Too Busy to Win

One lesson of South Dakota's Republican primary last week was that the race goes to him who campaigns for it. Chubby Chan Gurney, one of the few Midwest Senators who early saw beyond isolationism, had served two terms and saw no reason why he wouldn't be re-elected for a third. He stayed in Washington.

His opponent, Representative Francis Case, Methodist minister's son and onetime country editor, left his duties in Washington, covered the state in a gas-station-and-drugstore campaign. Case was for economy first, last & always--including cuts in foreign aid and military preparedness. To Case's invitation to argue it out before the voters, Gurney coolly replied that he was busy.

Two weeks before election, Gurney went to South Dakota. By then it was too late. Underdog Case won, 58,000 to 43,000. Commented Vermont's Senator George Aiken: "It made some of those who are up for re-election realize they had better go back home to do some politicking."

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