The Case Case

Among the ten Republican Senators up for re-election this year, none have supported President Eisenhower's policies with more consistent fervor than New Jersey's spare (5 ft.11 1/2 in., 160 lbs.), studious Clifford Case, 56. Since he went to the Senate in 1955, Case has voted with the Administration 83.6% of the time. With this record Case has won a reputation as a solid-gold Modern Republican, but he has lost support of many Old Guard Republicans back in New Jersey. To oppose Case in next week's primary election , Old Guardists have put up a hard-campaigning right-winger: Robert Morris, 45, longtime lieutenant of the late Joe McCarthy, sometime (on and off between 1951 and 1958) counsel of the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee. As a result, Cliff Case, who was elected by a whisker in 1954, is in another close race.

Stumping & Pumping. Working the way he thinks a Senator should, conscientious Cliff Case has spent far more time answering roll calls in Washington than mending fences in New Jersey. Local GOPoliticos carp that he has lost touch with them, ignored them on federal patronage. Because he remained in Washington for the civil rights debate, Case has barely been able to campaign for the primary. One night last week, for example, Case flew into New York's La Guardia Airport at 8:50, sped off to a single political rally, hustled right back to catch an 11:30 plane out of La Guardia.

By sharp contrast, Morris has been stumping the state and pumping hands for the past 17 months--since shortly after he ran third in a field of three for the last Republican Senate nomination. His battered green Plymouth has rolled 63,000 miles into 20 of the state's 21 counties (v. five counties visited by Case in this campaign). In New Jersey supermarkets, Robert Morris has become as common a commodity as ripe eggplant. Bankrolled by New Jersey's platoon of wealthy, powerful ultraconservatives (among his top supporters: Johnson & Johnson Board Chairman Robert W. Johnson, Publicist James Selvage), Morris has blanketed the state with billboards and buttons, bought 392 one-minute radio spots a week. Incumbent Case's modest campaign is run out of a rent-free Newark basement by nonpaid workers.

Acrimony & Apathy. Both Case and Morris are running on Case's record. Case stresses that he has endorsed Ike on "the issues that count most in the maintenance of peace--mutual security, sensible defense spending, revision of the Connally Amendment on the World Court, reciprocal trade program, cultural and scientific exchanges." But Morris trumpets that Case has voted against Ike on "measures involving many billions of dollars . . . 'inflationary' housing bills, airport construction, shipping subsidies, excessive pensions, water-pollution control and federal aid to education." Charges a Morris broadside: "Senator Case has a long and consistent record of opposing legislation designed to protect the U.S. from Communist subversion."

But Morris takes the Fifth when asked about his own record as a key aide to Communist-Chaser McCarthy. Says he: "I'm running on my own record--not McCarthy's."

The party pros are markedly apathetic. Few have endorsed Case, which is indeed bitter medicine for an incumbent. Case is still favored to win--by a nose. But a sparse turnout on election day could hurt him. Not many more than one in four of the state's 1,200,000 registered Republicans are expected to vote in the primary.

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