"Rep." & "Dem."

For 40 years primary elections in California have been colossal exercises in political confusion. Under a cross-filing law adopted in 1913, Republicans and Democrats filed freely in each other's primaries, and the voters could never tell from the ballot which candidate came from what party. As a result, many a candidate said as little as possible about his party affiliation, and won both sides of the primary. Last week Californians went to the polls under a new primary law and set a different pattern.

Under the new law, candidates must be labeled ("Rep." or "Dem.") on all primary ballots. Thus a Republican running in the Democratic primary is clearly recognizable as an interloper, as is a Democrat in a G.O.P. primary. In 1952, under the old law, 14 candidates won both nominations for the U.S. House of Representatives. Last week, under the new law, only two scored double victories. In 1950 four candidates for top state offices won both nominations. Last week only one--vote-getting Attorney General Pat Brown, the only Democrat holding a major state office --was able to do so. U.S. Senator Thomas Kuchel and Governor Goodwin J. Knight, Republicans, failed to match the double primary victories of Governor Earl Warren in 1946 and U.S. Senator William Knowland in 1952.

Sponsored by Democrats, the new law proved to be a boon to its sponsors. For a reason no one has adequately explained, Republicans have won more dual nominations than Democrats under the old law, although Democrats have a 3-2 edge in registrations. This time Democrats campaigned hard. Their best slogan: "Don't let two million Republicans fool three million Democrats." For the first time in 40 years Democrats were able to nominate a full slate of their own candidates.

But the figures were not clear cause for Democratic jubilance. Republicans generally did far better on the Democratic ballot than Democrats did on the G.O.P. ticket, and the Republicans' total two-party vote was substantially higher. For governor, the count was: on the Republican ticket, well-known Republican Knight 1,083,733, little-known Democrat Richard Graves 104,683; on the Democratic ticket, Graves 791,777, Knight 667,375. The primary results indicated that the dual primary victories will become a rarity, but they did not show that the G.O.P. was losing its grip in California. Best proof: Knight's two-party total was the largest primary vote ever cast for a candidate for governor.

Among other notable results: P: In the Sixth Congressional District (northeast of Berkeley), Democratic Representative Robert L. Condon was renominated, although he had been 1) barred from an atom-bomb test in Nevada last year by the Atomic Energy Commission as a "security risk," and 2) disowned by the Democratic National Committee.

P:In Los Angeles Mrs. Mildred Younger, 33, the "glamour girl" of the 1952 G.O.P.

National Convention (where she seconded the nomination of Earl Warren), was nominated as the Republican candidate for the state senate, where no woman has ever served. A former model and fashion writer, Mrs. Younger is the wife of Municipal Judge Evelle Younger, has a ten-year-old son. (A second son died of polio in 1947; Mrs. Younger herself survived a nine-month siege of polio in 1951.) She believes she won the primary on "a moral issue." The man she defeated: State Senator Jack Tenney, onetime chairman of the California Un-American Activities Committee, the violently anti-Semitic 1952 vice-presidential candidate on the Christian Nationalist ticket.

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