Two New Governors

NEW JERSEY: By 2 to 1, the voters backed handsome former Judge Brendan T. Byrne, 49, a newcomer to elective politics. He was unblemished by the many layers of political corruption that involved both Democrats and Republicans and helped sink the administration of incumbent Republican Governor William T. Cahill. While Democrat Byrne did not directly link corruption and Watergate to the Republican Party, he repeatedly reminded audiences that an FBI wiretap once recorded a Mafia figure as observing that Byrne could not be bought. The theme of his campaign was "One honest man can make the difference." For the most part, however, he avoided taking clear stands on the major issues.

By contrast, his conservative Republican opponent, Congressman Charles W. Sandman Jr., 52, declared himself opposed to abortion, a state income tax and busing to integrate schools, and promised to restore capital punishment. But Sandman had badly split the party in his primary upset over Cahill last spring and never won the active support of influential moderates or liberals like Senator Clifford P. Case. In a swing state whose voters traditionally shun extremists, the loss of the middle ground was perhaps more serious than concern with corruption.

The new Governor is a Roman Catholic who neither drinks nor smokes; he has seven children. In public he tends to be stiff and shy. After graduating from Princeton and Harvard (LL.B, '51), he served as an aide to Governor Robert B. Meyner for 3% years. In 1959 he was appointed prosecutor of Essex County and came to public attention by successfully prosecuting five contractors involved in construction scandals in Newark, as well as Racketeer Anthony ("Tony Boy") Boiardo. He became head of the state's public utilities commission in 1968 and was appointed by Cahill to the Superior Court two years later.

VIRGINIA: It was a classic confrontation between a rambunctious neopopulist, Lieutenant Governor Henry E. Howell, 53, and a staid member of the state's conservative elite, former Governor Mills E. Godwin, 58. Affluent suburbanites paid $1.65 per drink at genteel Godwin cocktail parties, while blacks, rednecks and young people paid nickels and dimes for beer and soda pop at Howell gatherings. To complicate matters, both men originally were Democrats, but Howell ran as an Independent and Godwin as a Republican; the disenchanted and disarrayed Democrats fielded no one.

Howell barnstormed the state in a van truck called the "Howell Cannon-ball," promising to repeal an unpopular sales tax on food and nonprescription drugs. It had been enacted during Godwin's first term as Governor (1966-70). By September, Howell had a ten-point lead in the polls. That galvanized Godwin's lackluster early efforts. He started vigorously attacking Howell for being pro busing, in favor of gun controls and against the state's right-to-work law. When Howell tried to explain his previous stands on those issues--for example, he denied that he favored busing children across city, county and state lines--Godwin scorned him as a "flip-flopper." On Election Day, a record 1,031,063 Virginians voted, and they elected Godwin by 14,653 votes.

The son of a farmer, Godwin graduated from William and Mary College and earned a law degree from the University of Virginia Law School in 1938. After a brief job as an FBI agent in the Midwest, he opened a law office in rural Suffolk, Va. He was elected to the house of delegates in 1948 and later became one of the late Harry F. Byrd Sr.'s stalwarts in the "massive resistance" to integration of schools. By the tune he had served a term as Lieutenant Governor (1962-66), he had moderated his views sufficiently to win the backing of both blacks and organized labor in his first election as Governor.

In his first term, he upgraded public education, attracted new industry to the state and sponsored a revision of the state constitution. Prohibited by law from succeeding himself, Godwin returned in 1970 to the 500-acre farm he and his wife Katherine operate in Nansemond County, Va.

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