Word: crumps
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...Senator, Crump had dumped servile Tom Stewart, a politician with no great vote-getting appeal, in favor of a man with still less: an obscure, hill-country judge named John A. Mitchell. Stung into independence, Stewart ran anyway. But neither candidate was a match for hardworking, respected Congressman Estes Kefauver...
Rough Campaign. The boss had strung along with ex-Auctioneer Jim McCord, out to get a third term, for Governor. This time, for the first time in 20 years, Crump's support was a liability: all over Tennessee, people had finally become fed up with one-man rule from Memphis. They were also fed up with McCord, mainly because he had jammed a 2% sales tax through the legislature...
Winner Browning had been elected governor (with Crump backing) in 1936, was overthrown two years later-when Boss Crump found him too "independent." He had piled up an impressive record in World War II and he campaigned aggressively. At week's end Browning's lead was more than 54,000 votes...
Even for Tennessee, the campaign was rough. Boss Crump alienated countless voters by his unrestrained use of invective. He spent $18,000 a day for huge newspaper ads to revile Browning and Kefauver. He repeated old slurs on Browning ("Of the 206 bones in his body, there isn't one that is genuine . . . His heart has beaten over two billion times without a sincere beat"). He called Kefauver an "oxblood Red" and "pet coon." Kefauver turned the attack to his own advantage by donning a coonskin cap and invading the boss's own Shelby County (Memphis) five times...
...better campaigner than either Stewart or Mitchell, Kefauver won large audiences all over the state. Labor supported him for his vote against the Taft-Hartley bill; business and professional men liked his courageous stand against Crump. When the votes were in, Kefauver topped Tom Stewart by 34,000 votes; Crumpet John Mitchell ran a dismal third. Shelby County, which used to roll up 60,000 votes for a Crump candidate, gave him only...