Victory in Depth

From the Continental Divide to the Pacific shore, the Mexican border to the Arctic Ocean, only one statehouse remained in Democratic control last week. Even the lone holdout in Salt Lake City most likely would have fallen to the G.O.P. if Governor Calvin Rampton did not have two more years to serve. Of all the West's Democratic gubernatorial candidates, only Incumbent John Burns in Hawaii survived the pervasive Republican wind. Another possible Democratic winner is Alaska's William Egan, who withdrew an early concession in hopes that a recount and a tally of absentee ballots would return him to office.

No less significant were Republican gains in secondary statewide races, legislatures and courthouses. Democratic majorities were transmuted into Republican majorities in both houses of the legislatures in Alaska, Arizona and Utah. The G.O.P. also won complete control of a divided legislature in Colorado, half of previously all-Democratic legislatures in Washington, Oregon and Montana.

Pared Margins. Ronald Reagan will still be faced with Democratic majorities in Sacramento, but their margins were pared to a bare--and possibly friendlier--predominance in both houses. Even powerful Jesse Unruh, Democratic speaker of the lower house and longtime rival of defeated Pat Brown, appeared close to defeat for a time in his once-safe suburban Los Angeles district. Unruh's margin: 9,000 votes.

Republicans racked up only slightly less impressive victories in the congressional races. The Democrats lost ten of their 48 Representatives, among them such Capitol Hill veterans as California's seven-termer Harlan Hagen, defeated by Olympic Decathlon Champion Bob Mathias. In Senate contests no incumbent was defeated, and the Democrats had only one loss, the Oregon seat of retiring Maurine Neuberger that was captured by Mark Hatfield.

One Word. Officeholders at home are far more visible, however, than those in Washington, and are perennially harried by aggrieved voters. Partly as a result of introducing a sales tax, Robert Smylie, dean of U.S. Governors, lost out in Idaho's Republican primary in August. He was joined last week by incumbent Democrats in Alaska, Arizona, California and Nevada. Three of the losers--Alaska's Egan, California's Brown and Nevada's Grant Sawyer--also were trying to surmount the voters' antipathy to third terms.

Ideology played a minimal part in the elections. Indeed, there was little but the word Republican to unite the G.O.P.'s nine winning Governors. Arizona's Jack Williams and Nevada's Paul Laxalt stand close to Goldwater, while Idaho's Don Samuelson stands, if possible, to the right of Barry. Colorado's John Love, on the other hand, is more of the Scranton stripe while New Mexico's David Cargo and Oregon's Tom McCall would agree on most issues with Nelson Rockefeller or Jacob Javits.

With few exceptions, the Western winners on both sides were the more articulate and attractive campaigners. Thus outstanding Democratic candidates managed in many cases to buck the G.O.P. tide. While Republicans were making substantial gains in Washington, all four of the freshmen Congressmen who rode into office with Lyndon Johnson were returned. Democratic Senator E. L. Bartlett easily repulsed a Republican challenger in Alaska, and Montana's first-term Senator Lee Metcalf racked up a surprisingly large margin in defeating Republican Governor Tim Babcock's bid for his seat.

As in all big victories, last week's near-sweep of the Western statehouses was as much a challenge to the winners as a defeat for the losers. Few Republican Governors will be able any longer to accuse Democratic legislatures of blocking their programs: all will be on their mettle to come up with new programs of their own. And, of course, they, too, will have to battle anti-incumbent reaction when they come up for reelection. Yet a triumph of such depth and breadth gives the G.O.P. a firm foundation for future growth and a huge geographical base for the presidential campaigns of 1968 and 1972.

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