The issue of McCarthyism hangs over Wisconsin politics like a pea soup fog. From Milwaukee to the Canadian border, it dwarfs the normal Senatorial issues in the press and public discussions. Because of it, Joseph R. McCarthy is favored to win reelection even though he has made not one campaign speech and has a voting record that defies the will of his constituents.

McCarthy's six years in the Senate have had a devastating effect on politics in the state of the La Follettes. It has polarized political attitudes, leaving voters an almost reactionary Republican party, and a strongly liberal Democratic party. On both sides, there is a fanaticism that parallels the most vicious days of the Taft-Ike struggle for the Republican nomination. Realizing the national repercussions of the Wisconsin elections, Republicans feel they have a moral duty to give McCarthy a new lease of power in his fight against Communism. Democrats believe the state will lose its honor if it does not retire McCarthy this year.

Through all the fog and emotion plods Democratic nominee Thomas Fairchild, trying to conduct a normal Senatorial campaign. Although he bears a proud family name in the state, and is his party's best vote-getter, Fairchild knows he probably cannot win the election on the McCarthyism issue. In a state with a large Catholic population and a strong residue of isolationist sentiment from La Follette's day, McCarthy has somehow convinced the voters he has bagged Communists with his blunderbuss attacks.

Fairchild has teed off instead on McCarthy's Senate voting record. To the state's large farm population, he points out the Senator's opposition to price supports and rural electrification. In the cities, he is castigating McCarthy for his vote against the St. Lawrence Seaway, which would bring profitable deep sea shipping to Milwaukee and Superior.

Fairchild makes a good, respectable impression, but lights no emotional fires. His biggest campaign asset is Wisconsin's Democratic Organizing Committee, which carried the state for Truman in 1948. A dedicated and well-organized group, the Committee can bring out the city precinct vote which might offset McCarthy's rural strength.

In sharp contrast to Fairchild, McCarthy has not campaigned in Wisconsin since his September primary victory. He refuses to discuss any issue but Communists in Government, and even that only in a state-wide broadcast the night before election. However, his nationwide speaking tour, which will end with an "exposure" of Governor Stevenson's "Communist connections" before a nationwide TV audience October 27, has gained the Senator much publicity in his home state.

Predictions on the race must use as a base line McCarthy's September primary victory. On the surface, the Senator's 415,000 primary vote--more than half of the total vote of both parties--was enormous. He outpolled his Republican opponent, Leonard Schmitt, by more than 2 to 1. After the election it was said that even Democrats crossed party lines to vote for McCarthy. This is untrue. County-by-county breakdowns show that insofar as Democrats did vote in the Republican primary, it was for Schmitt. The only exceptions were three wards in the Polish section of South Milwaukee, where the "sellout of Poland" issue obscured even McCarthyism.

Six hundred thousand more votes will be cast in the November election than were counted in the primary. Fairchild is banking on the two-thirds of this increase that traditionally goes Democrat to erase McCarthy's lead. He also needs the 200,000 Schmidt votes that should follow their candidate into the Fairchild camp.

But Fairchild has a long way to go. He must buck the overwhelmingly Republican Wisconsin press, which has refused him coverage in town after town. He is opposed by the powerful Republican Voluntary Committee, headed by ex-Taft strategist Tom Coleman, which is financing huge in absentia rallys for McCarthy. And toughest of all, Fairchild must crack the myth of Joe McCarthy, America's Number One Commie-Hunter.