Capricious Campaign Awards

Nominations for high and low points of the campaign:

MOST UBIQUITOUS CAMPAIGNER. Pennsylvania's Democratic Senate candidate. William G. Sesler, who often seemed beside himself and, to a degree, was, Sesler achieved the appearance of being in both Pittsburgh and Philadelphia on the same day by having his identical twin brother Thomas stand in for him in Pittsburgh. The tactic had an unforeseen peril: Tom was a more impressive campaigner.

MOST DUBIOUS NOMINEE. Robert A. Zimmermann, a gas station attendant in Sheboygan, Wis., and Democratic-American Party candidate for secretary of state. Zimmermann's only visible qualification was his name, similar enough to that of the incumbent Republican, Robert C. Zimmerman, to confuse the voters. Anxious to abet that confusion, Zimmermann, a Wallace Democrat, did no campaigning, and brushed aside an interviewer: "I don't intend talking any more. I don't want to louse up our strategy."

MOST UNDERHANDED TACTIC. The Ohio

A.F.L.-C.I.O.'s weekly newspaper, News and Views, snidely referred to Republican Senate Candidate Robert Taft Jr. as R.A.T. Why not? Supporters of Taft's opponent, Howard Metzenbaum, were pleased to use his initials, H.M.M., on buttons. The tactic suffered from inaccuracy: Taft's father was Robert A. Taft, but the son has no middle initial.

ODDEST BUT PERHAPS MOST JUSTIFIED COMPLAINT. By Republican Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, who registered a protest against the Democrats for rerunning his 1968 speeches.

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