Bad Day for Incumbents

As Foster Furcolo, Massachusetts' two-term Democratic Governor, was edging his way through the crowded lobby of Boston's Sheraton-Plaza Hotel with campaigning Lyndon Johnson fortnight ago, a Boston postman hailed him in friendly fashion. Cried he, loud and clear: "Hiya, Governor! Ya dope!" That evening when Furcolo appeared on a rally platform with Johnson, Furcolo got a hearty round of boos. Clearly, something was amiss in Democratic Boston. Indeed, for hapless Foster Furcolo, something was amiss all over his state, and last week it was amiss by a mile: Furcolo, 49, running in the primaries for the Democratic senatorial nomination, got trounced, bounced, stomped and whomped by 35-year-old, crew-cut Springfield Mayor Thomas J. O'Connor Jr. In Boston alone, Furcolo lost by a staggering 10,000 votes.

The Governor's defeat came from a combination of Tom O'Connor's razzledazzle campaign and Furcolo's own shabby record. Despite his party's longtime pledge against a state sales tax, Furcolo had repeatedly tried to get one passed. He feuded endlessly with the Democratic legislative majority, got into whiffing distance of a scandal involving an appointee to Massachusetts' Metropolitan District Commission. Jack Kennedy had refused to endorse him in Furcolo's unsuccessful 1954 senatorial race against Republican Leverett Saltonstall, and this time studiously avoided endorsing either Democrat in the primary.

Fleet-footed Tom O'Connor left nothing to chance. One of seven children of a milkman, O'Connor grew up in Springfield's "Hungry Hill" section, has battled his way through politics ever since he ran for (and won) the presidency of his junior high school student government. After Georgetown law school (1951), he served in the legislature for three terms, then beat a twelve-year incumbent in the Springfield mayoralty elections, carrying every precinct in the city for the first time in history. As mayor, he put through a dynamic modernization and urban renewal program, reduced the tax rate. Billing himself as "Springfield's Great Young Mayor," O'Connor showed himself over and over again on TV and in the papers with the slogan "Fight Furcolo Fumbling," argued that only a vigorous, forward-looking candidate such as himself could beat Saltonstall. Last week Lev Saltonstall, 68, incumbent of 16 years, was beginning to run scared.

Other footprints on last week's primary trail :

P:In Washington, back-slapping Democratic Governor Albert Rosellini won renomination for a second term against lackluster opposition, though he ran far behind other state officials, all from his own party. Winner of the G.O.P. nomination was the man who might be able to turn Al ("The Rose") Rosellini out of office: Spokane Orchard Owner Lloyd J. Andrews, 40, the state superintendent of public instruction.

P: In Minnesota, the powerful Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party got a jolt when the Republicans came through with a promised show of strength which they hope will unseat Hubert Humphrey's sidekick, Governor Orville Freeman, in November. Nominated for the Republican gubernatorial ticket was Elmer L. Andersen, 51, St. Paul civic leader, state senator and glue company president. Teetotaling, nonsmoking Andersen campaigned hard into Freeman territory and racked up a remarkable vote: 253,000 v. Governor Freeman's 234,000. In Minnesota's Ninth District, D.F.L.'s Coya Knutson, who served two congressional terms (1955-58) and then lost after the famed "Coya, come home" letter written by her unhappy husband Andy, made a comeback by winning the D.F.L. nomination over D.F.L.-endorsed State Senator Roy Wiseth.

P:In New Hampshire, Republican Governor Wesley Powell, 44, came a hand-span from defeat for renomination, beating former Governor (1953-55) Hugh Gregg, 42, by 959 votes. Where once a G.O.P. nomination in New Hampshire was a sure guarantee of election, Powell's close vote and the unhealed G.O.P. wounds will give Powell an uphill fight in November against Democrat Bernard Boutin, a Jack Kennedy protege.

P: In Vermont, Republican Governor Robert T. Stafford, 47 (who won in 1958 by only 719 votes), clobbered three fellow Republicans for the honor of running in the House race against Congressman William H. Meyer, 45, the first Vermont Democrat in more than a century to win statewide office. Governor Stafford's 31,000 votes were more than the total of his three opponents combined, and an ominous sign for Meyer in November.

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