Step to the Right

Given the conservative mood of California Republicans over the past four years, Senator Thomas Kuchel had become almost an anachronism, the last high-level moderate in a state party dominated by George Murphy and Ronald Reagan. In last week's G.O.P. primary, voters decided to retire Kuchel. By nearly 67,000 votes out of 2,168,117 total cast, he lost the Republican senatorial nomination to California Superintendent of Public Instruction Max Rafferty, a granitic conservative.

While the election clearly marked a step to the right within the state party, Tommy Kuchel, 57, had also brought trouble on himself. In his 16 years in the Senate, Kuchel, appointed by Earl Warren in 1952 to fill out Richard Nixon's unexpired term, had entrenched himself as minority whip. With his bland, litigious mind, the Californian found a congenial environment in the clubbish Senate, but he was never very careful about looking after his political fences at home, where he was often more popular with Democrats than with Republicans. Nor did his refusal to support the campaigns of Barry Goldwater, Reagan and Murphy endear him to California G.O.P. workers.

Throughout this spring's primary campaign, Kuchel ignored his advisers' counsel to abandon his long-winded, carefully qualified political statements and serve up hard answers. By contrast, Rafferty waged purple war against the "four modern deadly sins of violence, pornography, drugs and lawlessness" and demanded that the nation "take the handcuffs off our military people." In November, Rafferty will face Democratic Nominee Alan Cranston, a liberal and former state controller, who is slightly favored in the race.

In other primary contests:

> Texas' three-term Lieutenant Governor, Preston Smith, 56, a homey, lackluster conservative from Lubbock, defeated Liberal Houston Attorney Don Yarborough* by 756,909 votes to 620,726 in a runoff for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination. Though articulate and imaginative, Yarborough failed to win any major financial or editorial support against Smith, who called for "more of the good, sound, conservative government we have had in the past." In November, Smith will face Wichita Falls Attorney Paul Eggers, a virtually unknown candidate who is unlikely to make Texas history by becoming the first Republican Governor since Reconstruction.

> Alabama's former Lieutenant Governor, James B. Allen, defeated Representative Armistead Selden to win the Democratic nomination for the Senate seat being vacated this year by Lister Hill, who is retiring. Since both Allen and Selden support former Governor George Wallace, they virtually ignored issues in their campaigns, relied instead on personal attacks, with Allen accusing Selden of being one of "the Washington crowd"--a dirty phrase in Alabama. The Republicans, who will nominate a candidate at their convention this month, have little hope of preventing Allen from traveling up to join the Washington crowd himself.

* No kin to Texas Senator Ralph Yarborough.

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