Sad Day for Happy

Four years ago Happy Chandler, ineligible to seek re-election as Governor of Kentucky, sadly watched a band of dissident Democrats rebel against his organization, nominate and elect Bert Combs as his successor. Vowed Happy as he saw Combs sworn in: "I will come back and clean them out again." But it did not turn out that way--and last week Happy was sadder than ever.

Chandler, 64, had ample cause to believe that he could come back to win his third term as Governor. Through three decades and 13 elections, Kentucky had only once denied him victory at the polls. That was in 1938 when Happy, then Governor, tried to knock off one of the most popular Kentucky Democrats of all time: Senator (later Vice President) Alben W. Barkley. Thus this spring Happy confidently returned to the stump in his Bible-quoting, backslapping manner--and the crowds seemed to love him. Chandler had an enticing campaign promise: he would eliminate the 3% state sales tax on food, medicine and clothing.

He was the same Old Happy, but there was one thing wrong: the voters had changed. His applause was coming from the familiar courthouse crowd who had long idolized him. But in Kentucky, which permits voting at 18, the electorate was shifting, and the old soft soap no longer washed well. Edward T. ("Ned") Breathitt Jr., 38, one of the rebels who had directed Combs's strategy, entered the Democratic primary against Chandler, matched him in folksy friendliness, and offered something more: a serious discussion of Kentucky finances, in which he claimed that education programs would suffer if the sales tax were cut back. He drove the point home so often that Chandler protested: "This is brainwashing."

A record number of Kentucky voters turned out for last week's Democratic primary, chose Breathitt by more than 60,000 votes (309,377 to Chandler's 247,661). Breathitt, a former state representative, state commissioner of personnel, and state public service commissioner, will face Republican Louie B. Nunn, 39, in November. Nunn is a Glasgow attorney who managed the successful 1956 U.S. Senate campaigns of Thruston Morton and John Sherman Cooper but, like Breathitt, has never before run for state office.

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