The so-called 'progressive' Robert laFollette Jr., was founder of the Nazii-sympathizing America First Committee with others like Charles Lindberg (medaled by Goering), Henry Ford, etc. (A war sure brings out the worst in liberals... as we're seeing today).
In 1946 the CIO, the striking UE workers at AliceChalmers in Wisconsin, the AFL, and the CP all opposed the Republican candidate LaFollette who spent the war supporting Germany through the America First Committee and then attacking communists. In this light, it's not clear how failing to support Republicans over democrats is 'tailing'.
So since the entire working class abandoned LaFollette (not simply the CP), one may be thinking: "what the heck was the working class thinking"?
Probably this:
"For it was La Follette, not McCarthy, who had made the "Red Menace" the central issue of the 1946 campaign, a fact that haunted Young Bob to the end of his days." [...] "By the time he faced off against McCarthy in the 1946 Wisconsin Republican Primary, La Follette was coupling criticism of Soviet expansionism with warnings about the Red menace at home. He charged that Communists and fellow-travelers, which he likened to "vermin," had infiltrated organized labor, the news media, and even the government." http://www.vqronline.org/articles/2001/summer/maney-joe-mccarthys-first/
<http://www.vqronline.org/articles/2001/summer/maney-joe-mccarthys-first/>In this context, a strategy opposing republican LaFollette against a little-known republican Joe McCarthy, hoping to win later with a democrat was not such a crazy gamble - after all, McCarthy only beat LaFollette by one percent, so it was plausible that McCarthy could be defeated. Unfortunately, it turned out the democrat wasn't strong enough.
Even in hindsight, it's not clear that a rabidly anti-communist LaFollette would have been any better than a rabidly anti-communist McCarthy. The entire ruling class - liberal to reactionary - was plotting the same thing: attack the communists. -PF
On Mon, Mar 28, 2011 at 12:34 PM, Carrol Cox <cbcox at ilstu.edu> wrote:
>
> Footnote: The CP influenced quite a number of votes in Wisconsin. They
> supported McCarthy against La Follette because they thought he would be a
> weaker opponent in the general election! Tailing the DP leads to many
> strange and dark corners.
>
> Carrol
>
-- Peter Fay http://theclearview.wordpress.com