Nothing Grand

TIRED OF WAR? VOTE NUNN. The campaign posters do not explain how Republican Louie Nunn will settle the Viet Nam conflict from Frankfort if he is elected Kentucky's Governor next week. For that matter, neither candidate has been notably informative about the issues. Nunn seems to be running against Lyndon Johnson, retiring Governor Edward Breathitt, and assorted other Democrats. However, Henry Ward, the Democratic candidate, happens to agree with Nunn on most questions affecting the state. The race is so lacking in substance that Ward, conceding that he has "no grand sort of scheme," tells voters: "Whether the people like it or not, they're going to have me or Nunn. If they say, 'We don't much want Ward,' why just consider the alternative."

Many Kentuckians are doing exactly that. So many, in fact, that Kentucky may well elect its first Republican Governor in 24 years. Nunn, 43, a former county judge who ran against Breathitt in 1963 and lost by a mere 13,055 votes, preaches that it is "time for a change" from the "old, entrenched political machine." He is an energetic handshaker and baby-kisser who is not above pumping a dog's paw at a shopping-center rally. To support his argument that the election has great national implications, Nunn has imported such Republican luminaries as Ronald Reagan, George Murphy and Everett Dirksen to point out that a Nunn victory would be a Johnson defeat.

Moderate Noises. A former state legislator and highway commissioner, Ward, 58, has suffered from a stodgy, standoffish campaign style. Realizing how close the race has become, he last week recalled Nunn's appeals to the backlash vote in the Republican primary and charged: "He's doing it again. He's running a disgraceful campaign. He would make a disgraceful Governor."

Even that sally failed to stir much interest because Nunn for months has been making only moderate noises on racial questions. So negative has the contest become that unqualified partisans are difficult to find. One Kentucky Republican who has given Nunn tepid support complains: "They're either against Nunn because of something he said against Catholics or Jews in the primary, or they're against Ward because they don't like Breathitt or Johnson." The Louisville Courier-Journal endorsed Ward, but faulted him for me-tooing Nunn's positions opposing a state open-housing law and new taxes. The question next week for many Kentuckians will be whether to vote at all.

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