The Communist Party’s Role in the Rise of Joseph McCarthy

As a postscript to
this morning’s item about Joe McCarthy, here’s a fun
question for you: What role did the Communist Party play in
McCarthy’s rise to federal office? No, I’m not talking about
some crazy Manchurian Candidate scenario—just the
accidental effects of the party’s activities in the 1946
election.

Before then, Wisconsin was represented in the Senate by Bob
LaFollette, Jr. The senator had been affiliated with the Progressive
Party, a left-wing outfit, but in the mid-’40s the Progressives
merged with the GOP. (That sounds extremely weird today, I know.
But it was possible to be an overtly liberal Republican back then.)
After the merger, LaFollette lost to McCarthy in the Republicans’
1946 primary.

Why did McCarthy beat LaFollette? The main reason is that the
Democratic candidate, Howard McMurray, campaigned hard for the
state’s liberals to vote for him in the Dem primary (where he was
running unopposed) rather than for LaFollette in the contested
Republican race. He was fairly successful in this: Not every member
of the old Progressive Party was eager to follow LaFollette into
the GOP, and even if they wanted to support LaFollette there were
candidates for other offices that they could back only if they
voted in the Democratic race.

Organized labor in particular decided, for the most part, to
vote for McMurray rather than LaFollette. And among the forces
pushing the unions in that direction were the Wisconsin Communists,
who hated LaFollette—like many people on the non-Marxist left, he
was strongly anti-Communist. (McCarthy, meanwhile, had not yet
embraced the issue that would make him famous. He appeared at this
point to be member of the
moderate, internationalist wing of the Republicans,
attacking LaFollette for “voting in opposition to world
co-operation.”)

Did the Communist Party play the deciding role in LaFollette’s
loss? LaFollette himself thought so, but he was probably wrong:
Patrick Maney’s bio
Young Bob makes a good case that other factors were
more important. But the Communists did play a role in
McCarthy’s win. If you’re a fan of juicy historical ironies, you
can add that to your file.