Nomination by Association

Pierre Salinger's entry into California's Democratic Senate primary was late and funny. He filed only two hours before the deadline, then had comic-opera troubles convincing legal author ities that he was a Californian; after all, he had not lived in the state for nine years, for the past four had been a voter in Harry Byrd's Virginia, and on primary day could not even vote for himself. "Carpetbagger!" cried Pierre's chief opponent, State Controller Alan Cranston. Asked what issues he and Salinger disagreed on, Cranston replied acidly: "The only subject I see at the moment that Mr. Salinger and I could productively debate is his apparent de sire to reapportion the U.S. Senate with three seats California." from Pierre Virginia and one reapportioned from the Democratic vote to his side, 1,193,934 to Cranston's 1,051,106.

Memories of Jack. In the crucial final stages of the campaign Salinger got important help from a pair of ladies.

Lucretia Engle, wife of popular incumbent Democratic Senator Clair Engle, who was forced to withdraw from the primary after his second brain operation since August, came out for Sal inger. And Jackie Kennedy said: "President Kennedy valued his advice and counsel on all major matters." Salinger's past association as press secretary to Jack Kennedy clearly was his best issue. He constantly recalled the crises through which he had gone with the late President. In the final hours of the campaign, Pierre's people mailed 4,000,000 postcards, each bearing a blue-bordered photo of Kennedy, an italicized caption "In His Tradition," and a sample ballot with an "X" after Salinger. On election night, he made certain that he wore his lucky pink-and-white-striped election shirt--the same one he had worn for elections ever since Kennedy won the New Hampshire presidential primary in 1960.

Among the primary byproducts were:

1) new prestige for State Assembly Speaker Jesse ("Big Daddy") Unruh, who backed Salinger from the start;

2) a numbing blow to Governor Edmund ("Pat") Brown, who had lunged in to support Cranston; and 3) a badly torn Democratic Party. Dismayed by it all, Brown mumbled, "Even though I'm disappointed, I feel good about having such a fine man as Pierre for Senator." Cranston, too, promised he would support Salinger--but added that he would not drop a $2,000,000 libel suit against Pierre for making the campaign charge that Cranston had put the campaign-fund arm on inheritance-tax appraisers whom he had appointed.

Help from Shirley. In November Salinger will face a Republican who gathered a lot of votes from a somewhat more distant past image. He is filmdom's veteran Song and Dance Man George Murphy, now 61, who is still getting a lot of free TV exposure on late-late shows as, among other things, the charming, marvelously nimble adult dancing partner of a ten-year-old named Shirley Temple. Murphy is a thoroughly respectable candidate, has been a top California Republican figure for a decade, describes himself as a "dynamic conservative," and has refused to embrace publicly either the conservative or the liberal faction of California Republicanism. Said George Murphy of the November elections: "If I win that one, I'll invite Pierre to play the piano and I'll do a little dance."

Chances are, with 1964 looking like a Democratic year in California, that Pierre will end up dancing.

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