Reagan Gets a G.O.P Senate

And some of its most lustrous liberals are shown the door

The results surprised even the most optimistic Republicans. They had counted on a gain of maybe four or five seats in the Senate. They ended up with an eleven and possibly twelve--enough to give them control of the chamber for the first time since 1954. And victory was all the sweeter since the election toppled most of the Senate's leading Democratic liberals: George McGovern in South Dakota, Frank Church in Idaho, Birch Bayh in Indiana, John Culver in Iowa, Warren Magnuson in Washington, Gaylord Nelson in Wisconsin, and John Durkin in New Hampshire. Only a few liberals managed to keep their seats: California's Alan Cranston and Missouri's Thomas Eagleton won easily, while Colorado's Gary Hart barely beat back his Republican challenger, Mary Estill Buchanan and Vermont's Patrick Leaky seemed to have won by a hair. Two other Democrats refused to concede defeat on Election Night: Elizabeth Holtzman of New York and Incumbent Robert Morgan of North Carolina.

A Senate under G.O.P. management would be a far different place, with more moderate Democrats facing more conservative Republicans. Savoring a big re-election win in Kansas, Republican Robert Dole observed: "The liberals in Congress are going to have to learn a lesson. There is a kind of liberalism that doesn't wash any more." At the same time, the high turnover will probably make the Senate even more independent and self-willed. While its majority will share the basic outlook of the conservative President-elect, a Republican 97th Senate could prove to be just as balky as its predecessor.

The victorious Republicans received a lot of unsolicited help from the various right-wing organizations that have sprung up to combat liberalism, like the National Conservative Political Action Committee. But it is questionable how much these groups accomplished. For the most part, the G.O.P. candidates rejected their strident tactics, fearing a backlash. In general, the Republicans won because their opponents had grown too liberal for their states. Yet the conservative groups may have become a permanent feature of the political landscape. In Oklahoma, for example, the Protestant Moral Majority supported a born-again Catholic, State Senator Don Nickles, who overcame the favored Democrat, Andy Coats.

Elsewhere, Republicans were carried to victory by the surging Reagan tide: in Pennsylvania, former Philadelphia District Attorney Arlen Specter edged out former Pittsburgh Mayor Peter Flaherty; in North Carolina, John East, a professor of political science at East Carolina State University and protege of Republican Senator Jesse Helms, came from behind to unseat Democratic Incumbent Robert Morgan; in Georgia, Herman Talmadge was upset by Businessman Mack Mattingly. Ironically, the man who next to Reagan is most identified with conservatism almost lost. Arizona's Barry Goldwater, 71, seemed infirm to many voters but managed to eke out a narrow victory. Some of the key Senate contests:

Alabama. Ask any Alabaman. How could the son of "Kissin' Jim" Folsom, the state's popular former Governor, fail to win a statewide election? But that is what happened when "Little Jim" ran up against retired Admiral Jeremiah Denton, 56, who was riding a surge of Southern patriotism. Denton, who spent 7 1/2 years in a North Viet Nam prison after his plane was shot down, went on the air waves with the warning: "Our military is in the worst shape it has been since George Washington walked around barefoot at Valley Forge."

Denton sounded some other concerns. Strongly supported by the Rev. Jerry Falwell's Moral Majority, he wondered if teen-age unhappiness and suicides were not the result of excessive emphasis on sex in popular songs and TV shows. The salty-tongued admiral made light of his opponent's age ("too young") and intelligence ("I'm sure there are some 31-year-olds in the state who are smarter than me, but he's not one of them"). But in general, the candidates agreed on the issues: a balanced federal budget but greater defense spending and less Government interference in personal lives. Probably the biggest mistake of the campaign was made when a Democratic Party leader said that it was dumb for a top-ranking officer to let himself be captured during the Viet Nam War. The voters let it be known that was no way to treat a hero by giving the underdog admiral the victory with 50.7% to 47.5% of the vote.

Florida. "When I'm in Washington, you'll know I'm there," promised Paula Hawkins on the stump. "You need a fighter in the U.S. Senate. They've had too many lovers up there." Her contest was far from a love feast as she bested her Democratic opponent, William Gunter, with grit and grace and the right combination of issues to win, 51% to 49%.

Hawkins, 53, drew sharp distinctions to Gunter, 46, on social issues. She called for a constitutional amendment to allow prayers in school; Gunter opposed it. He supported ERA; she did not. There was no argument over the candidates' support of Israel, a critical issue for Florida's sizable Jewish population. Gunter, who is a Baptist, reminded voters that he had met his wife Teresa in Jerusalem. Hawkins, a Mormon, told members of a synagogue: "There are twelve tribes of Israel, and the Mormons happen to be one of them. That's my belief." Hawkins was undoubtedly helped by the Reagan landslide. At a rally in Miami, the G.O.P. candidate told a loudly cheering crowd: "I want Paula Hawkins there in Washington beside me." He got her.

Idaho. Frank Church, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was the No. 1 target of the Republicans. One after another, the big G.O.P. guns--Reagan, Gerald Ford, Senator Orrin Hatch--came to Idaho to fire away at the Senator. For more than a year, conservatives belonging to A.B.C. (Anybody But Church) had been sniping at him. Thrown on the defensive, Church, 56, had to spend most of his time explaining himself. In the end, Idahoans were unpersuaded and rejected him in favor of Republican Congressman Steven Symms, 42.

