Senate, Anyone?

It was just like roundup time in Texas. The politicos were moving in thundering herds, and vote-rustling, legitimate-like, was going on by glare of day and dark of night. The big rustle and bustle centered around the U.S. Senate seat that Democrat Price Daniel left when he took over as governor this year (TIME, Jan. 28), and with election day less than a month away, 24 eager politicians were running for the job.

Normally, a race for the Senate would be regarded with no more emotion than the news of another oil strike, but the vote-grabbing was more intense because Texas stands a chance in the April 2 election of sending a Republican to the Senate. And if that happens, the extra G.O.P. vote would relieve the Democrats of their 49-47 edge, split the parties 48-48, throw the decisive vote to Republican Senate President Richard Nixon--and strip of his title Texas' own Lyndon Baines Johnson, Senate majority leader.

The Republicans have put their bets on Houston Lawyer Thad Hutcheson, 41, a political newcomer who has Ike's personal endorsement in a state that has twice gone heavily for Eisenhower. To head him off, the Democrats have tried for weeks to get a bill through the legislature requiring a runoff between the two top candidates if neither gets a majority. Last week the bill failed, and Republicans were figuring hopefully that the heavy Democratic vote might be so thinly spread among the twoscore Democratic candidates that Republican Hutcheson could skip through with a small plurality. Moreover, while Hutcheson's competition is tough, it is by no means overwhelming. Leading the Democrats is Austin Attorney Ralph Yarborough, a sure vote getter but a chronic loser (three times for governor, once for attorney general). And Liberal Yarborough is bound to lose chunks of the conservative vote to ex-Congressman and Red-Hunter Martin Dies.

With Yarborough the man to beat, Thad Hutcheson was pounding confidently away with his campaign, enormously cheered by the numbers of his opponents. Reckoned he: "A lot of people are going to be influenced by the fact that I can give the President the critical votes he needs in the Senate."

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