The Nice Guy

Even in the heat of a political campaign, most Californians agree, U.S. Senator Thomas Henry Kuchel (rhymes with treacle) is a nice guy. Affable, earnest, courteous-Tommy Kuchel is all of those and more. Last week the principal reason for Dwight Eisenhower's trip to Los Angeles was.to lend a needed helping hand to Kuchel's re-election campaign. Yet, after Ike landed, Nice Guy Kuchel was so nice that he let another Republican, ebullient, shoulder-thumping Governor Goodwin J. Knight, elbow him out of the limelight.

On the ride from the airport to Ike's Beverly Hills hotel, Goodie Knight, who is not running for anything this year, rode in the open convertible with the President and waved to the bystanders. Kuchel rode in a closed car behind. Later, a little wistfully, Kuchel said: "I was terribly pleased today. Coming from the airport, I heard some people shout my name."

That night at the smog-shrouded Hollywood Bowl, Tommy Kuchel was to introduce the President to a crowd of 22,000 whooping, happy Republicans. But Goodie said that, as governor, that was his privilege. So Kuchel introduced Knight; Goodie introduced the President. In the course of his speech, Ike said he hoped all Republican candidates for Congress would be elected, including Senator Kuchel.

Meanwhile, back in the hustings, Kuchel's opponent, New-Dealing State Senator Richard Richards, was vigorously slashing away. A tireless, fast-talking campaigner who looks like Hollywood's idea of a fast-rising young politician, the 39-year-old Richards has built up his popularity by handshaking his way eight times from the Mexican border to Oregon. He smoothly tailors his extemporaneous talks to the needs of the occasion, e.g. before a Los Angeles luncheon club, he blasted Republican foreign policy; in a pitch for the Portuguese-American vote, he urged upward revision of McCarran-Walter Act immigration quotas; before a San Francisco Bay Negro organization, he attacked Kuchel for voting for Senator James Eastland's confirmation as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee (a routine vote on organization of the Senate).

In reply, Kuchel whose political patrons include such big names as Chief Justice Earl Warren and Senate Minority Leader William Knowland, has merely pointed to his record as a hardworking, honest public servant (state assemblyman state controller, U.S. Senator). If California voters decide on the basis of talk, Dick Richards has a good chance. If they decide on performance, Nice Guy Tommy Kuchel will go back to Washington.

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