POLITICAL NOTES: Brief Forever

When Wyoming Democrat Joseph Christopher O’Mahoney was defeated in 1952, after serving 19 years in the U.S. Senate, he announced sadly that he was through with politics forever. Last week aging (69) Joe O’Mahoney filed as a candidate for the nomination for Senator.

O’Mahoney had succumbed to the pressure of fellow Democrats, who turned to him after Democratic Senator Lester Callaway Hunt shot himself to death last month (TIME, June 28). Considered the. only Democrat who has a chance to keep Lester Hunt’s seat for the party, O’Mahoney will have no trouble getting the nomination. But the election will be a different matter. O’Mahoney’s opponents are sure to charge that the former Senator, who stayed in Washington to practice law after he was defeated, has lost touch with Wyoming. The probable Republican nominee, Congressman-at-large William Henry Harrison, is a proven vote getter; in 1952 he polled 76,161 votes, an alltime Wyoming record. Prognosis on Wyoming’s U.S. Senate race in November: close.