The Wells Dried Up

After the last dollar was spent in Oklahoma's Democratic senatorial primary, U.S. Senator Robert Kerr turned in a report of his personal campaign expenses to the state election board. The amount: $2,675. The board was awaiting a report from former Governor Roy Turner, who ran some 30,000 votes behind Kerr (TIME, July 19), but Oklahomans knew that his total would be no more than $3,000, because state law limits individual campaign expenses to that amount.

Actually, Oklahoma observers estimated that about $1,000,000 was spent in Kerr's campaign. Most of it was disbursed through the device of Kerr-for-Senate Clubs. The campaign of Turner, who had his own clubs, cost about half a million. When Turner started telephoning his friends last week to talk about the forthcoming runoff primary, he found his outside financial sources pretty well dried up. Furious, he charged that "deluges of money" had been spent to defeat him, and that "pressure" had prevented many of his friends from advancing more funds.

The same day, Turner announced his withdrawal from the runoff, virtually handing the Senate seat to Kerr. Roy Turner, only a millionaire, had decided that he could not match campaign dollars with Multimillionaire Bob Kerr.

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