Another aspirant was John E. Lamb, who had begun a career of exceptional promise as a member of the house of representatives before he was thirty, had maintained the reputation then made through years of brilliant service on the stump, and had, upon the personal request of Mr. Bryan, taken charge of the western headquarters in the campaign of 1908. Major G. V. Menzies, who had behind him a long career of effective party service, L. Ert Slack, about whom the radical temperance forces rallied, and E. G. Hoffman, a young man, then comparatively little known but backed with the prestige of the organization that had nominated Marshall for governor, completed the list. While the various candidates and their organizations made the customary claims, it was generally thought throughout the state among party men of the rank and file that the recent nominee for vice-president would have an easy triumph, previous to the appearance of the politicians in Indianapolis. It was the contention of Mr. Shively’s supporters that since Kern had chosen the vice-presidency and their candidate had confined himself to the senatorial campaign the state victory warranted him in insisting upon the fruit of the triumph; and Mr. Lamb’s friends were equally insistent upon the claim that his management of the western campaign for the party gave him a clear right to the honor; while the others rested their cases upon the ground that any good party man had a right to aspire to the senatorship. Notwithstanding all these conflicting claims the prevalent impression over the state was that Kern would be selected. Until the politicians moved on Indianapolis, two weeks before the caucus, there was not the shadow of a doubt in the mind of Mr. Kern as to his election.