Nation: The Land of Contrats

Colorado is a state of vivid, sometimes startling, contrasts. Thousands of miles of its flatlands are rich with the emerald green of winter-wheat shoots; other thousands of miles are pasture, dotted with grazing cattle. But the western half of the state is ruggedly mountainous, the steep slopes necked with aspen and capped with snow. Colorado is a land of mining ghost towns and booming oil, gas, missile and atom-research centers. Men in cow boy boots and ten-gallon hats still swing off the cattle trains; but now other men, in Brooks Brothers suits, stride purposefully down the ramps of jet airliners at Denver’s Stapleton Airfield. Colorado is also the stage for a couple of ig62’s most fascinating political races—and even in these, the contrasts are dramatic. The incumbents are Democrats, both slightly curmudgeonly; they are challenged by Republicans with a high quotient of political sex appeal.

The defenders are Democratic Gover nor Steve McNichols, 48, and Democratic Senator John Carroll, 61. The challengers are John Love, 45, and Representative Peter Dominick, 47, who, if nothing else, make one of the most virile-looking pairs of candidates in the U.S. this year. Love, a Colorado Springs lawyer, was a political unknown until his G.O.P. primary victory over an old party wheelhorse. Dominick, a highly articulate Yaleman, is just finishing his first term in Congress.

Love, Your Enemy. As it happens, McNichols has been a darned good Governor. He has built more schools, highways, and state institutional facilities than any Governor before him. Despite chronic unemployment in the mining industry, Colorado’s employment is at an alltime high. An aggressive McNichols industrial program last year gained for the state 50 new commercial plants, expansion of 32 others. But Steve McNichols is also a very stubborn fellow—and this fact has made him a lot of enemies. To carry out his program, he raised state income taxes. He feuded with his Democratic state legislature on minor matters. For example, the legislature—for idiotic reasons—refused to accept a gift from the fabulously rich (sugar and cement) Boettcher family. All the Boettchers wanted to do was turn over to the state, for use as the Gov ernor’s mansion, their dreamland Denver home, with 23 furnished rooms, a magnificent tooled-leather library, a crystal chandelier that once adorned the White House (in the days of President Taft), and a profusion of priceless tapestries. When the Colorado legislators declined the offer, McNichols went right ahead and accepted it—and he is now living in the Boettcher museum. In short, McNichols enjoys his let-the-chips-fall approach to life and politics. When he has a big problem, he finds a big expert to give him a solution. If he likes the answer, he employs it, without compromise. “Sure,” he says, “I’ve made some enemies, but that’s the way I’m going to do it. I can always go back and practice law, though I like this job.”

Against McNichols is Republican Love —a man of rugged, movie-star appearance who has plastered the state with stickers bearing only one word: “Love.” What else? Candidate Love is a corking good stump speaker. Without getting deep into specifics, he announces himself as backing “a voice in the state’s business for every citizen. I’m for the simple but powerful precept of government with the people.” Like McNichols, Love is a heavily decorated veteran of World War II; he is addicted to one-button blue suits, button-down collars, and 18-hour cam paign days.

Face to Face. On the Senate front, the Democratic incumbent is pudgy, party-lining John Albert Carroll. According to a recent Congressional Quarterly sampling, Carroll last year voted 100% in favor of programs enlarging the Federal Government’s role. Carroll has been in Colorado politics a long time, and the state’s voters have become accustomed to his face and his amiable manners.

Carroll’s opponent. Peter Dominick. was reared in Connecticut, went to St.

Mark’s before Yale, is also a World War II hero (Distinguished Flying Cross and Air Medal), has lived in Colorado for the past 17 years. Last week, speaking at Denver’s Cherry Hills Country Club, Dominick told some 300 assembled ladies that “you can’t get money out of Washington unless you first put it there. We get back only 13¢ on every dollar we send in. There are an enormous number of things being done by the Federal Government that can be put back in our own area. Centralization of more and more power in the hands of the executive branch of government deprives us of our individual rights and freedoms.” It was a serious speech—seriously considered and seriously delivered. But the ladies could hardly have cared less; all they wanted was to ogle the candidate.

Oddly enough, one poll shows Love far ahead of McNichols, with Carroll and Dominick running down to the wire (see jallowing story). Still, most Colorado observers find that survey suspect. They think that McNichols is presently a little bit ahead of Love, while Carroll may be trudging a losing trek against Dominick.