Back to the Republicans

California's First Congressional District sweeps 300 miles up the rocky California coastline, from the San Francisco suburbs in Marin County past the vineyards of Sonoma and Napa counties to the rugged timberlands near the Oregon border. The First customarily sent a conservative to Congress until 1958, when liberal Democrat Clem Miller won the seat on his second try. Youthful and highly articulate. Miller was re-elected in 1960. He seemed a sure winner for 1962, so the Democratic-controlled state legislature altered his district only slightly in the gerrymandering that followed the 1960 census.

Last November, in the strangest congressional election of the year, Clem Miller again got a majority of the votes--four weeks after he had been killed in the crash of a twin-engined plane on Chaparral Mountain near Eureka. California law prohibits any change in the ballot within 40 days of an election, so the Democrats were unable to replace Miller. They kept on campaigning, argued that by electing Miller posthumously and forcing a later special election, the voters could keep the Republican candidate from winning by default. "The people are entitled to an election with a choice of candidates," said the Democrats.

Defeated by 3,000 votes on Election Day, Republican Candidate Don Clausen never stopped campaigning. A longtime airplane enthusiast (he was one of the first pilots to join the search when Miller's plane was reported missing), earnest, energetic Insurance Man Clausen, 39, flew up and down the huge district in his own Piper Apache, preaching his theme that Big Government in Washington had become "unmanageable." The California Republican Committee gave him a lot of support, including "victory squad" volunteers from Southern California to help get out the vote.

After some arguing about who their candidate was going to be, the Democrats picked portly William Grader, 45, owner of a fish-processing plant and sometime political handyman for Congressman Miller. Grader was little known among the voters, and Republicans did as little as possible to call him to their attention. Democrats tried to concoct an issue by calling Clausen "Dodging Don," offering a $100 prize to anyone who could get him on the same platform with Grader.

Grader seemed to have arithmetic going for him: on the registration rolls. Democrats outnumbered Republicans by 13,000 in the First District. But last week Clausen walloped Grader 79.340 to 65.317, and California's First went back to the Republicans.

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