A Tie That Was Really a Win

By James Kelly

The G.O.P. kept the Senate, but disaster was a step away

It was almost as if all the campaigning, speechmaking and handshaking had never occurred, and those thousands of cloying or clawing television commercials and bumper stickers had never appeared. After an estimated outlay of some $130 million by Republican and Democratic candidates, the lineup of the Senate had not changed a bit. The breakdown remained 54 Republicans and 46 Democrats. The G.O.P. had feared that it might lose the chamber it had seized in 1980, or at least see its margin over the Democrats narrowed. "Needless to say," said Bob Packwood of Oregon, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, "I'm relieved."

Incumbency proved to be the most decisive factor. Only two veterans, Democrat Howard Cannon of Nevada and Republican Harrison Schmitt of New Mexico, lost their races; on Election Day in 1980 ten Senators were beaten, and seven were defeated in 1978. Yet, examined more closely, the overall numbers do not give much solace to the Republicans. Of the 19 Democratic incumbents, 13 won with 60% or better, while four others attracted between 57% and 59% of the vote. But only one of the eleven G.O.P. incumbents, John Heinz of Pennsylvania, drew 60%. Indeed, four moderate Republicans, Lowell Weicker of Connecticut, John Danforth of Missouri, John Chafee of Rhode Island and Robert Stafford of Vermont, squeaked by with a mere 51%.

Simply put, Democratic candidates tried to tie their G.O.P opponents to Reagan and his programs, while most, but not all, of the Republicans scrambled to put as much distance as possible between themselves and the White House. Among the Democrats re-elected handily were Minority Leader Robert Byrd of West Virginia, Henry Jackson of Washington and John Stennis of Mississippi, the 81year-old dean of the Senate now starting his seventh term. Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts, greeted on election night by supporters chanting, " '84! '84! '84!," beat Republican Raymond Shamie, 61% to 39%. On the Republican side, Orrin Hatch of Utah and Malcolm Wallop of Wyoming, both considered in trouble at the polls early on, won easily. Some of the major races:

CALIFORNIA. From the start, one key issue dominated the race to succeed retiring Republican Senator S.I. Hayakawa: the personality and programs of Governor Jerry Brown. After eight fractious years in Sacramento and enough spacey ideas to earn him the nickname "Governor Moonbeam," Brown last June started out in the polls 22 points behind his Republican opponent, Mayor Pete Wilson of San Diego.

The ensuing campaign did neither candidate proud. The Governor tried to pick up votes by highlighting his position on the state's nuclear-freeze initiative, but alienated many voters with a heavyhanded TV spot. After a small boy said he wanted "to go on living," a mushroom cloud filled the screen and an announcer intoned: "Pete Wilson opposes the nuclear-arms freeze. Jerry Brown supports it. Vote for your life. Elect Jerry Brown to the U.S. Senate."

Wilson was hurt by the revelations that after separating from his wife in 1981, he lived rent-free in apartments provided by a wealthy San Diego businessman and that in 1980, thanks to a tax shelter, he paid no federal income levies. Wilson also hurt himself by suggesting that workers under 45 make smaller contributions than older workers to Social Security and that federal judges, including U.S. Supreme Court Justices, be elected.

But Wilson had a couple of things going for him: a basically moderate record as the mayor of San Diego for eleven years, and, oddly enough, his bland and humorless personality. After Brown, that seemed to be just what the voters wanted. On Election Day, Mayor Wilson beat the Governor, 51% to 45%.

NEW JERSEY. No politician in the state is as celebrated as Millicent Fenwick. A pipe-smoking millionaire Republican of aristocratic mien who is partial to pearls and expensive tweed suits, Fenwick, 72, has attracted national attention more for her personality and integrity than for her achievements during eight years in the House. She is, literally, a character: Fenwick was the inspiration for Lacey Davenport, the wealthy, slightly dizzy Congresswoman in the Doonesbury comic strip. Polls and pols alike predicted that Fenwick would handily beat Democrat Frank Lautenberg, or, as she called him, "my dear opponent." But her dear opponent won the election, 52% to 48%.

Lautenberg, 58, a self-made millionaire who helped build a five-man business-machine firm into a company 16,000 employees strong and grossing $669 million last year, had never run for public office before. In a state where the main issue was jobs, the Democrat tied Fenwick to the Reagan economic programs by reminding TV viewers of her votes for the President's budget cuts.

In the general election, Lautenberg spent $3.25 million, including $2.3 million of his own money. Fenwick paid out $1.4 million, with $450,000 from her own purse. Both agreed that money, much of it lavished on slick TV ads, made the difference. Said Lautenberg cheerfully: "I couldn't have won without it."

VIRGINIA. In the race to succeed Harry F. Byrd Jr., the crusty Independent retiring after three terms, the views of the candidates on one major issue were directly opposed. Paul Trible, 35, a three-term Republican Congressman, had voted for every piece of Reagan's economic program and staunchly supported the President. Lieutenant Governor Richard Davis blamed Reaganomics for causing a "depression, not a recession." If the contest was a test of Administration policies, Reagan passed, but just barely: Trible scraped by Davis, 51% to 49%. Proclaimed the winner: "This is a victory of philosophy, of conservative principles of government."

