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By the Lapels. In Idaho, Montana, Utah, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona, Teddy made the townsfolk feel that just as soon as the elections were over he and Joan planned to settle there and find their future. Teddy crossed Wyoming six times, and delegates can recall literally being held by their lapels while Teddy extolled his brother. Says Wyoming Democratic Chairman Teno Roncalio: "He made me get up every morning and go horseback riding with him at 6 o'clock—and for an hour and a half!" At the Los Angeles convention, saddlesore Roncalio was vice chairman of the Wyoming delegation that gave all of its 15 votes to Jack—and put him over the top for the nomination. In the general election, Teddy fared worse: n Western states went for Nixon. But regional Democrats assign no blame to Teddy: had it not been for him, they say, Jack Kennedy might have been shut out.
After the election, Teddy went off on another trip abroad. It was the seventh he had made and, as always, he followed his father's instructions, scribbling down voluminous notes in brown, spiral-backed notebooks. He returned to Massachusetts to take a job as an assistant district attorney for Suffolk County. He accepted only a token $1 of the $5,000-a-year salary—like his brothers and sisters, he had received a $1,000,000 trust fund at the age of 21—and quietly began planning with his father to become the Democratic nominee in the senatorial election to fill his brother's old seat.**
Steady Eddie. It took some doing. Eddie McCormack was much more than the favorite nephew of the Speaker of the House of Representatives. An Annapolis graduate, McCormack finished first in his class at Boston University's law school, gave up a successful practice (estimated annual income: $40,000) to start out in politics as an elected member of the Boston city council. Twice elected attorney general—the last time in 1960 by more than 400,000 votes—Eddie compiled a solid, if not brilliant, record, particularly in civil rights cases. For Senator in 1962 he was, as much as anyone could be, the choice of the Democratic Party's regular organization, an uneasy alliance of local bosses split by national origin (Irish v. Italian) and geography (greater Boston v. western Massachusetts). Eddie was also the favorite of Massachusetts' intellectual community. Historian Samuel Eliot Morison, Theologian Reinhold Niebuhr (a visiting professor at Harvard), and Harvard Law Professor Mark DeWolfe Howe joined to declare that "Teddy has been aptly described as a 'fledgling in everything except ambition.' "
Teddy could hardly have cared less about the party bosses. To whip up strength, he created his own organization of eager young pros and amateurs. Teddy's first job was to win the party's endorsement at the convention in June. He held out the promise of some postmaster-ships. But his real appeal was to those who simply wanted to ride with a winner. Teddy thought like a winner, talked like a winner, and acted like a winner. He urged delegates to vote for him and thereby "do yourself a favor." The delegates did, and the convention was no contest: Teddy won on the first ballot.