Word: stassen
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...seven. After Robert Kennedy's murder, he was assigned a few Secret Service guards, which prompted a Congressman's quip: "It's the biggest crowd he's had this campaign." Not even his wife accompanies him on his campaign. Yet he persists. He is Harold Stassen, who quadrennially offers up his obsession on the public altar-where it is scorned...
...Once Stassen was the boy wonder-a county attorney at 23, Governor of Minnesota at 31, Republican Convention keynoter (in 1940) at 33, as well as floor manager for Wendell Willkie. His own cause peaked in 1948 when he scored impressive victories in the Wisconsin and Nebraska presidential primaries, only to be overwhelmed in Oregon by New York's Tom Dewey. Since then, his course has been downhill. Now 61, he wears an unconvincing toupee and a sadly forced smile. His current slogan is STASSEN '68-WHY NOT? A better question...
...Stassen, according to friends, is as implacable "as a medium tank." Ponderous and humorless, he travels the country by airliner and rented cars to confront an electorate that does not care. To him, running for President seems to be somewhere between a hobby and a quirk. "He has this blind spot," said a friend, "this assumption that he knows more than anybody...
...deceptively reasonable tones, Stassen retorts: "I realize the small power I have within the G.O.P., but I have confidence I can win in November." He is used to derision, he says. "I steel myself. I've been in the center and out, and back. This is part of my life." It is an utterly quixotic part, at best, and scarcely rational, but he is determined to play it to its lonely...
...failed to manifest any significant opposition to Richard Nixon's Presidential steamroller. With about 57 per cent of the votes recorded, Nixon had 71 per cent to 22 per cent for Governor Ronald Reagan, 7 per cent for Governor Nelson Rockefeller, and 1 per cent for former Governor Harold Stassen...