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He's the man that we need; We'll all follow his lead. He's our Adlai, our Adlai, our Adlai, our Adlai, Our Adlai's a wonderful guy.
According to George Gallup, about 45% of U.S. voters could now sing Our Adlai with something approaching full-throated conviction. That's a lot of voters—and a fraction more than the polls gave Harry Truman at a comparable time in 1948. But in some respects it is a wonder that anyone has a chance to sing Our Adlai at all. Ten months ago, Adlai Stevenson was not even a name in the national consciousness; his rise has been unmatched in U.S. politics since Wendell Willkie's star raced across the sky in 1940.
How did Stevenson get there? What turned him from a reluctant candidate into an aggressive campaigner? And what kind of sense is he making to the American people?
He and his opponent, two very dissimilar men, have a common problem: the problem of being the nominee of a loosely knit and fractious party. Each is the leader of his party, at least for the duration of the campaign; and each is, to some extent, his party's captive.
Days of Doubt. The requirements for the 1952 Democratic candidate were cheerfully laid down last May by Harry Truman. At the convention of the Americans for Democratic Action, a left-of-center group that generally lines up with the Democrats, Harry Truman said: "When a Democratic candidate allows himself to be put on the defensive and starts apologizing for the New Deal and the Fair Deal . . . he is sure to lose. The people don't want a phony Democrat. If it's a choice between a genuine Republican and a Republican in Democratic clothing, the people will choose the genuine article every time. That is, they'll take the Republican ... I don't want any phony Democrats in this campaign."
At that time, Adlai Stevenson was certainly reluctant to be the Democratic nominee. His reluctance was based on three points: his disinclination to run against Eisenhower, his horror of a Truman endorsement and his desire to continue his promising career as governor of Illinois. At that time, Ike was thought to be invincible, Truman was regarded as ballot-box poison and Stevenson was sure of re-election as governor.
As convention time came nearer, and after Ike got the Republican nomination, the pressure on Stevenson to say yes or no became almost unbearable. In Minnesota, asked what he would do if he got the nomination, he gave a hoot of nervous laughter and said: "I guess I'd just shoot myself." Two days before the convention opened, in a more serious tone, he told his own Illinois delegates not to vote for him, saying that he did not aspire to the presidency and was "temperamentally, physically and mentally" unfitted for the job. Told of a Washington story that President Truman had decided to support him, he said: "Dear God, no!"