Virginia: Flutter in Byrdland

“Some chemistry is going on here,” exulted Richard Nixon before 450 cheer ing Republicans at a $25-a-plate dinner in Arlington last week. “Something new and exciting is happening in Virginia.” At which Nixon turned to the principal chemist, A. (for Abner) Linwood Hoiton, 42, a Harvard-trained lawyer with Spencer Tracy (circa 1940) looks and Lyndonesque vitality.

What has happened in Virginia is that Holton, rallying the state G.O.P. from long hibernation, is making a spirited attempt to take over the governorship from Democrat Albertis S. Harrison Jr., who is barred by state law from succeeding himself. Though Helton’s official opponent is Lieutenant Governor Mills E. Godwin Jr., 50, his most potent adversary is U.S. Senator Harry F. Byrd, 78, the aged boss and personification of Virginia politics.

In Byrdland, a Democratic bastion ruled by America’s most deeply entrenched family oligarchy, the G.O.P. has not won a single statewide elective post since 1926, when young Harry took over the Statehouse as Governor and began consolidating his all-powerful political machine. For that matter, no Republican has been elected Governor since Reconstruction days. Moreover, despite his loosening hold on Virginia politics, Byrd’s own conservative followers and dissident middle-road Democrats have closed ranks this year behind Godwin, who won the Democratic nomination by default when no other possible gubernatorial candidates filed for the primary.

Beating the Poll Tax. Republican Holton’s optimism has nonetheless been buoyed by signs of unprecedented G.O.P. activity around the state. Many Virginia precincts and districts have their first Republican organizations in history, and the party has produced a bumper crop of legislative candidates: 14 for the 40-member state senate, 51 for the 100-man house. During a 24-hour statewide tour last week, Holton and Nixon drew bigger crowds in many towns than any other Republicans have mustered in Virginians’ memory.

To keep them growing, Holton has been hammering away at the deleterious effects of the Byrd dynasty, claiming that Virginia’s school-dropout rate of 40% is exceeded by only two other states (Mississippi and New Mexico); that the state is 45th in per-capita expenditures for mental health and spends a smaller percentage of per-capita income for higher education than any other Southern state. Holton’s most impassioned attacks are reserved for Godwin’s anti-integration record and his support for the $1.50 poll tax, which Virginia voters must pay three years in advance of each state election. “I’m going to hang the poll tax around Godwin’s neck,” promises Holton, “and beat it like a brass cymbal all over Virginia.”

Godwin’s neck is out. As a state senator, he led the Byrd machine’s “massive resistance” campaign against school in tegration in 1959 and 1960, and has faithfully supported segregationist, budget-cutting legislation. However, since his election to the lieutenant-governorship in 1961, he has been carefully cultivating a more moderate image. Last year, with an eye to the Statehouse, Godwin campaigned vigorously for Lyndon Johnson while most Byrd stalwarts either sat on their hands or roundly supported Barry Goldwater. Godwin maintains that his earlier advocacy of segregated schools gave Virginians a “breathing period” in which to adjust peacefully to inevitable change; he also is now running as a champion of education.

Courting the Negroes. In a once militantly white-supremacist state, the candidate’s moderation on racial issues is due in large part to Virginia’s growing Negro electorate, now 200,000 strong, whose overwhelming support for Lyndon Johnson last year swung Virginia to a Democratic presidential candidate for the first time since 1948. In November the G.O.P. will field the first Negro who has won his party’s primary to run for the general assembly since the 1890s.

Holton’s backers claim that he already has the support of 45% of Virginia’s voters, and can win if he captures 65% of the Negro vote. Actually, despite the Republican’s more liberal racial views, most Virginia Negroes appear reluctant to swing back so soon to the party that ran Barry Goldwater only last year; few black faces were seen among the crowds that heard Holton and Nixon last week. Nonetheless, Holton may gain unexpected strength from a sizable new voting element: the young federal employees and their families who have fanned out across the Potomac to settle in Virginia’s Fairfax and Arlington Counties. Many are mobile, highly professional newcomers who have liberal views but consider themselves politically independent; though employed by a Democratic Administration, they may well prefer a moderate Republican to a Byrd-backed Democrat. Whichever way they go, Holton seems certain to poll a record vote for a Republican gubernatorial candidate—but probably not enough to beat Godwin.