60m. TO VOTE IN U.S. ELECTIONS

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31210, 7 November 1966, Page 17

60m. TO VOTE IN U.S. ELECTIONS

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter —Copyright) NEW YORK, Nov. 6. Sixty million Americans go to the polls on Tuesday in an election expected to return President Johnson’s Democratic Party to control of both Houses of Congress but with slightly reduced majorities. The major question is whether the President, now relaxing at his Texas ranch awaiting minor operations, will retain enough “liberal" Democratic majority to continue his “Great Society” pro- ! gramme or will confront a blocking coalition of Republicans plus conservative Democrats. With the Presidency itself inot at stake this year, elec-

tions across the country will often be decided on purely local issues, though the conduct of the war in Vietnam, inflation and the smouldering racial questions have all had some impact on the campaign. On Tuesday the nation will choose the entire 435-seat House of Representatives, 35 of the 100 Senate seats and 35 of the 50 State Governors. The question is how many marginal House seats the Republicans will recapture from Democrats swept into office by the President’s landslide victory over Barry Goldwater two years ago. There are about 60 such marginal seats. Current polls indicate that Republicans will pick up between 30 and 40 of them—the usual performance for the opposition party in an “off-year” election. President Johnson has expressed confidence that such opposition gains would not endanger further measures in the “Great Society” programme, which he has charac-

terised as a natural progression from President Kennedy’s “New Frontier” and President Roosevelt’s “New Deal.”

But many political observers do not share this view. They point out that most of the measures already approved, including medicare, the war on poverty and civil rights legislation, enjoyed a margin of only about 40 votes in the House of Representatives.

The present party line-up in the House is 295 Democrats and 140 Republicans, counting one vacancy for each party. Conservative Republicans may therefore gain sufficient seats in the House to form a coalition with their natural political allies, the southern Democrats, to block further legislation. In the Senate race, where 20 Democratic and 15 Republican seats are up for election, the expected Republican gain of a seat or two will

make little difference to the present line-up of 67 Democrats and 33 Republicans. One of the more interesting contests is in Massachusetts, where the State Attorney, General Edward Brooke, running as a Republican, is hoping to defeat the former Governor, Mr Endicott Peabody, to become the first Negro United States Senator since 1881. Most of the excitement of this election is in the hardfought races for the 35 Governors’ seats, 20 now held by Democrats and 15 by Republicans.

Particularly important are those in the two biggest states in the nation—New York, where the Republican Nelson Rockefeller is fighting for his political life against the Democrat Frank O’Connor; and California, where the incumbent Democrat Pat Brown is believed to be running slightly behind the former film star, Ronald Reagan. The Liberal 58-year-old Rockefeller, who has already

served two terms, may win because of the “spoiling” role of a man with another famous name, Franklin D. Roosevelt, jun.

The son of the wartime President is running as the candidate of the small Liberal Party, and is expected to draw votes from O’Connor. 4 In Georgia, Lester Maddox, the former chicken restaurant owner who deterred would-be Negro patrons with axe handles, is running for the Governor’s mansion on a violently racial platform. His opponent, the Republican Howard Callaway, is only slightly less strident on the issue. Another off-beat race with long-term implications sees Mrs Lurleen Wallace, wife of the Governor George Wallace, seeking her husband’s seat in Alabama. Governor Wallace, prevented by law from running again himself, is known to have ambitions to run for President in 1968 at the head of a third “white backlash’* party.