A Ghastly Election Finale
As the blue and white, twin-engine Beechcraft Baron lifted off the choppy runway in Chillicothe, Mo., one evening last week, its occupants had good cause for jubilation. Millionaire Congressman Jerry Litton had just scored a dramatic upset in Missouri's Democratic senatorial primary. Now, accompanied by family and friends, he was headed for a victory party with 1,500 campaign workers in Kansas City's Hilton Plaza Inn.
Suddenly, less than 200 ft. off the ground, one of the Beechcraft's engines apparently went dead. The plane banked sharply to the left, then plunged to earth. It tore through a barbed-wire fence, crashed in a soybean field and burst into flames that shot 30 ft. high. Amid the ashes and wreckage, sheriffs deputies found the bodies of Litton, 39, his wife Sharon, 36, and their two children. With them were their longtime friend and pilot Paul Rupp Jr. and his 18-year-old son. It was a ghastly finale to what had been one of the greatest days of Litton's political career.
Early results were just coming in when Litton left for the airport and the 22-min. flight to Kansas City. Moments before takeoff, the exuberant candidate telephoned ahead from an airport phone booth and told one of his campaign workers: "We're going to win it big."
It had been one of the freest-spending campaigns in Missouri's history. Eventually, returns showed that Litton had won 45% of the vote. Former Governor Warren Hearnes, 53, trailed with 27%. In third place was Congressman James W. Symington, 48, the early favorite to take the nomination and thus earn the chance to succeed his father, retiring Senator Stuart Symington, 75, who has held the seat since 1952.
Folksy Appeal. Litton parlayed hard work and a folksy appeal to victory. Up from impoverished beginnings, he helped build a successful Charolais cattle-breeding operation that he sold in 1974 for $3.8 million. The money went into a blind trust. First elected to Congress from rural western Missouri in 1972, he was re-elected in a landslide and decided to go after a Senate seat this year. When the contest began, Litton was 25 points behind the favored Symington in opinion polls.
With sheer hard work and a whopping $950,000 (v. Symington's $550,000), he closed the gap. Rural Missourians, unimpressed by Symington's credentials as a former U.S. Chief of Protocol, voted for Litton in droves, and a last-minute TV blitz cut into Symington's margin in metropolitan St. Louis.
Now the somber task of choosing Litton's successor as nominee falls to Missouri's Democratic state committee, which could act as early as this week. Because of his third place finish, Symington withdrew his name from consideration. That left Hearnes with the inside track--and the G.O.P. with an even stronger chance of picking up a Senate seat in November. The Republican nominee is State Attorney General John C. Danforth, 39, heir to the Ralston-Purina fortune and a skillful vote getter.
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There were other upsets in Democratic senatorial primaries last week. One of the most spectacular came in Michigan, where the party was choosing a successor to retiring Michigan Democrat Philip A. Hart, 63, the stalwart liberal who is gravely ill with lymphatic cancer. Maverick Congressman Donald Riegle, 38, ignored the wishes of the kingmaking United Auto Workers and challenged favored State Secretary Richard Austin, 63, for the nomination. Riegle won, 44% to 29% A former Republican Congressman whose liberal policies earned him a place on Richard Nixon's enemies list, Riegle switched to the Democrats in 1973 and this time ran as the loner against the state Democratic establishment.
Kickback Charges. Riegle effectively projected the image of a tough, young, shirt-sleeved contender with no great love for Washington. He also outspent Austin, a black, by an estimated $350,000 to $200,000, in a contest where voters split along racial lines. Austin's campaign was seriously hurt by charges that he had taken kickbacks from the state's private license-plate vendors. When it was revealed that they had installed $10,000 worth of air-conditioning in his house as a "gift," his reply was that he did not know it was being done. Riegle will run in November against Republican Representative Marvin Esch, 49, a moderate, ten-year congressional veteran from Ann Arbor.
In Tennessee, former Democratic State Chairman James Sasser, 39, plucked the nomination away from favored John J. Hooker Jr., 45, a Nashville lawyer and businessman. Sasser, also a Nashville lawyer, was an early backer of Jimmy Carter, and had the support of blacks and labor. He won 44% of the vote to Hooker's 31 % and is considered a serious threat to incumbent Republican Senator William Brock.
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