Indiana: Codgerism

Hey, look him over,

He's your kind of guy.

His first name is Birch,

His last name is Bayh.

In the last two weeks of the campaign. Hoosiers heard little else on radio and television stations. That campaign song was the climactic effort by Democrat Birch Bayh, 34, to unseat three-term Republican Senator Homer Capehart, 65. And unseated Homer was. But it was less because of Bayh's jumpy theme-tune than because Capehart looked, talked and acted like an old codger.

Going for him, Capehart had experience, a recognized name, and a pretty good political organization. Going against him, he had the most ponderous manners and the heaviest jowls in U.S. politics. On his record, he was not too far to the right of middle-of-the-road Republicanism. But his image was that of a conservative who had just crept out of a cave. For weeks, he had demanded that the Kennedy Administration take strong action against Cuba; when action was taken. Homer thought he had it made. But with ranks closing behind the President, no one heard Capehart's I-told-you-so.

As for Bayh, he was raised on an Indiana farm, took a degree in agriculture at Purdue, won election to the state house of representatives at 25. He became minority leader in 1957 and speaker in 1959, meanwhile earned a law degree at Indiana University. He started his hard campaign for the Senate a full year ago. Says Bayh: "I feel the average voter is impressed by a fellow who's out there just working his tail off." Homer Capehart. who just happened to be a responsible, hard-working Senator, would have expressed the same sentiment--but in the words of an old codger. And that was the difference.

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