Nation: Basic Bud

If the corn gets as high as an elephant’s eye, Oklahomans can thank their Senate candidates: Republican Charles (“Bud”) Wilkinson, 48, and Democrat Fred Harris, 33.

Minnesota-born Bud Wilkinson is the former (1947-64) University of Oklahoma football coach whose teams racked up one of the most spectacular records in modern history (145 victories in 178 games). He also served for a time as President Kennedy’s top adviser on national physical fitness. Fred Harris is a Cotton County farm boy with a Phi Beta Kappa key and a law degree from the U. of O. He does not have Wilkinson’s glamor, but, at his present tender age, he has already served eight years in the state senate.

Playing the Game. Wilkinson is handsome, clean-living, hardworking. Long before he decided to run for public office, he was personally known in almost every community in the state with a high school large enough to accommodate the lean, quick youngsters that Bud loved to recruit for his Sooner squad. Wilkinson’s pitch to the voters has a simple, conservative consistency that has been characterized as “Basic Bud.” “We must,” says Bud, “reaffirm our faith in the diffusion of government responsibility and the diffusion of powers.” He supports the 27½% oil-depletion allowance, so important to oil-rich Oklahoma, has reservations about the Civil Rights Act, opposes federal aid to education, favors minimal federal controls in agriculture. To the argument that a success on the gridiron might not suffice for achievement in the U.S. Senate, Wilkinson says: “Lyndon Johnson was a schoolteacher, Hubert Humphrey a pharmacist. I think a football coach can play that game. As athletic director at Oklahoma University I managed a budget of $1.6 million.”

If nothing else, Wilkinson has proved himself an organization man. There is a Bucks for Bud committee. There is Beef for Bud, Wheat for Bud, Bankers for Bud, Teachers for Bud, and a group of football players who played under Wilkinson called Athletes for Bud.

All this makes things tough for Democrat Harris. He doesn’t really dare attack Folk Hero Wilkinson personally. But he is a much more dynamic speaker, and he makes full use of his rural Oklahoma accent. He likes to talk to the countryfolk about “Momma” and “muh Dad,” (“By gosh,” said a farmer recently, “he calls his momma ‘Momma.’ I’d vote fer him fer no other reason than that!”), and he tosses in many an “Aw shucks” kind of reference to Oklahoma’s revered Will Rogers. He claims that he is a close personal friend of Lyndon Johnson’s and that therefore, if he is elected, he Can Do More for Oklahoma.

Harris also criticizes Wilkinson for being an avowed admirer of Barry Goldwater. Wilkinson certainly does not deny that charge. As it happens, Oklahoma is one state that Barry has a chance of carrying. As of now, the big question is whether, in that event, Bud will carry Barry across the goal line or vice versa.