A chummy, folksy sort with a penchant for apples and not always dazzling one-liners, Symms put steady pressure on his opponent, trying to smoke him out as a snake-in-the-grass liberal in a state where conservatives abound. Symms focused his attack on Church's dovishness on foreign affairs, his support of the Panama Canal treaties and his occasional kindly remarks about Fidel Castro. Said Symms: "I say we must keep our commitments to our friends. Church favors throwing our friends to the alligators and hopes they'll eat us last." Stressing that he was conducting a "hometown campaign," Symms implied that his opponent was the darling of the Eastern liberals.

Near the end of the campaign, the Symms camp zeroed in on Church's role as chairman of the Senate committee that investigated the CIA. The Republicans echoed frequent attacks on Church for undermining the agency, and they even produced a letter purportedly written by John Wayne in 1975 castigating the Senator for ruining the CIA and the FBI. There were obviously enough John Wayne types alive in Idaho to take the message to heart and vote Church out of office.

Indiana. No U.S. Senator has ever been elected to a fourth term in Indiana. That precedent survived when Republican Congressman Dan Quayle, 33, handily defeated Incumbent Democrat Birch Bayh, 54% to 46%. Bayh, 52, also had a more important disadvantage of being too liberal for his solidly conservative state.

Quayle kept pounding away at Bayh's liberal record, reminding voters of their state's almost 12% unemployment rate, and calling for the Kemp-Roth 30% tax cut. Quayle accused Bayh of wanting to "spend, spend, spend our way to prosperity." He added: "If that were true, New York would be the most prosperous city in the country."

To counter Bayh's charge that he was the tool of out-of-state interests, Quayle emphatically dissociated himself from the right-wing groups that worked on his behalf. In the final weeks, Bayh produced some rather startling TV footage showing Quayle, cocktail in hand, at a party with oil lobbyists in Houston. The ad accused Quayle of soliciting campaign funds from Big Oil and ended with the slogan: "Birch Bayh--fighting for Indiana, not Texas." Quayle riposted with ads charging that Bayh, too, had accepted plenty of Texas money. In the end, Texas spending seemed to matter less than federal spending, and Bayh lost.

Iowa. The Scriptures have served as ammunition in many battles over the centuries, yet their prominence in the Iowa contest was startling. Trading biblical quotations blow for blow, Democratic Incumbent John' Culver, 48, fought evangelicals and fundamentalists who backed his G.O.P. opponent, Congressman Charles Grassley, 47. Culver even wrestled one of his foes to the ground when the man grew violent at a rally. Culver may have won the wrestling match, but he lost the battle to Grassley, 54% to 46%.

In contrast to Culver's stormy stumping, the tall, lanky, rather disheveled Grassley took a low-keyed approach. At his best with small groups, he supported standard conservative positions. In the final weeks of the campaign, he made an effort to broaden his appeal by touring-the state with Robert Ray, Iowa's popular and moderate Republican Governor.

Culver, meanwhile, kept slugging. He tried to capitalize on Grassley's 1977 vote against a steep hike in Social Security taxes to make the system solvent. Culver figured that lowans would be receptive to the issue since the state has the fourth highest percentage of people over 65 (after Arkansas, Florida and Rhode Island). But lowans showed that they are apparently far more concerned about high taxes than pensions and chose Grassley.

New York. During the campaign, Republican Alfonse D'Amato, 43, talked so much about the people of the "forgotten middle class" that it did not seem possible that they would ever be forgotten again. And they remembered Al. A virtual political unknown, who served as presiding supervisor of Hempstead Township on Long Island, D'Amato was given a slim chance indeed of winning a seat in the U.S. Senate. Moreover, he was an avowed conservative with the backing of the state Right to Life Party and aiming for a post that usually goes to a liberal. But he managed to eke out an apparent victory over Brooklyn Representative Elizabeth Holtzman, 39, with a bare margin of one percentage point; in third place, with 11% of the vote, was the Liberal Party candidate, Republican Jacob Javits, 76, who had held the seat for nearly 24 years before losing to D'Amato in the G.O.P. primary.

Javits' refusal to drop out of the race undoubtedly contributed to Holtzman's defeat. The earnest, rather humorless Democrat saw her initial lead slip away as she came under attack for consistently voting against defense appropriations. As emotional as Holtzman was restrained, D'Amato denounced the high taxes, declining services and accelerating crime that afflict New Yorkers. While losing some liberal support to Javits, Holtzman did not have sufficient appeal for the center; D'Amato moved in on that prized territory and apparently won, though Holtzman promised that there would be a recount.

South Dakota. In his past campaigns in his home state, George McGovern, 58, always started out behind but managed to win on Election Day. That did not happen this time. His personal popularity and adroit political balancing act--liberal on national issues but attentive to his conservative constituents' needs back home finally failed him, and he lost to Republican four-term Congressman James Abdnor, 57, by 58% to 39%. Said McGovern Aide Lynn Stoterau: "We were relying on the old McGovern magic and charisma, but we couldn't pull it out."

McGovern was also up against several national right-wing groups. At first, a sympathetic backlash for him seemed to be developing among voters who resented the involvement of out-of-staters in the Senate race. But the movement faded when Abdnor emphatically distanced himself from the conservatives' attacks.

Abdnor, a backslapping, elbow-grabbing wheat farmer, staked out more conservative positions than McGovern on almost every issue: abortion, federal spending, defense and Government regulation. Charging that McGovern had lost touch with the state, Abdnor observed, "Clearly, one of us has got to be wrong." The voters decided that it was McGovern, who, for all his talents, was too liberal for them.

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