G.O.P. on Top

Massachusetts' top Republicans, for a change, approach the November elections as odds-on favorites. Governor John Volpe, 57, now in his second term in office, has been one of the state's most effective and most popular chief executives. By any realistic standard, he is considered all but unbeatable for reelection. And Attorney General Edward Brooke, 46, a Negro, seems likely to win the U.S. Senate seat of Republican Brahmin Leverett Saltonstall, 74, who is retiring next January after 22 years in office.

Brooke, one of the most successful vote getters in Massachusetts history, will be opposed by Endicott ("Chub") Peabody, 46, an unimpressive if well-meaning former Governor who was ignominiously defeated for nomination by his own Lieutenant Governor in the 1964 primary. This year Peabody won the Democratic nomination after a bruising battle with Boston's two-term mayor, John Collins, 47, an icy pragmatist whose political strength is based largely in the city, where he has mounted a brilliant if bloodless attack on urban renewal problems. Collins, a polio victim who is usually confined to a wheelchair, relied extensively on well-delivered television oratory and made an attempt to attract white-backlash votes by pointedly rejecting "civil disobedience as a means of attaining democratic objectives." Chub Peabody tirelessly stumped the state, chopping away at Collins' "public-be-damned" redevelopment program and recounting his own liberal record as Governor. Responding sympathetically to Peabody's image of ingenuous honesty, the voters gave him 321,035 votes to 265,213 for Collins. A third candidate, Boston Brahmin Thomas Boylston Adams, mounted an antiwar campaign, but got only 51,483 votes.

Volpe's opponent in November will be Edward J. McCormack, 43, nephew of U.S. House Speaker John McCormack, who is widely known in the state --partly because he was an able attorney general (1958-63), but mostly because of his bitter, unsuccessful struggle with Teddy Kennedy for the senatorial nomination in 1962. In the primary, McCormack easily defeated Kenny O'Donnell, 42, one of John Kennedy's top White House political experts, who had never before run for office himself and was little known to rank-and-file voters. It will be a different story when McCormack takes on Volpe.

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