threat for Ike. The liberal coalition that Dewey had formed six months earlier was

spending more time attacking each other than Taft, and Dewey clearly was not in

control of the situation. Dewey also reaffirmed that Eisenhower's most critical

weakness was his lack of public policy statements. The Governor again pleaded for

Eisenhower to return in the spring "in order to answer the additional questions which

honest men have a right to ask."59

 The next few weeks saw Taft reaffirm his strength in the Midwest. In

Wisconsin, the bailiwick of his Midwestern manager Tom Coleman, Taft won an

aggressive campaign against an ineffectual Stassen and California Governor Earl

Warren.60 For most of late March, Taft stumped in the Badger State and, on April 1,

took twenty-four delegates to Warren's six. On the same day, Taft won the Nebraska

primary by just over twelve thousand votes against Eisenhower. Neither candidate had

entered their names on the ballot, but their followers organized write-in campaigns,

Taft's obviously more successfully.61 The press believed that the Wisconsin and

Nebraska results had rejuvenated the Taft campaign. Marquis Childs wrote that Taft

had scored a "technical knockout" in his Midwestern campaigns.62

 To the Taft camp, the results affirmed their strategy of criticizing Eisenhower

for his lack of public pronouncements and promoting their own conservative

ideology. Romney summed up the sentiments of the Taft group when he told one

correspondent that "General Eisenhower is living, as it were, in a glass house. He has

59 Ibid.

60 Eisenhower was barred by Wisconsin election law from placing his name on the ballot unless he
personally affirmed that he was actively seeking the nomination. Since he was precluded from doing
this under military regulations, Eisenhower could not run head to head against Taft in Wisconsin. See
New York Times, 16 January 1952.

61 Christian Science-Monitor, 18 March 1952; Christian Science-Monitor 2 April 1952; Greene, The
Crusade, 82-93.

62 Washington Post, 3 April 1952.