POLITICAL NOTES: Teetering Scales

The sudden death of popular ex-Governor Ralph L. Carr meant more to Colorado Republicans than the loss of their best chance to take the governorship back from the Democrats. Until Candidate Carr died of a heart attack just after the primary election (TIME, Sept. 25), they had figured that his name on the ticket would also be enough to carry able, unspectacular Eugene Millikin into another term in the U.S. Senate. Slipping off to the home of a national committeeman in Colorado Springs last week, the state’s Republican leaders settled down to look for a successor who could carry the same double burden.

After hours of secret debate, they thought they had found just the man. He was Daniel I. J. Thornton, a colorful and energetic cattle raiser and state senator with some of the looks of Bing Crosby and some of his showman’s flair. The choice was enough to perk up the despondent Republicans. It seemed at least to even the delicate balance between conservative Gene Millikin, the Senate’s firm right bower to Ohio’s Bob Taft, and Fair Dealing Congressman John Carroll, the Democrats’ choice to unseat him.

But the scales still teetered while both sides waited to see how Colorado’s all-time greatest vote getter, Democratic Senator Ed Johnson, would turn. No friend of Carroll’s and usually more inclined toward Gene Millikin’s conservatism, Johnson had kept his own counsel. Republican leaders were hoping that Johnson would rest on his oars through the campaign, and thus indirectly help Republican Millikin.

At week’s end, Johnson finally stuck a powerful oar into the campaign. In a letter to Labor, weekly publication of 15 railroad unions, the Senator announced he was pulling hard for his fellow Democrat, John Carroll. That far from settled a tough campaign that still had five weeks to run, but it seemed to turn the odds in the Democrats’ favor once again.