Conservative Victories

The results of the recently concluded September primaries have caused many of the more doctrinaire liberals to conclude that a conservative trend may be sweeping the country. In four contests, all safely far away from Southern California, heretofore obscure extremist candidates captured their party nominations for high office. These results, however, do not wholly substantiate the belief that the Goldwater nomination over two years ago was more than a political accident. Rather there is evidence suggesting that the white backlash has become a potent political factor in some areas, that many of those who voted for the President in 1964 have become disillusioned with his policies and their backers, and that right-wing candidates sometimes have inherent political advantages over their liberal or moderate opponents.

The successful conservative primary candidates did not propose to repeal the innovations of the New Deal, Fair Deal, and New Frontier; they knew that most voters are upset by the events of the past three years, not the past thirty. And they claimed that Johnson and his supporters have shown little initiative in trying to halt inflation, race riots, and the war in Vietnam. Regarding Vietnam, the primaries did not show that most voters want the United States to abandon the struggle against Hanoi and the Vietcong. They merely want what Americans have wanted in the past: quick favorable results.

These conservatives, then, stick to the present. They harp on the pitfalls of the Great Society and offer immediate, if virtually inviable solutions. And in 1966 their liberal opposition has been weak, if not hopelessly divided.

One of the most stunning conservative victories last month was that of Lester Maddox last week in the runoff for the Georgia Democratic gubernatorial nomination. Maddox's victory over ex-governor Ellis Arnall was caused partly by the SNCC-inspired Atlanta riots and Arnall's reluctance to campaign between the primary and the runoff. But it also confirmed suspicions resulting from the results of the 1964 Presidential election in Georgia. To the astonishment of most Democratic strategists, Goldwater captured Georgia's electoral votes. And the victory of Maddox, the red-neck who closed his restaurant rather than submit to the public accommodations provisions of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, proved that Georgia's voters as a whole aren't as modemate as some Northern optimists would like to think.

Maddox ran a campaign geared to the racists and the "small man" disenchanted by federal spending in time of inflation. He was able to combine strong support from these overlapping blocs -- and Republicans voting in the Democratic primary--to defeat the wealthy Arnall, who had been an outstanding state executive in the 1940s, but seemed to have lost touch with the mood of the Peach State electorate in the intervening 20 years. Arnall proclaimed his allegiance to the "national Democratic party," a group that more than ever stands for sin, spending, and federal interference in the eyes of most rural Southerners and Georgia's popular Senators, Richard Russell and Herman Talmadge.

John R. Rarick's victory over 12-term Congressman James H. Morrison in a Louisiana Democratic primary illustrated voter discontent with the President, whom Morrison had backed on most issues. The vote was heaviest against the incumbent in the two areas of the district where racial disturbances had occurred. Rarick also skillfully used rhetoric railing against "professional politicians," a ploy most effective when voters seem to be most frustrated.

Morrison's defeat was no major surprise and many political analysts feel that the cross-over of registered Republicans to vote in the Democratic race was decisive in Maddox's upset victory.

Thus, the choice of George Mahoney as the Democratic candidate in Maryland has been considered the most shocking victory of all. It shouldn't be. Mahoney, a six-time loser in Democratic primaries since 1950, ran on one issue -- his opposition to open housing laws. His two major opponents, Rep. Carlton Sickles and State Attorney General Thomas Finan, who ran a close second and third, both supported the now-dead Civil Rights Bill of 1966. Both were liberals, although Finan, the organization candidate, was tainted by scandals in the-state administration in which he served. And together they received well over a majority, while Mahoney was able to squeak in with about 30% of the vote -- considerably less than the 43% George Wallace received in the Maryland Presidential primary in 1964. The racists and casual bigots had one candidate to vote for, while liberal support was fragmented.

The chances are that Mahoney will be defeated in November by Republican moderate Spiro Agnew since large numbers of Democrats will not support a "backlash" candidate. But in New Hampshire, retired Air Force General Harrison Thyng, the most patent right-winger of the lot, has a good chance to capture the seat held by New Hampshire's first Democratic Senator in decades, Thomas MacIntyre. Thyng, who quit the Air Force to run in the Republican primary at the behest of right-wing publisher William Loeb, scored a narrow victory over divided moderate opposition, state party chairman William Johnson and ex-governor Wesley Powell. Thyng opposed civil rights legislation and foreign aid and insisted that increased conventional bombing of military targets in North Vietnam would halt Hanoi's capacity to fight -- and end the war, of course. The ground war in South Vietnam didn't interest him much. The decisive factors in his victory were probably his divided opposition, the low turnout (which often favors extremists whose kooky backers flock to the polls to vote for their putative saviors), and Loeb's Manchester Union-Leader, the only paper that circulates throughout the state.

As alarming as these victories appear, there is virtually no chance that all four will emerge victorious in November. What is interesting though is the fact that each right-wing victory would have been considered inconceivable six months ago. This indicates that American voting patterns may have become unusually volatile, traditionally an accurate indicator of voter discontent and frustration. But to conclude that sporadic right-wing primary victories indicate a shift in the temper of the nation's electorate in a given direction would be premature for the reason that primary conditions are sharply different from those surrounding regular elections. And the results in November are the ones that count.