The Governors: Among Them, Romney’s Ramble

THE GOVERNORS

Michigan’s Republican Governor, George Romney, emerged unscathed, indeed enhanced, from the Johnson landslide. He did it by reason of his own remarkable, evangelistic campaigning, which convinced more than 700,000 Michiganders—independents and Dem-ocrats, auto workers and Negroes—that thev should fractionate their feelings.

Romney refused to don “the Goldwater albatross,” concentrated on his record (he turned Michigan’s chronic deficit into a $57.1 million surplus), thus did even better in Detroit’s Democratic Wayne County than he had two years ago. In doing so, the canny car builder denied a ride on Lyndon’s coattails to Democratic Congressman Neil Staeb’er (who was held to about 53% of the Wayne County vote, v. Johnson’s 71%). It was enough to let Romney ramble, and he may yet ramble a lot further. Other key gubernatorial races: > >Republican Daniel Jackson Evans, 39, nervously charged Washington’s Democratic Governor Albert (“Rosy”) Rosellini with the unfair use of notes in a TV debate. Evans needn’t have worried: during two terms of Rosy’s administration, Washington voters had pegged him as an affable, backslapping do-nothing. Evans campaigned on a 35-point “Blue-print for Progress,” also profited from questions raised about Rosellini’s “illegaily obtained” campaign funds, his connections with the patronage-ridden State Liquor Control Board. A Seattle civil engineer and state representative, Evans was cool to Goldwater, won both moderate and conservative support, stripped Rosy’s petals 563,900 to 454,000. >

>Chuck Percy’s luck finally ran out. He had accused Illinois’ Democratic Governor Otto Kerner of being a stooge of Chicago Boss Richard Daley. So Daley went right ahead to deliver Chi-cago, where Negro voter registration was up by 31,000 to 346,000. More-over, the incredibly complex Illinois bal lot encouraged straight-ticket voting as President Johnson won the state over-whelmingly. As a result, moderate Re publicans lost one of the highly touted comers they had depended on to help rebuild a tattered party. >Roger Branigin, 62, a prosperous Indiana corporation and utilities attorney, making his first try for elective office, appeared dust-dry compared with smooth Republican Lieutenant Governor Richard Ristine, 44. But Ristine was at first strongly for Goldwater, then backed away and thereby got the worst of both worlds. Newcomer Bran-igin easily upset Ristine.

> Warren Hearnes, 41, Missouri’s Dem-ocratic candidate, scorned his G.O.P. rival Ethan Allen Hitchcock Shepley, 68. Said Hearnes: “He has only one chance to win, and that’s if Goldwater is a sensation.” Hearnes was right, won in a walkaway over Shepley, former chancellor of St. Louis’ prestigious Washington University and the strongest candidate fielded by the G.O.P. in more than a decade. The Governor-elect is a West Point graduate who served ten years in the state legislature and the past four as secretary of state. > Republican John Chafee, 42, won in Rhode Island by a mere 398 votes in a 1962 race that was not officially decided for weeks. This year, in the generally Democratic state, Chafee was opposed by two-term Democratic Lieuten-ant Governor Edward P. Gallogly, 45. Chafee urged voters to split their ballots and in that effort received aid from an unusual source. The state election board, with two of its four-man membership appointed by Chafee, publicized its own instructions about how to split the Rhode Island ticket naming Johnson and Chafee, who won with the largest plurality of any Governor in state history.

>Orval Faubus saw no reason to change the tactics that had won for him five consecutive two-year gubernatorial terms. So the “po’ boy from Greasy Creek” unloaded corn pone on the electorate and calumny on the head of his Repub’ican opponent, Winthrop Rockefeller, Nelson’s younger brother. Rockefeller’s energetic campaigning and well-financed organization were not enough, and Faubus won by a country mile.

> John A. Volpe, 55, a former Republican Governor, campaigned with vigah in Massachusetts, claimed greater administrative experience than his rival, Lieutenant Governor Francis Xavier Bellotti, who had upset Incumbent Democrat Endicott (“Chub”) Peabody in the primary. Both Italians, the candidates tried to ensnare one another in a spaghetti bowl of corruption charges and sales-tax arguments (Volpe for, Bellotti against). Volpe spun his pasta fastah, won in a close one.