Do They Still Like Mike?

During a visit to Toledo some years ago, former King Michael of Rumania voiced astonishment at the way the citizens addressed Mayor Michael Di Salle as "Mike." In old Europe, marveled the ex-monarch, such familiarity toward a high public official would be unthinkable. "Maybe so," Mayor Di Salle replied, "but if your people had called you Mike, you might still be King."

Witty, yam-shaped Democrat Di Salle, Harry Truman's price stabilization chief during the Korean war, is now Governor of Ohio. People still call him Mike, but after his present term, he may no longer be Governor. Di Salle faces a strenuous battle this fall against Republican State Auditor James A. Rhodes. A Di Salle-v.-Rhodes contest would confront voters with a clear-cut choice between differing concepts of government. Di Salle, 54, is a welfare-stater who in 1959 pushed through the legislature a $300 million increase in state taxes. Rhodes, 53, will be running on the block-that-budget, no-new-taxes stand taken by Ohio Republicans in 1960, when they wrested control of the legislature away from the Democrats.

"Deceptive Invective." Ohio's 1960 election returns, with the G.O.P. recapturing the legislature and Nixon walloping Kennedy, made Di Salle doubt the wisdom of trying for a second term in 1962. His losing budget battles with the legislature confirmed Di Salle's doubts, and last October he announced that he would not run. He could fight for his programs, he said, without getting into "the slugging match of a political campaign." The farewell was premature. Convinced that they could do better with Di Salle than without him, state Democrats, with an assist from President Kennedy, pressured him into changing his mind, and Mike thereupon announced his discovery that he could not fight for his programs without getting into "the slugging match of a political campaign."

Meanwhile, State Attorney General Mark McElroy, taking Di Salle at his original word, had declared himself a candidate for the nomination. Angry when Di Salle put himself back in the running, McElroy hooted at Di Salle's "fumbling, faltering re-entry," and has been slashing at the Governor ever since. He calls him "tax-hike Mike" and a "quarrelsome master of deceptive invective," a man who "wisecracks a smokescreen of mirages to hide his failures."

Proven Vote Getter. Despite the pungency of McElroy's invective, most Ohio politicians think Di Salle will beat him in next week's primary. McElroy has shown little personal color, has waged an almost entirely negative, I-don't-like-Mike campaign. But Republican Rhodes (sure to win the G.O.P. primary) has a fighting chance to beat Di Salle in November. Rhodes is a versatile man who served two terms as president of the Amateur Athletic Union and coauthored three books of U.S. history. He is a tireless joiner and a proven vote getter who, in winning reelection as auditor in 1960, gathered the largest number of votes ever given any candidate for an Ohio state office.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.