Leases Renewed

Ever since the collapse of Estes Kefauver's 1952 bid for the presidential nomination, some political dopesters have been predicting that he might lose his seat in the Senate. Such predictions neatly fitted the plans of third-term Tennessee Congressman Pat Sutton of Lawrenceburg (pop. 5,500), who this year entered the lists against Kefauver in the Democratic primary.

Sutton, with boundless campaign funds, hopped around the state in a helicopter and harangued voters for as long as 27 hours at a stretch on radio talkathons.

He accused Kefauver of befriending left-wing Northerners, supporting the Supreme Court segregation decision, and, worst of all, being an "internationalist." Unlike his 1948 coonskin-cap barnstorm ing, Kefauver's campaign was dignified; he soft-pedaled his internationalist and gang-busting lines, stressing what he had done for Tennessee. By campaign's end there was evidence that Pat Sutton had talked too much. During one talkathon, he had labeled a friend of Kefauver as a "known Communist." Later he apologized, but that did not stop Kefauver's friend from hitting him with a $1,500,000 slander suit.

Meanwhile, the race for governor was even stormier. A more seasoned challenger than Sutton, former Governor Gordon

Browning, was battling to avenge his 1952 defeat at the hands of Governor Frank Clement. Browning supporters charged Clement with accepting a Cadillac as a gift from trucking interests and with forging letters used to disprove other Browning attacks. But much of the political sheen had worn off Old Warhorse Browning, 64, whom Clement's forces berated for having "sold out the South" at the 1952 Democratic convention by voting to unseat the Virginia delegation. Clement, still the nation's youngest (34) governor, seemed to impress the voters with his oratorical spellbinding and the record of his first two years in office.

Last week Tennesseans voted. The lopsided results: for Senator--Kefauver, 389,000; Sutton, 165,000; for governor--Clement, 436,000; Browning, 177,000.

Only a few thousand voters bothered to cast ballots in the Tennessee Republican primary. As their senatorial nominee they picked Ray H. Jenkins, counsel in the Army-McCarthy investigation. Jenkins insisted that he was not a candidate, but he neglected to have his name removed from the ballot. This week, with Jenkins still insisting, the Republican state committee prepared to name a replacement.

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