Long Step

"If we're going to make a comeback," Republican National Chairman Thruston Morton said recently, "we're going to have to start picking up some statehouses." Last week the Republicans took a long step toward picking up one of the U.S.'s key statehouses. After a rough-and-tumble primary fight, former Labor Secretary James P. Mitchell, 60, won the Republican nomination for Governor of New Jersey, and in the process proved himself an impressive vote getter.

In winning the primary, Mitchell upset shrewd, tough Walter H. Jones, Republican leader of the state senate and the favorite of a fusty state Republican organization that has all but wrecked the once-powerful G.O.P. in New Jersey. In the last seven years, Jersey Republicans have watched haplessly while the rising Democratic tide elected Harrison ("Pete") Williams to the U.S. Senate in 1958, won control of the state assembly, put Robert Meyner in the Governor's mansion for two terms (the state constitution forbids him to run for a third), and gave New Jersey to John Kennedy last November by 22,000 votes.

Protection Back Home. Bucking this trend, the only successful statewide Republican is U.S. Senator Clifford Case, who is both a liberal and a loner. Ignoring and overriding the party hacks, Case won last fall by a landslide 332,000 votes while the state was going Democratic. Case hand-picked Jim Mitchell to fight Jones, in a move that was widely touted as a Case effort to take personal control of New Jersey Republicanism. In fact, Case wanted the chance to work in Washington without being undercut by the party organization back home.

National Republican leaders hurried to back Mitchell. Dick Nixon rounded up money, and Dwight Eisenhower whipped out a $100 bill as the first contribution. On the stump, Mitchell showed himself to be a witty, effective campaigner. He maintained that he could lead both labor and business to a revival of New Jersey's sagging industrial growth, but his main point was: "I am the only Republican who can win in November." This claim so infuriated organization Republicans that State Chairman Charles Erdman, an organization man, resigned rather than preserve even token neutrality.

Rain & Buckets. As primary day approached, the forecasters said that Mitchell needed sunny spring weather to bring out a big enough popular vote to overcome the solid blocs controlled by the party. Primary day dawned grey and wet--but the voters still sloshed to the polls in near-record numbers. Mitchell piled up big margins in Essex and Union counties, whipped Jones by 42,000 votes.

The man President Kennedy had originally picked to run for the Democrats was his close friend, Congressman Frank Thompson Jr. But Thompson wanted to stay on Capitol Hill, and eventually the choice went to Trenton Lawyer Richard J. Hughes, 51, who last week won his primary easily. Father of six (and three stepchildren) and, like Mitchell, a Roman Catholic, Hughes has capably held two Jersey judgeships. But his political views seem vague, and the charge that he carries water on both political shoulders has won him a nickname: "Two Buckets."

Rebuilding Job. Preparing for the general election in November, Nominee Mitchell's big problem is uniting the state party. That job will require all the conciliatory talents that won for Mitchell the respect of both labor and management while he was Labor Secretary. If Mitchell succeeds in rebuilding the state party, he seems likely to win in November. And once in the statehouse, he could greatly influence New Jersey's voting in the 1964 presidential election by wielding the patronage and power that, under the New Jersey constitution, are the most imposing of any Governor's in the Union. Beyond that, a November win will automatically make Jim Mitchell a top candidate for his party's 1964 vice-presidential nomination.

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