No Soapy?

For eight frustrating years, Michigan's feud-racked Republicans have vainly sought a way to wash bubbling, New-Dealing G. Mennen ("Soapy") Williams out of the governor's office. Finally, they thought they had found the formula and the man for the job. The formula: run someone against Williams who can whittle down his big edge in A.F.L.-C.I.O.-dominated Wayne County (Detroit), where approximately half of Michigan's voters live. The man: Detroit's respected mayor, Albert E. Cobo, 62, who in 20 years of public life has never lost an election. But before Cobo could take on Williams, he had to prove himself by running his first partisan race against the 1954 G.O.P. gubernatorial nominee, former police commissioner Donald S. Leonard.

In last week's primary Cobo won the 1956 nomination, rolled up 349,228 votes to Leonard's 158,203. On the Democratic ballot, the 45-year-old Williams, who thrashed Leonard with equal ease in the 1954 general election, got 418,432 votes in running unopposed for an unprecedented fifth term. Republican leaders found some comfort in the fact that in 75 of 144 key Detroit precincts--accurately used in the past to forecast election trends--Cobo ran well ahead of the 1954 G.O.P. ticket. To win in November, say the Republicans hopefully, Cobo needs only 40% of the Wayne County vote; Williams' weakness in predominantly Republican outstate Michigan will do the rest.

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