A Fox at the Chicken Coop?

The Senate: Bitter Contests Between Oldtimers

Senate candidates flay each other in Illinois. Longtime enemies square off in New Hampshire. A challenger tries to pressure an aging Maryland Congressman into making a mistake. Some Senate and House races have a nasty, name-calling quality that makes the mostly clean-cut ideological contest in the House district centering on Eugene, Ore., all the more refreshing.

"If he whacks, I'll thump," vowed Democrat Alan Dixon early in his race against Republican Dave O'Neal for the Illinois Senate seat being vacated by Adlai Stevenson III, who is retiring. So far, Dixon has kept his word, and the contest has turned into a name-calling slugfest.

Dixon, 53, a hearty, backslapping professional politician, was first elected a state representative at age 22 and has since served as state senator, state treasurer and now secretary of state. All together he has won 14 primaries and 13 general elections. Dixon, who calls himself a centrist, supports the Equal Rights Amendment, which is stalled three states short of final approval, but opposes extending the deadline for ratification beyond June 30, 1982. He backs SALT II but with substantial reservations.

O'Neal, 43, a 220-lb. ex-Marine with a black belt in karate, has no qualms about taking on Dixon. Says O'Neal: "I've always accomplished what I've set out to do --running for office or becoming a good bowler." Ten years ago, when he was a pharmacist in rural Belleville, he decided to run for sheriff when a deputy took two days to answer a complaint by O'Neal's wife about a prowler. O'Neal won handily, fired the deputy and soon made a name for himself by packing two pistols on drug busts. O'Neal was elected Lieutenant Governor in Governor Jim Thompson's 1976 landslide. A Reagan Republican, O'Neal opposes the ERA, abortion and SALT II and favors the Kemp-Roth proposal to cut federal income tax rates by 30% over three years.

To win, O'Neal figures that he must campaign aggressively to increase his name recognition across the state (70% in a poll, vs. 98% for Dixon). In a debate, O'Neal accused Dixon of "shaking down" state employees for more than $300,000 in contributions and spending $1.1 million "like a drunken sailor" during the primary campaign. Electing Dixon to the Senate, said O'Neal, would be like "sending a fox to guard the chicken coop."

Dixon in turn has accused O'Neal of violating the spirit of the federal election laws by accepting $449,000 in "laundered" funds from the Republican Senate Committee, by which Dixon meant that the money cannot be traced to its original source. Actually, the candidates' total campaign war chests are almost the same: $2.35 million for Dixon and $2 million for O'Neal. Although O'Neal has closed the gap with his opponent in the polls, from 18 points in June to 12 points by mid-September, most bets in Illinois are still on the thumper. sb

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