Upset in Wisconsin

Wisconsin's Seventh District, a picturesque region of forests, lakes and dairy farms, has long been an unassailable Republican stronghold. Before last week, the Seventh had not sent a single Democrat to Congress in this century, and it elected Melvin Laird to nine consecutive terms on Capitol Hill before he moved to the Pentagon. Thus, as the G.O.P. nominee in a special election held last week to choose Laird's successor, State Senator Walter J. Chilsen felt pretty good about his chances. Chilsen, 45, a former television newscaster from Wausau, felt so good, in fact, that he rather imprudently billed his campaign as "a referendum on the Nixon Administration." That was hardly the case, but his coattail reference may well haunt the G.O.P. While Chilsen conducted a languid campaign, Democratic State Assemblyman David Obey (pronounced Oh-bee) ran at full throttle all the way and edged his opponent, 63,592 votes to 59,512.

Taxes and Milk. Intellectual and seemingly inexhaustible, Obey, 30, healed party wounds that have festered since the Chicago convention, and got popular Senator Gaylord Nelson to stump for him in eleven of the district's 15 counties. He had two important factors going for him. One was that reapportionment shifts had cut into Republican strength--a fact that went all but unnoticed last year because Laird had amassed 64.5% of the vote. Another was Republican Governor Warren Knowles' proposal to balance a $25 million budget deficit by raising taxes, a move endorsed by Chilsen. The day before the election, the G.O.P. almost certainly lost hundreds of dairy farmers' votes when Agriculture Secretary Clifford Hardin announced that he did not support 90% parity for milk prices.

Chilsen later conceded gamely that "there was overconfidence from Washington to Wausau." Overconfidence was certainly not one of Obey's deficiencies during the race--or later, for that matter. The morning after his victory, Obey was at the gates of the Wausau Paper Mills plant in nearby Brokaw at dawn to thank workers for their votes.

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