The Senate: Arizona: Message Received

Seeking his seventh Senate term, Old Frontiersman Carl Hayden, 85, lay ill with a virus infection in Bethesda Naval Hospital. Back home, followers of Republican Evan Mecham, a Phoenix auto dealer, spread rumors that Hayden had suffered a stroke, that he was dying after a heart attack, that doctors at the hospital had been warned under threat of court-martial not to release news of his death until after Election Day. To convince voters that he was still alive and kicking, Hayden called a press conference—only his fourth in 50 years of public life—three days before election. Arizona got the message —and Hayden, without campaigning at all, solidly beat Mecham.