Water for the Elephant

POLITICAL NOTES Water for the Elephant Farm Economist William G. Murray, 54, on leave from Iowa State College to take his first flyer at statewide office, wasted no time on temper last winter when Republican bosses studiously ignored his early race for Governor. "I haven't carried enough water to the Elephant," he acknowledged after a glance over the shoulder toward plodding Lieut. Governor W. H. Nicholas, who at 65 has spent more than a generation tending every breed of party animal. Genial Billy Murray, a Presbyterian six-footer with a scoutmaster's look of integrity and energy, made up for lost time by running a handshaking "survey" of voters in all 99 counties, asking the old pros of all factions for the advice they love to give. Some of them fell so in love with their own advice that they joined Murray's bandwagon, and in last week's primary it rolled to a thoroughly professional 110,000-to-85,000 victory over Lieut. Governor Nicholas.

Republicans of the Corn State, where the party's nod used to be enough to send a man to the Governor's chair, thus broke seniority rules to enlist the services of a fast-running newcomer. They had reason enough: Incumbent Herschel C. (for Cel-lel) Loveless, 47, rough-cut sample of the conservatism that marks today's Democratic Governors. By vetoing the legislature's extension of the sales tax at the 2 1/2% level, thus letting it slip to 2%, Loveless last year won the retailers around the border counties, then placated other groups by looking sad when he had to veto the school program that the sales tax would have supported. In outspoken contrast, Professor (of Agricultural Economics) Murray lectures that the sales tax is the only way to keep property taxes from "going through the ceiling," generally talks like a friendly revenue agent. Unless he can pull off a miracle to top his primary performance, his campaign against Loveless is likely to be just a water haul for the ailing Iowa G.O.P.

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