Arizona Shootout

Under the hot Arizona sun, the two bitter enemies circled each other like battling scorpions, stingers at the ready. Jabbed Representative John Conlan: "We are both conservatives, but our style is different. He uses a meat ax and I use a scalpel." Riposted Representative Sam Steiger: "John thinks of himself as a scalpel. I prefer to think of him as a Roto-Rooter." So it went in perhaps the year's most vicious political contest, the fight for the Arizona Republican nomination to succeed retiring G.O.P. Senator Paul Fannin. Last week that contest ended when Steiger, by a margin of about 10,000 votes out of a record 195,000 cast, captured the nomination. He may well have won a Pyrrhic victory.

Fast Lip. Steiger, 45, is a New York-born Jew who headed west 28 years ago and worked successively as rodeo bulldogger, airplane wing-walker, horse-race broadcaster, rancher and--since 1967--U.S. Congressman. He frequently sports lizardskin cowboy boots, silver belt buckles and pearl-buttoned shirts. Endowed with the brashest and fastest lip in Arizona politics, he once angered fellow Congressmen by observing that many of them were usually too drunk to be trusted pushing a wheelbarrow. More recently, he made headlines by shooting two burros that he claimed attacked him on a neighbor's ranch near Prescott.

His defeated adversary, Conlan, 46, a two-term Congressman who often wears white patent-leather shoes and white socks, is equally aggressive, but somewhat more polished. A former Fulbright scholar and Harvard-educated lawyer, he is an evangelical Protestant and heads a controversial movement called Christian Freedom Foundation, which seeks to weld conservative Christians into a powerful voting bloc.

Both men have almost identical philosophies and voting records--Americans for Conservative Action rates them as 100% conservatives--but have hated each other for years. The campaign never rose above the personal level. Charging that Steiger had "scandals and skeletons" in his closet, Conlan preached a hard-nosed gospel of "getting all Godfearing people to come out of the pews and go to the polls to stop the moral decay that is eroding our country." Supporters of Conlan wrote letters asking some 800 clergymen to persuade church members to vote for him because "it sure would be nice to have a man with a clear testimony for Jesus Christ representing Arizona and America." Steiger called his opponent a "total plastic politician" and a "dangerous man" who had been "bought and paid for" by a race-track operator who reputedly has Mafia ties. Replied Conlan: "Dirty gutter politics."

Steiger's campaign was hurt early on when he was erroneously linked with the gangland-style slaying of Don Bolles, the Arizona Republic reporter who was killed by a bomb planted in his car (TIME, June 28). When Steiger went to the police to offer help in solving the slaying, headlines in the Republic gave the false impression that he was a suspect. Later, the newspaper endorsed Steiger, partly offsetting the damage.

Never Honest. Conlan maintained a narrow lead until the closing weeks of the campaign, when the religious issue backfired. The seemingly anti-Semitic tone of his campaign angered Senator Barry Goldwater, the most highly respected figure in Arizona politics. He endorsed Steiger, who had already won the support of Senator Fannin. Throwing aside all caution, Conlan further provoked Goldwater by telling a reporter: "I don't know what it is with Barry. Maybe it's the pain [from a hip operation]. Maybe it's the drinking he's been doing." The outraged Goldwater struck back: "I've had all I can take from this guy. I'd hate to serve in the U.S. Senate with him. He's never been honest in politics. He just doesn't keep his word."

Though Steiger promised to raise the tone of the forthcoming election campaign by focusing on issues and not on personalities, he was still bitter about the primary fight. Said he: "You can live a full, rich life and never run against John Conlan." Conlan was making no move to heal the party's wounds either, which was good news to the obvious beneficiary of all the G.O.P. discord: Dennis DeConcini, 39, of Tucson, a former county district attorney, who handily won the three-way Democratic primary. If the split among Arizona Republicans continues, he will have a good chance of regaining the Senate seat that Democrats lost eight years ago.

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