Rites of Spring

Perhaps it was the arrival of the vernal equinox, or a phase of the moon. Whatever the cause, the political scene in the nation's two most populous states changed substantially last week as late bloomers rushed to file their candidacies.

> In New York, Arthur Goldberg reversed his ostensibly unalterable status of noncandidacy. He is available after all to oppose Governor Nelson Rockefeller's bid for a fourth term. With a long, distinguished career behind him --he was Secretary of Labor, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court and Ambassador to the United Nations--Goldberg, 61, could have had the Democratic nomination almost for the asking last December.

Now the Democratic race is crowded, with no fewer than five aspirants, several of them with impressive records of their own. Still, the Democrats are so eager to move into the executive mansion at Albany that their state committee is unlikely to turn down the one man who presently has a clear edge over the tarnished Rockefeller. If forced into a June primary, Goldberg would still be a heavy favorite. Perhaps the only thing that could seriously hurt his chances now is his Humphreyesque penchant for overtalk. If he were Governor now, Goldberg bragged last week, he could settle the postal strike singlehanded--though a Governor has absolutely nothing to do with the Post Office and no power to give or promise raises. "As Secretary of Labor, I came here and settled the tugboat strike," Goldberg said. "I'd settle this one."

> In California, Sam Yorty, mayor of Los Angeles, declared that he would enter the Democratic gubernatorial primary against Jesse Unruh, the party's leader in the state assembly. "The affairs of our great state," said Yorty, "should no longer be entrusted to inexperienced amateurs"--meaning Republican Incumbent Ronald Reagan--or given over to "extreme leftists and would-be dictators," meaning Unruh.

An effective if sometimes demagogic campaigner, and a maverick Democrat who supported Richard Nixon in 1960, Yorty is not expected to win the June primary. But he has a good chance to divide the party and diminish its already slim hopes. That spoiler role is his real goal, say his critics. Though Reagan has scarcely fulfilled, among other promises, his 1966 pledge to put down campus unrest, he has proved a masterly political animal. A recent state poll shows that 75% of the state's voters think that he has done a "good" or "fair" job.

> California also saw the entry of Norton Simon, a wealthy industrialist (Hunt's tomato products, among many others) and art collector (Rembrandt's Titus, for which he paid $2,234,000 in 1965), into the Republican primary against Senator George Murphy. Simon, 63, announced on the last possible day, surprising nearly everybody. Many had even assumed that he was a Democrat, since his money has aided Democrats --including Congressman John Tunney, who wants his own party's nomination for Murphy's seat.

A member of the board of regents of the University of California, Simon has fought Reagan's often simplistic proposals to put down dissent and has gained something of a liberal reputation. His views are probably too complicated, however, for any label. He said that he was against Murphy because Murphy's record is not capitalistic enough. "I think it's institutionalized," he said. "It's protecting the past rather than looking to the future." For the moment, Simon said, his candidacy is merely symbolic --though "you never know what symbols can turn into."

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