Uphill Republican Struggle
THE SENATE
ONE-THIRD of the Senate--actually, 33 members out of the body's 100--are up for election this year. The retiring Senate has been under Democratic control, 55-45; Republicans must gain five seats if a re-elected Nixon is to have a friendlier, G.O.P.-organized chamber in his second term. The odds are long against that happening. Barring a political miracle, most Republican analysts set their probable gain at two.
Some contests to watch:
> NORTH CAROLINA. His name is so long that first-generation Greek-American Nick Galifianakis, 43, divides it between two campaign buttons and explains the spelling as beginning with a "gal" and ending with a "kiss." North Carolinians do not seem to mind that kind of corn. Shaggy-haired three-term Congressman Galifianakis, who upset Everett Jordan in the Democratic primary, is now a narrow favorite to win.
The odds would be longer were it not for the Nixon landslide apparently building in North Carolina. Opponent Jesse Helms, 51, is a Raleigh television commentator who never before has run for office and, indeed, switched to the G.O.P. only two years ago. Arch-conservative Helms, who also broadcast over an 80-station radio "tobacco network" in eastern North Carolina before he took a political leave, criticizes even Nixon as too liberal.
> ALABAMA. To such Alabama place names as Arab, Boaz, Opp and Eufaula can be added, for this election, Scylla and Charybdis. If the White House does not support the campaign of former Postmaster General Winton M. Blount, 51, it loses an opportunity to gain another Republican seat. If, on the other hand, it supports Blount successfully against patriarchal 26-year Senate Veteran John J. Sparkman, 72, then Liberal Democrat William Proxmire will likely succeed Sparkman as Senate Banking Committee chairman. "Who the hell wants Proxmire?" is a common business view. The White House appears to have opted for keeping John Sparkman. Three months ago, Sparkman received a significant presidential "Dear John" letter commending him for "responsible" action in supporting the Administration position in Viet Nam negotiations.
> GEORGIA. Democrat Sam Nunn, 34, a grandnephew of Carl Vinson, who served for 50 years in the House, hopes to win a Georgia Senate seat himself by rekindling ancient urban-rural differences. Whether Nunn, a farmer, lawyer, state legislator and ex-basketball star from middle Georgia, can succeed may depend partly on the popularity of Richard Nixon among traditional rural Democrats and on a well-mounted G.O.P. campaign.
Republican Candidate Fletcher Thompson, 47, despite his base in a middle-class Atlanta suburb, appeals to much the same constituency as Nunn. Three-Term Congressman Thompson is an unreconstructed conservative who opposes busing, liberal judges, Jane Fonda in Hanoi, Black Power and gun controls. Nunn was an early favorite but the two are now roughly even.
> ILLINOIS. For the record, Charles H. Percy is campaigning for a second term against Roman C. ("Pooch") Pucinski, Congressman from Chicago's ethnic West Side and the Democratic machine's choice. Actually Percy, who like his opponent is 53, can beat Pucinski comfortably. The real reasons for his aggressive campaign are that he wants to win Illinois by at least an 800,000-vote margin and take Chicago as no statewide G.O.P. candidate has been able to since Eisenhower, thereby demonstrating Chuck Percy's enormous presidential potential for 1976. Percy may well accomplish it.
> MICHIGAN. The Michigan senatorial campaign is practically a one-issue race--school busing--and the crux of the battle is which candidate is more firmly opposed to it. Incumbent Republican Robert P. Griffin, who turns 49 on election eve, bills himself as a fighting Senator ("Michigan's muscle in Washington") battling for a constitutional amendment against busing. Michigan Attorney General Frank J. Kelley, 47, his Democratic challenger, maintains that the only reason cross-district busing has not begun is that he appealed the federal court decision ordering it. Griffin, who would have been hard-pressed to win another Senate term without the busing issue, is ahead, but his margin is razor-thin.
> SOUTH DAKOTA. George McGovern may not carry his own state, which creates a quandary for Fellow South Dakota Democrat James Abourezk of Rapid City. Abourezk (pronounced A-bo-resk) is the short, rotund son of a Lebanese immigrant peddler. He won in one of the state's two congressional districts in a 1970 Democratic sweep and has been running ever since for the Senate seat that Karl Mundt, felled by a stroke, has not occupied for nearly three years. To get it, Abourezk, 41, is finding it politic to keep a discreet distance from McGovern, even though he supports him for President.
Abourezk stresses his concern for small farmers, ranchers, the elderly and Indians. He opposes farming by conglomerates, tax loopholes for big business and private power companies. The Republicans have put up a Yankton lawyer and state senator named Robert W. Hirsch, 47, in an effort to retain Mundt's seat. But Abourezk has been running so hard for so long that it looks as if the race is his.
> RHODE ISLAND. The race between Rhode Island Democrat Claiborne Pell, 53, and ex-Governor and former Navy Secretary John H. Chafee, 50, is squeaky tight for a simple reason: both are immensely popular and neither has been able to exploit a significant issue.
Both candidates are antiwar--in a state where sentiment against the war runs high--although Chafee finds it embarrassing that the mining of Haiphong harbor was planned during his last days in the Pentagon. But Chafee is determined not to be labeled a hawk and has disavowed any part in that decision or planning. Both candidates are fiscal conservatives, both are mindful of the economy in a state where unemployment is running at 6.7%. Pell charges that Rhode Island lost 1,800 civilian jobs in the state's naval installations while Chafee was Secretary. Chafee retorts that Pell spends much of his time in the Senate on such low-priority issues as oceanography and U.S. conversion to the metric system.
The trim, hard-running Chafee may come across as the more attractive candidate. Pell has suffered from his image as a colorless Senator, as a wealthy aristocrat who sometimes mumbles and minces words. That, together with the Nixon swell, may finally provide Chafee's edge.
> NEW MEXICO. The New Mexico seat that aging, ailing Liberal Democrat Clinton Anderson, 77, decided to surrender after 24 years will probably fall to a conservative Republican in this election. Former Albuquerque Mayor Pete V. Domenici, 40, who ran for Governor two years ago and lost, is expected to make it for higher office this time. The margin of his predicted win over Banker and Insurance Man Jack Daniels, 48, depends to a certain extent on personality. Domenici is a breathless, ebullient crowd pleaser, while strong, low-key Jack Daniels, in contrast, is a diffident public speaker who prefers to press the flesh with individual voters in a kind of Western one-on-one campaign. Domenici is favored, in spite of a better than 2-1 Democratic registration.
> OREGON. Oregonians are calling it the maverick election. Wayne L. Morse, who shifted from Republican to Independent to Democrat during a 24-year Senate career, is attempting a comeback against Mark O. Hatfield, a Republican Senator so divorced from party positions that he skipped the G.O.P. Convention and has answers ready whenever voters question his differences with President Nixon. "Each man is an individual with whom party loyalty and responsibility are secondary concepts," suggests former Congressman Robert Duncan, who has run unsuccessfully for the Senate against both Hatfield and Morse. But that, plus the fact that both men are staunch doves on Viet Nam, does not make for a heady campaign; between them, they may set a record for low spending--an estimated total of $400,000--by serious candidates in a Senate election.
Morse seems to be finding the age issue nearly insuperable. He is 72, and was stripped of any Senate seniority when he left the chamber in 1969. Hatfield, on the other hand, is 50 but looks 40. Morse could take some comfort, however, from the fact that polls of the 18-to-29-year-old group showed Morse a favorite over Hatfield, 52% to 41%.
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