Republicans: Running Scared

As they gear up their re-election campaigns, Republicans in Congress are increasingly nervous. So far this year, four special elections have been held to fill House vacancies in normally G.O.P. districts, and in all of them Watergate was an inescapable and damaging issue for the party. Largely because of Watergate, Republicans lost congressional races in Pennsylvania and Michigan in February. Last week they won an election in Southern California--but only narrowly and in part because their candidate dissociated himself from Richard Nixon. On the same day, the party lost a psychologically important congressional race in staunchly Republican Cincinnati. Warns G.O.P. Congressman William F. Scherle of Iowa: "If this is a pattern, then there aren't many Republicans who can survive." Adds a prominent Midwestern Republican Governor: "There's light at the end of the tunnel--it's a freight train heading right at us."

The national committees of both parties gave most of their attention to the race in Ohio's First District, which encompasses the eastern half of Cincinnati and suburban Hamilton County. The district is mostly white collar and prosperous; in 1972 it gave 70.3% of the vote to Republican William J. Keating, who resigned late last year. To succeed him, both parties nominated well-known and longtime city councilmen: Democrat Thomas Luken, 49, a lawyer and former Assistant U.S. Attorney; and Republican Willis Gradison Jr., 45, a wealthy stockbroker. Both had served as mayor--in Cincinnati, a post filled by vote of the city council--and neither had ever lost an election.

Luken's campaign target was the Nixon Administration, and his theme was a sophisticated version of "Send Washington a message." At supermarkets, barber shops and factory gates, he inveighed against food and oil prices as examples of "corporate greed" and declared that "a vote for me is a vote against 'big money' politics." In sharp contrast, Gradison's early campaign was poorly organized and lackluster, depending too often on philosophical position papers and rambling speeches on subjects like "the status of ethics in politics." Often he seemed to be skirting the issues. For example, when Luken backed a constitutional amendment prohibiting abortion--an emotional topic in a district that has many Roman Catholic voters--Gradison said that he had to give it more study.

On Feb. 20, the day after the G.O.P. lost Vice President Gerald Ford's old district in Michigan, the worried Republican National Committee dispatched its director of political activities, Henry Edward (Eddie) Mahe, to take over Gradison's faltering campaign. Mahe coached the candidate on how to make the most of white suburban parents' fears about school busing. One Gradison TV spot described it as "a cruel experiment with our children." Mahe staged campaign appearances for Gradison by Vice President Ford, Senators Robert Taft Jr. of Ohio, James Buckley of New York and Charles Percy of Illinois and former Attorney General Elliot Richardson. To match the Republican effort, Luken brought in Maine Senator Edmund Muskie, Ohio Governor John Gilligan and Veteran Political Consultant Mark Shields. His advice to Luken was to focus the campaign even more squarely on the President.

On Election Day, the Cincinnati Enquirer interviewed 819 voters leaving the polls; it found that the strongest single factor in the election was disapproval of Nixon, especially among Independents. As Mrs. Susan Levy explained, "Gradison is the better candidate, but a vote for him is a vote for Nixon." Added another housewife: "I feel so badly. I grew up on the same street with Bill, and he is the better candidate, but I voted for Luken as a protest against Nixon." Gradison lost by 51,057 votes to 55,171. Later, he refused to blame Watergate for his defeat but complained that news of the campaign was overshadowed by headlines about "gas prices going up, milk prices going up, half the White House indicted."

"Personal Victory." Republicans fared far better in California, but not because people in the prosperous Ventura and Santa Barbara counties northwest of Los Angeles are less concerned about Watergate. Representative Charles M. Teague, who died on New Year's Day, had won ten straight elections in the 13th District; in 1972 he got 73.9% of the vote. Seven Democrats jumped into the race, each hoping to force a runoff election by holding Republican Nominee Robert J. Lagomarsino, 47, to less than half the vote. The effort failed, largely because of Lagomarsino's strategy. Son of a wealthy local family, he is a wholesale-liquor dealer and has represented the area in the state senate for a dozen years, winning election with as much as 65% of the vote. To head off the Watergate issue, he promised to vote for Nixon's impeachment "if the evidence warrants it," and he concentrated on his legislative record, which has been faithful to conservative Governor Ronald Reagan. Even so, he won only 53% of the 97,219 votes. Later, Lagomarsino characterized the outcome as a personal victory, not one for the party. He explained: "It shows that a Republican can win under the right circumstances."

Creating such circumstances for themselves has become one of the chief concerns of Senate and House Republicans who are running for reelection. Many will follow Lagomarsino's example. Predicts Republican Congressman Tom Railsback of Illinois: "As a practical matter, you'll probably see the Republicans moving more to dissociate themselves from the President." Just that has been done by Iowa's Scherle, who for three years has been criticizing the policies and personnel of the Nixon Administration and has been putting plenty of distance between himself and the White House. "Now," he says, "when people hi my district talk about Watergate, I'm wholly divorced from it. There's no way they can wrap Watergate around my neck--no way."

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