By Ray Hill There is likely no more fickle mistress than that of politics.  Political success for any person is always a combination of many things, not the least of which are timing and good fortune.  Momentary popularity can be washed away in a tide of ill fortune,...

By Ray Hill Senator Estes Kefauver won a resounding reelection victory in 1960 after facing a bitter primary contest with Judge Andrew “Tip” Taylor.  It was to be his last campaign. Kefauver never relied on the usual gift of the Southern politician, oratory.  A...

By Ray Hill Estes Kefauver had been in the United States Senate for twelve years in 1960.  He had quickly risen to national prominence, making two serious bids for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1952 and 1956.  Kefauver had crushed a determined opposition...

By Ray Hill Tennessee’s Senator Estes Kefauver had once again bid for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1956.  Unlike 1952, Kefauver had encountered stiff competition from various other candidates.  Former Illinois governor and 1952 Democratic presidential...

By Ray Hill Senator Estes Kefauver had demolished his opposition inside the 1954 Democratic primary and he had been reelected to a second term that fall easily. Almost immediately following his reelection, Senator Kefauver began considering another run for the...

By Ray Hill Senator Estes Kefauver had made a spirited bid for the 1952 Democratic presidential nomination, only to lose to a candidate who had never entered the first primary and remained coy until the last minute.  Kefauver was profoundly disappointed but that did...

  By Ray Hill   The publicity generated by the Kefauver Committee investigating crime had elevated Tennessee’s Senator Estes Kefauver into the limelight. It was one of the first Congressional hearings to be broadcast live over television and some twenty or...

  By Ray Hill Aside from the dislike he endured from his senior colleague, K. D. McKellar, Estes Kefauver’s first few years in the United States Senate were reasonably pleasant. Kefauver, like McKellar, tended to constituent service and attending committee...

Estes Kefauver had quite nearly managed the impossible by getting himself elected to the United States Senate in 1948.  Kefauver took advantage of E. H. Crump’s mistake in refusing to back Senator Tom Stewart for reelection. The state of the national Democratic Party...