the Benson farm program. His main legislative achievement belongs to Cooper the practical politician rather than to Cooper the high-minded statesman. He got through an amendment fixing tobacco supports rigidly at 90% of parity, a triumph that endeared him to many of his tobacco-grower constituents.
He voted so often with the Democrats that the A.D.A. in 1953 voted him the most liberal Republican in the Senate.
Despite this dubious endorsement and his differences with the Administration, he is a White House favorite, and it was no accident that the President's first political tour of 1954 was to Kentucky, on behalf of John Sherman Cooper.
In Washington, Cooper labors unsystematically but tirelessly seven days a week, on an average of eleven hours a day. He lives in the elegant Cosmos Club, and resolutely fends off hostesses, keeping his social engagements down to a maximum of three a week. As always, his office swarms with constituents, and John Cooper frequently begins his day with breakfast surrounded by visiting friends. So hectic is the pace that his administrative assistant, Bill Macomber, finds it necessary to pick up the Senator and drive him to the office each morning in order to confer privately and get the Cooper calendar straight.
"As long as the car is moving," says Macomber, "he can't get away."
A Question of Age. At 52, Cooper is in the pink of condition. He stands 6 ft. 11n., weighs a strapping 185 Ibs. Two years ago Cooper was ordered to bed by his doctor with what seemed to be an alarming heart condition. It later turned out that the doctor's electrocardiograph and not Cooper's heart was faulty, but the untrue rumor that Cooper had heart trouble has persisted. He smokes a rare cigarette, drinks an occasional bourbon highball, and dresses soberly. He has a horror of loud ties, and when he is tempted to substitute one with a touch of color for his favorite dark blue knit, he sometimes appeals to Macomber to tell him whether the new tie is too loud. Assured that it is not, Cooper is still likely to whip the blue tie out of his pocket and change.
The matter of age and health is bound to be an issue in the Cooper-Barkley campaign. Although the durable old Veep is in vigorous health, the indisputable fact that he is 24 years older than his opponent will weigh heavily against him with many voters. He is only a few pounds overweight (190 Ibs.), but, as he rumbles, "I always gain weight on campaigns. Out visiting these people, they put on the table Kentucky ham, fried chicken, turnip greens, boiled potatoes, three-story cake and the other good eats. It's hard for a healthy man to resist." Barkley recognizes in Cooper a formidable opponent, and he realizes that it has been six years since he last campaigned for himself—a long time away from the hustings.