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Nebraska Democrats next Tuesday are likely to do
a very strange thing. Not only are they going to give
George McGovern a plurality of their delegates to the
Democsfic National Convention, they will also
award 72-year-old Terry Carpenter with their party's
nomination for the U.S. Senate.
The big three in the state's Democratic Presidential
primary are McGovern, Minnesota's Sen. Hubert
Humphrey, and Los Angeles Mayor Sam Yorty.
Henry "Scoop" Jackson of Washington has stopped
campaigning in the primaries a la Muskie after his
disastrous fourth-place showing in Ohio this week.
McGovern, greatly encouraged by wins in
Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, plus his better than
expected showing in Ohio, has decided to spend a full
six days in the Comhusker state, campaigning by
train as did RFK in '68. His chief rival, HHH, can give
us no more than four days of bis time, considering his
head-to-bead battle with George Wallace in West
Virginia the same day.
But there are other differences between these two
men than hours allot ed for personal campaigning.
McGovern has a highly accomplished, professional
campaign staff, plus hordes of zealous young
volunteers and store-front headquarters in over 20
Nebraska communities, combined to make by far the
most superior grass-roots organization the state has
ever seen.
Helping to stump are such show business notables
as Dennis Weaver, Shirley MacLaine, Leonard Nimoy
and Julie Christie. Humphrey, by contrast, is allowing
a handful of faceless advance men do his work out of "
a single office in Omaha.
While McGovern offers concrete, substantive '
blueprints and itemized programs for the future,
Humphrey seems content to deal in hasty promises
and vague generalities. The South Dakotan can use as
a talking point the fact that be is a Senator from a
neighboring, basically Republican state. Minnesota,
further away and with a vastly more liberal political
heritage, is not of much consequence in Humphrey's
speeches.
McGovern has a fresh face, an energetic family to
help turn, and is the symbol of a protest vehicle for
those disenchanted with the status quo. Whue
Jackson's recent demise and the abrupt switch of 25
or 40 Muskie delegates might help Humphrey, HUH is
still regarded by most Nebraska ns as a tired relic of
the Johnson era.
Sam Yorty, folksy mayor of the only city said to
have its own foreign policy due to his frequent
foreign junkets, is also devoting a considerable
amount of time to Nebraska. Co mi tig in a poor third
with sewtn per cent of the vote in New Hampshire, be
now tells us, while touring the plains in his musical
("God Bless America" & 'Battle Hymn of the
Republic") Yorty mobile, that he wishes he had
forgotten a3 about the Granite State and spent all his
time here among his native (Yorty was born in
Lincoln) Nebraskans. The arch-conservative claims
McGovern is in league with Hanoi and blames the
President for spending too much on domestic needs
while letting our defense posture rot.
Also on the ballot, but who will be lucky to
collect five per cent of the combined vote are, in their
probable order of finish, Alabama Gov. George
Wallace, New York Rep. Shirley Chisholm, former
Sen. "Clean" Gene McCarthy, Arkansas Congressman
Wilbur Mills, New York's John Lindsay and Hoosier
Sen. Vance Hartke.
The race for the Democratic Senatorial
nomination in Nebraska is shaping up as an essentially
three-way battle with State Sen. Terry Carpenter,
Lincoln professor Wallace Peterson and State Sen.
Wayne Ziebarth of Wilcox.
Carpenter's dismal reputation among young people
is more than matched with his popularity among their
elders, his name recognition is easily the highest of
the six, he has the potent backing of State Senators
Eugene Mahoney and William Skarda of vote-rich
Omaha, he is sure to clean up in the panhandle area
and his phenomenal energy and stamina belie his 72
years. These factors, plus the inevitable split of the
liberal anti-Carpenter vote among the other 5
contenders make the on-again off-again Democrat the
man to beat.
Wally Peterson, the probable runner-up, is
focusing on the economy as his major issue. The
pedestrian, lackluster professor, who just yesterday
had the dubious benefit of inheriting the support of
withdrawing fellow liberal John DeCamp, declares
that we have "an economy more fully controlled by
government than at any time in our history."
