Compromise Candidates

This is one disadvantage of the primaries. The other is that many powerful candidates choose to stay out of them altogether. This year, among the Democrats, Senators Johnson and Symington have done this in the hope that Kennedy and Humphrey would either knock each other out of the race or stalemate each other, leaving the field clear to a compromise candidate at the party's convention. Both fancy themselves in such a role. However, despite the partial truth of ex-President Truman's irate statement that "primaries are eyewash," they do provide a good means of letting a candidate get his name, face and ideas known to the electorate. Johnson and Symington may be doing themselves harm from this point of view.