The Senate: Rising Democratic Stars

Senate seats vacated by the retirement of popular incumbents offer a chance for two rising stars in the Democratic Party to become more visible nationally: West Virginia Governor John D. ("Jay") Rockefeller IV and Tennessee Congressman Albert Gore Jr., both scions of famous families.

A Family Tradition

After 16 years in West Virginia politics, Democrat Jay Rockefeller no longer has to worry about his state's voters rejecting him as a rich-kid carpetbagger from New York and Harvard. And, with two solid terms as Governor, he should be a shoo-in to fill the seat of retiring Democratic Senator Jennings Randolph. So why is Rockefeller running so hard? Because he remembers 1972 and the last G.O.P. landslide. "I went through the McGovern year," he says of his initial, unsuccessful run for Governor. "The coattail effect this year, the potential for a Reagan victory, is something I have to factor in." Indeed, last week Indiana Senator Richard Lugar, head of the Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee, declared the West Virginia seat one of three he believes might be taken from the Democratic column.

Rockefeller, 47, the nephew of former Republican Governors in New York and Arkansas, seems to have a comfortable lead. The West Virginia Poll last month put him 16 points ahead of his Republican opponent, Businessman John Raese, 34. With personal wealth of around $150 million, Rockefeller has been able to spend more than $7 million on his campaign so far. Raese has spent only about a tenth as much.

"I know the federal system-the people, the players, the structure," Rockefeller says. "You can't trade on that kind of experience. The fellow I'm running against has been tested not at all, and to the extent he has been tested in the campaign he has come up as a real amateur."

The charge seems fair enough. Raese is a conservative with no political experience. During the Republican Convention in Dallas, Raese got into a scuffle with a Charleston Gazette reporter over the candidate's erstwhile advocacy of right-to-work laws. At a United Mine Workers rally on Labor Day, Raese practically heckled his opponent as Rockefeller addressed the crowd. "Come on, big boy," he shouted to the gentlemanly, 6-ft. 7-in. Governor, "I'm ready to debate you!" Rowdy Raese expects indulgence from voters. Says he: "I don't think West Virginia is going to elect Governor Rockefeller on a few minor mistakes I've made."

Rockefeller touts himself as one of his party's "new pragmatists," those who know how to make tough spending cuts. While denying presidential ambitions, he has run television ads on Washington stations, which reach only 7% of the state's residents, in what may partly be an effort to impress powerful Washingtonians. A quarter of West Virginia's coal mines closed during Rockefeller's last term, and the unemployment rate at 13.6% is the highest in the country, but his prospects seem undamaged. "It's like, 'Don't blame Jay,' " grouses State G.O.P. Chairman Kent Hall. "Somehow he's able to divert attention away from his failures."

A Father's Footsteps

When Senate Majority Leader Howard Baker announced that he would not run for reelection, jubilant Tennessee Democrats figured that his seat was theirs practically for the asking. Baker had no well-known Republican proteges within the state, and Democrat Albert Gore Jr. immediately staked his claim. The seat once belonged to his father, who had served as one of the Senate's most eminent members for 18 years. After four terms in the House and plum congressional committee assignments, handsome, likable "Prince Albert" was a Capitol Hill golden boy. In the midsummer polls, he led his opponent by 40 points.

Reagan and Vice President Bush traveled to Tennessee this fall to pump prestige into Victor Ashe's underdog campaign. The President has a 2-to-l lead over Walter Mondale in the state, and Ashe is shrewdly campaigning under a "Reagan-Ashe" banner. His opponent is far less comfortable with a "Mondale-Gore" tag. Ashe pressed his rival on this point during a televised debate by offering him $5 merely to mention the Democratic presidential candidate by name on the air. Nonplussed, Gore ducked the taunt. But his lead, though still strong, has narrowed to some 20 points.

A Yale graduate from a wealthy family, Ashe, 39, resurrected his kindergarten nickname, "Bulldog," for the race. He certainly is tenacious. A little-known and less liked 19-year veteran in the state legislature (he was voted one of the 20 "worst" legislators last April), Ashe lobbied ferociously for the Republican nomination. In an unusual step, the Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee settled upon Ashe before the primary to avoid a costly, divisive race. One piqued G.O.P. hopeful, Ed McAteer, 57, a former Colgate-Palmolive executive, is running as an independent. The archconservative founder of the Religious Roundtable, an evangelical political group, McAteer may siphon off right-wing votes from Ashe.

Ashe paints his Democratic opponent as a woolly, spendthrift liberal. But the Harvard-educated Gore, 36, a Viet Nam veteran and onetime Nashville Tennessean reporter, is a moderate who currently stresses his conservative side. He opposes federal funding for abortion and supports a balanced budget. For all his advantages, however, he insists he is still "running scared." Having answered positively to questions about the need for a separation of church and state, Gore adds, "I also believe in the separation of the presidential campaign and the race in Tennessee."