Tiger! Tiger! Burning Bright

They have been bitter political and personal enemies for years. In 1974, during a dispute over the results of Democrat John Durkin's first Senate race in New Hampshire, Republican Attorney General Warren Rudman, as a member of the state Ballot Commission, ruled against him. Durkin won the subsequent rematch handily. Then President Ford in 1976 tried to name Rudman chairman of the Interstate Commerce Commission. The Senate never took up the nomination; despite denials from Durkin, who was a member of the Senate Commerce Committee, New Hampshire Republicans are convinced that he blackballed the appointee. Now Durkin, 44, and Rudman, 50, have squared off again, this time over Durkin's Senate seat. Predicts the incumbent: "It will be quite a fight. It'll go the length of the bar and out into the street."

Neither candidate is a strict party ideologue. Reversing the usual Democrat-Republican alignment, Durkin strongly backs a proposed constitutional amendment to ban abortion, while Rudman opposes it. More typically for a Democrat, Durkin opposes oil-price deregulation and at every opportunity attacks the oil companies (an especially popular target in chilly New Hampshire, which pays more for its imported heating oil than most other states). Rudman supports deregulation but urges that the windfall-profits tax on oil companies be used to buy home heating oil for the poor.

The candidates' sharpest disputes involve money. Rudman attacks Durkin as the candidate of organized labor because Durkin, in his first campaign, received $100,000 from out-of-state labor unions; this year, he has again collected $100,000 from them. By contrast, Rudman has refused to accept donations from non-New Hampshire political-action committees. The strategy so confused national Republicans that they considered not sending him the $75,000 earmarked for his campaign until he made it clear that he would accept the money. Durkin promptly called him "Waffling Warren."

Partly because money has become an issue, the race is probably the least costly Senate contest in the country. Each candidate plans to spend only about $350,000. Thus the outcome may turn largely on the candidates' campaign styles. Rudman is jovial and smooth, a "pussycat," as one campaign follower says. By contrast, Durkin is blunt and brusque; even Wife Pat concedes that "John isn't the smoothest character in town." But this is no handicap in New Hampshire, where voters prefer their politicians to be flinty. sb

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