State Sen. Wayne Ziebarth is waging a slick and
shallow media campaign. Financial reports reveal the
"Stand-up Guy" has spent over $30,000 so far, and is
prepared to shell out a hundred grand before next
Tuesday.
Still, Ziebarth at least seems to be addressing
himself to the things that are troubling Nebraskans,
even though his solutions leave much to be desired.
The three otLers, campaigning in varying degrees
of seriousness, have no hope whatsoever of getting
the nomination. Don Searcy, a Kearney State
geography professor, garnered 63,698 votes (40 per
cent) against Republican Congressman Dave Martin in
1970, holding the veteran representative to one of his
smallest margins ever.
The most refreshing different candidate is Phyllis
Person Lyons, McCbok housewife and civic leader.
Her pet issues are welfare, Congressional reform and
violence on TV. Unfortunately, she has been spending ,
more time campaigning in South Dakota and
Wyoming than Nebraska recently, and promises (for
reasons as yet unexplained) to resign "for a year" the
moment of her improbable election.
The Republican race, of course, is all Carl Curtis
and it is testimony to his tremendous stature and
capability that no one better-in either party-has
sought to oppose him.
The main charges aginst the Senator, that he
. doesn't do anything, do not bear up under dose
ficrutiny. Wielding immense power for Nebraska for
18 years of seniority, he is ranking Republican on the
Aeronautical and Space Sciences Committee, third on
the exclusive Finance Committee, including the Joint
Committee on Internal Revenue Taxation, and fourth
on the especially vital Agriculture and Forestry
Committee.
Curtis has consistently favored federal aid to
education, strong civil rights and veterans legislation,
vigorous anti-pollution laws, including the Air Quality
Act, Gean Rivers Restoration Act, Marine Protection
and Research Act, and the establishment of a joint
Congressional Committee on the Environment.
Probably the single most important influence on
the President with regard to rural concerns, the
Senator helped to write the Rural Development Act
of 1972, which will greatly assist rural communnies
in their quest for new economic and social
revitalization.
Curtis' stranger-than-fiction trio of Republican
opponents consist of a right-wing cattle breeder by
the name of Ronald Blauvelt; Christine Millard
Kniefl, an ultra-conservative retired school marm
from Omaha; and Lincoln's own Otis Glebe.
Blauvelt enjoys getting specific. Witness his pledge
to "strongly oppose legislative programs that are
harmful to the interests of the people of Nebraska."
Kniefl, the most qualified of the three, calls for
revision of the 16th amendment to the Constitution
to provide for a "reciprocal income tax." Glebe calls
for "love, respect, good, prosperity for all," except
for poor people, of course.
If First District Republicans are looking for
someone to represent them other than the moderate
incumbent, Charles Thone, they can choose between
Ebersl Lincolnite Kathy Braeman, and one Lester
Lamm, an obscure right-wing Methodist preacher out
of Scrihner. Braeman, active in many community civic
and social organizations including National
Organization for Women and Women's Political
Caucus, has drawn needed attention to what she
cOrtiklera Thone "insensitivity" to domestic social
issues such aa human rights and child care.
The unopposed candidate for the First District
Democratic nomination is the leftist Rev. Darrel Berg,
who operates his campaign from a vacuum cleaner
repair shop in Havelock. The Third District
Democratic nomination should rightly go to Ted
Reeves, Chairman of the Nebraska Environmental
Control Council, over grain farmer Warren Fitzgerald.
Getting down to the strictly local races, incumbent
Regent Ed Schwartzkopf deserves the nod over J.
James Plant and S.H. Brauer, Jr. For Legislature,
Bonnie Hibler is the superior candidate in the 25th
district, incumbent William Swanson in the 27th, and
challenger Shirley Marsh in the 29th. AH
constitutional amendments except Amendment 16.
which would allow state aid to private and parochial
schools, dei serve passage. Get out and vote May 9.
THURSDAY, MAY 4, 1972
THE DAiLY NEBRASKAN
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