One Down

Californians had been looking forward to a real show in this year's Republican gubernatorial primary campaign between Richard Nixon and former Governor Goodwin J. Knight, a vigorous stump speaker and a vociferous Nixon hater. Last week the show ended almost before it began: Goodie Knight, 65, bedded down since November with infectious hepatitis, announced that he would reluctantly give up his 1962 political plans, and follow his doctor's advice not to run.

Knight's withdrawal left Nixon with two rivals for the chance to oppose Democratic Incumbent Edmund ("Pat") Brown in November. One is Harold J. ("Butch") Powers, 61, lieutenant governor under Knight, who has done no campaigning to date, hopes to inherit Knight's following ("He and I always saw eye to eye," says Powers). The other, more serious challenger to Nixon is Assemblyman Joseph C. Shell, 43. Shell has been buzzing busily around the state, piloting his own Beechcraft Bonanza from one campaign appearance to the next. A onetime University of Southern California halfback, husky (6 ft. 2 in., 210 lbs.) Joe Shell pitches his appeal to California's right wing: "I've gotten sick and tired of calling people liberals when they're basically socialists. I find a very great surge of conservatism in California. Not a surge--an explosion."

Nixon remains the heavy favorite in the June primary. But Shell's candidacy may serve at least one purpose--measuring the strength of California's much-discussed right wing. An impressive showing by Shell would please some oddly assorted bedfellows: Barry Goldwater and others, who argue that the only hope of the G.O.P. is in a strongly conservative stand, and practically all Democrats, who would like nothing better than to pin the Far Right label on the whole G.O.P.

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