Man to Watch

For weeks before the election, Democratic campaign workers busily slapped up posters on the billboards of New Jersey's Hudson County. The posters read: "It Looks Like Wene." Just as energetically, Republican campaign workers slapped up other posters beside them. The Republican posters read: "But It's Really Hague."

Last week the vote was in and State Senator Elmer H. Wene (rhymes with bean), the gubernatorial choice of the Democratic Party and the last best hope of Boss Frank Hague, was a loser. New Jersey's voters, by a plurality of 80,000, had reelected able, hard-working Republican Governor Alfred E. Driscoll.

Driscoll's strongest ally was the New Jersey electorate's deep and perceptive conviction that a victory for Wene would have returned to 73-year-old Frank Hague the political empire he lost when Democratic maverick John V. Kenny dethroned him in Jersey City last May. Wene, besides Hague's dubious help, also had the ill-advised support of Roman Catholic Auxiliary Bishop James A. McNulty, who opposed Driscoll's position against bingo (TIME, Oct. 24), and ordered nuns to distribute circulars to parochial schoolchildren urging the election of the Hague candidate. The potent C.I.O. stayed "neutral," and, though it didn't want to admit to admiring a Republican, covertly worked for Driscoll.

Even in heavily Democratic Jersey City, where Mayor Kenny made no effort at all to produce votes for Boss Hague's candidate, Driscoll managed to pile up a plurality of some 18,000 votes. (The day after the election, Mayor Kenny received a small parcel from Wene's press secretary. Contents: a catsup-stained, seven-inch carving knife and a message: "Dear John: I pulled this out of Wene's back this morning; I thought you might need it for future reference.")

Actually the voting was as much pro-Driscoll as it was anti-Hague. In his three years in office, 47-year-old Alfred Driscoll, graduate of Williams and of Harvard Law, had proved a capable, liberal governor.

Among his accomplishments: abolition of segregation in New Jersey's National Guard, an increase in teachers' minimum salaries (from $1,200 to $2,200), a sickness-liability law covering 1,600,000 workers and a $50 million veterans' housing program.

His proudest achievement, Driscoll thinks, is New Jersey's new constitution which a voters' referendum adopted two years ago. One of its provisions abolished an old state rule which prohibited a governor from succeeding himself. Under it, Alfred Driscoll became the first man to win two successive terms as New Jersey's governor in 105 years.

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