That may be true, but the outcome depended on other factors as well. Trible, an intense, exuberant candidate, enjoyed a six-month head start over Davis and outspent his rival $2.5 million to $1.1 million. Davis, a millionaire mortgage banker and onetime mayor of Portsmouth, entered the race reluctantly and at times campaigned as if he did not really want the job. Even so, Davis pulled even with Trible in the closing weeks, thanks in part to the Republican's blundering performance in debates. In the final days, Trible spent $450,000 on a TV blitz. He also got a little help from his friends: the National Rifle Association fired off a salvo of radio commercials that falsely accused Davis of favoring gun control, while the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and antiabortion groups waged a direct-mail crusade on his behalf.

NEW MEXICO. Harrison Schmitt, 47, first rocketed to fame in 1972 when he landed on the moon as an Apollo astronaut. That feat helped propel him into the U.S. Senate in 1976. But in a state with an unemployment rate hovering around 10%, Reagan's economic programs hurt Schmitt badly. State Attorney General Jeff Bingaman, 39, constantly linked Schmitt to the White House and called attention to his lackluster six years of service. But Schmitt may have largely engineered his own defeat. The Senator attacked his opponent with a pair of ads blasting Bingaman's record as attorney general, a post he has held since 1978. One spot attacked Bingaman's handling of a 1980 prison riot inquiry, while the other accused him of requesting a pardon for a prisoner who had once been on the FBI's most-wanted list. Both commercials turned out to be based on inaccurate information. So incensed was Santa Fe Archbishop Robert Sanchez that he publicly denounced the prison inquiry ad, an invaluable boost for Bingaman in a state that is one-third Hispanic and largely Catholic. At the polls, Bingaman brought Schmitt back to earth, 54% to 46%.

NEVADA. Even the most daring Las Vegas high roller would have shied away from betting that unknown Jacob ("Chic") Hecht, 53, would upset veteran Democratic Senator Howard Cannon, 70, in his race for a fifth term. Cannon seemed about as durable as the Hoover Dam, especially when pitted against Hecht, a well-to-do Las Vegas haberdasher whose only previous political experience consisted of two terms in the state senate before being defeated for re-election in 1974. But Hecht outpolled Cannon, 50% to 48%.

During the race, Hecht charged that the Senator had outserved his usefulness, a theme that not only helped Hecht but drove Cannon to start dyeing his hair to look younger. The Senator was also damaged by his links to the Teamsters Union. Two weeks before the election, Roy Williams, the union's president, and four other men went on trial for allegedly attempting to bribe Cannon to oppose legislation deregulating the trucking industry. Cannon has not been charged with any crime, but the headlines undoubtedly cost him a few more votes

CONNECTICUT. Lowell Weicker, Republican in name but maverick by nature, has always depended on liberal support to win his races. So it looked as if he might be in trouble when he was challenged by one of the state's most popular Democrats, four-term Congressman Toby Moffett. Weicker, 51, resurrected his 1976 campaign slogan, "Nobody's man but yours," and stressed his independence as his prime asset. Moffett, 38, was unable to put enough distance between Weicker and himself to persuade voters to abandon an incumbent. Moffett, who gave up his congressional seat to run, was shaken by the loss. "I couldn't sleep last night," he confessed the day after the election. "It is really hard to say what went wrong. It just didn't click."

It almost didn't click for Senators John Danforth of Missouri and David Durenberger of Minnesota. An heir to the Ralston Purina fortune, the popular Danforth had once expected to glide to victory over his Democratic opponent, a liberal activist and onetime local television hostess named Harriett Woods. But when a St. Louis Globe-Democrat poll showed Woods erasing Danforth's 17-point lead and pulling even last October, the incumbent went on the attack. Depicting Woods as a big-spending liberal, Danforth started spending big himself, upping his campaign budget from $1.4 million to $2 million. Even so, he barely nosed out Woods, 51% to 49%.

Durenberger also faced a persistent liberal challenger, but with a key difference: Mark Dayton, 35, is married to a Rockefeller and is an heir to a department-store fortune. Dayton ended up spending $6.9 million on his campaign, nearly all of it from his own pocket. It was the highest amount spent by a Senate candidate this year. Durenberger spent $3.5 million. Just before the election, Durenberger took the offensive, charging that Dayton's liberal proposals would cost $214 billion. The strategy worked: the Senator beat back Dayton, 53% to 47%.

Republicans like Durenberger and Danforth survived largely because they were moderates; had they been as conservative as Reagan, the G.O.P. might have lost control of the Senate. Ironically enough, it was only by stressing their differences with Reagan that this covey of Republicans enabled the President to realize a major Oval Office goal: keeping the Senate in G.O.P. hands. --By James Kelly. Reported by Benjamin W. Cate/Los Angeles and Peter Stoler/New York

With reporting by Benjamin W. Cate, Peter Stoler

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