Meyner's Wand

New Jersey's Governor Robert Baumle Meyner knows that a presidential prospect can look like Cinderella, but he must also have a sure touch with the fairy godmother's political wand. Bob Meyner was Cinderellegant last November; he swept to a second term at Trenton with the highest vote total (1,000,000) ever registered by a New Jersey Democrat (TIME, Nov. 18). And last week his political wand struck sparks. Winner in a tight battle for the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senator: handpicked, hand-pushed Meyner Candidate Harrison A. Williams Jr., 38.

Angry Rival. "Pete" Williams' margin was narrow, but it left no doubt that Meyner is now in command of the Jersey Democrats. At the beginning of the campaign, Williams, a personable, articulate Oberlin and Columbia law graduate who was twice elected to Congress from normally Republican Union County, was a vote-drawing favorite. Then dissident Democrats in boss-ridden Hudson County broke with Meyner over patronage. Against Williams they put up John J. Grogan, 44, mayor of Hoboken and president of the Shipbuilders Union. Williams' hopes were dimmed further when New Jersey's un-merged A.F.L. and C.I.O., angry at Meyner for not accepting a labor plan for extending unemployment compensation, gave Grogan an unprecedented primary endorsement. On election night Meyner-Leaguer Williams was practically written off as solid, stolid John Grogan roared out of early-reporting Hudson County with an unexpected 72,000-vote plurality. Then the Meyner magic began to show itself. A swollen Democratic primary turnout (350,000) helped Williams carry 18 of the remaining 20 counties with sizable pluralities. Outside Hudson, labor's endorsement went sour; e.g., Williams carried heavily unionized Passaic County 7-1. Williams finally edged Grogan by a slim 15,000 votes, but he was the first Democrat in modern New Jersey history to lose Hudson and win an election.

Few Enemies. In November, Williams will be up against ten-term Congressman Robert Winthrop Kean (rhymes with pane), 64, the Republican winner. On the strength of a 40,000-vote plurality in Essex and Union Counties, Kean won by 24,000 votes over President Eisenhower's onetime appointments secretary, Bernard Shanley, who had strong G.O.P. machine endorsement. Trailing as a poor third: sometime (on and off between 1951 and 1958) Senate Internal Security Subcommittee Counsel Robert Morris, vehement anti-Communist and G.O.P. right-winger.

Republican Kean is favored in the general election despite Democratic tides and anti-Republican recession rumbles. During 20 years in Congress, he has made few New Jersey enemies, won friends in both business and labor as a liberal but cautious tax expert, social security advocate and fighter for such Administration measures as reciprocal trade and foreign aid. Meyner Man Williams, nominated without Hudson County in the primary, needs a whopping Democratic vote from Hudson County to overcome a G.O.P. opponent in nominally Republican New Jersey. But Pete Williams' hopes are high, since he knows the unexpected power of the wizardly wand of Meyner.

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