'A Pretty Good Patcher'

In Hartford's sweltering red brick Bushnell Memorial Hall, delegates fidgeted and fussed. At 1:34 in the morning, after 10 hr. and 49 min. and eight roll calls, Connecticut Republicans finally selected Insurance Executive John Alsop as their candidate for Governor. Next day, tired and irritable, they took just one decisive muster to smash the comeback attempt of former Governor-Diplomat John Davis Lodge, who wanted to be their nominee for the U.S. Senate.

Shimmies & Bagpipes. The convention had all the show of a national nominating conclave. As each of the six candidates for Governor was nominated, his partisans paraded under television floodlights. Fifty girls in white blouses and short blue skirts kicked and shimmied for Edwin H. May Jr., former state Republican chairman.

A bagpipe band babbled for Conservative State Senator John Mather Lupton.

Strategists for May and Connecticut House Speaker Anthony Wallace even used short-wave radio to guide their staffs --but sadly discovered that each could overhear the other.

As the polling began, the race was essentially between Alsop, 46, and May. 38.

Alsop, whose writing brothers Stewart and Joseph watched the voting with him on television in a backstage dressing room, had narrowly missed the nomination in a more relaxed convention in 1958.

May, a boy-wonder Congressman at 32.

had stressed his organizational ability in a skillful campaign across the state, now personally directed his supporters on the floor. With 328 votes needed for the nomination, the first ballot gave Alsop 226, May 202 and Wallace 101.

As the night wore on, three candidates withdrew, but Wallace stood fast, hopeful that he might become the compromise choice. Backstage, the candidates' tacticians huddled, vainly seeking deals that might break the deadlock. On the sixth ballot, Wallace began to slip. The May forces tried to get a recess until morning to gain time to persuade Wallace to with draw and throw his votes to May. Uncomfortable and hungry, the delegates in sisted with rhythmical clapping that the voting continue. On the seventh Wallace was down to 43 votes, while Alsop had 309 and May 302. Foreseeing the end, Wallace withdrew, and on the eighth ballot Alsop was nominated, 337 to May's 317. Puffing contentedly on a black pipe, Alsop dismissed the rift in the party, said: "I'm a pretty good patcher." Exit. The long count pushed the convention into an unscheduled third day to select a candidate to succeed Republican Senator Prescott Bush, 67, who had an nounced only four weeks ago that he did not have the physical strength to seek and serve another term. Immediately.

Lodge, who had been a candidate for Governor, decided to try for the Senate instead -- but refused to get out and work for it. Said he to a friend before the con vention: "I just can't go out and shake Lodge, people's and hands I'd and like say your 'I'm vote.' It John Davis would be insulting to them. They know who I am." Far from aloof was Horace Seely-Brown Jr., 54, a hulking, aggressive six-term Congressman from Connecticut's agricultural eastern Second District. Seely-Brown, who runs a 100-acre apple farm in Pomfret, likes meeting people. He covered 3,000 miles in the state, pleaded persuasively for delegate votes.

As Lodge sat in a makeup room back stage and listened to the public-address system, delegate after delegate voted against him. He lost, 476 to 149. It had been a rough day. Earlier, Lodge had strolled up on the convention stage to watch, was startled by State Chairman A. Searle Pinney's reminder that conven tion rules bar candidates from the plat form except for speeches. "I am a former Governor of this state," protested Lodge.

"Where shall I sit then?" Pinney pointed to the delegate seats. Onetime Movie Actor Lodge stepped offstage -- and quite possibly right out of active politics.

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