Pennsylvania: Cashkrieg

Short of staying off the streets, cutting off the newspaper, unplugging the radio, boycotting TV and locking the mailbox, the only way a Pennsylvanian can ignore this fall's cacophonous gubernatorial campaign is by clearing out of the state. In one of the nation's most flamboyant and free-spending races, Democrat Milton J. Shapp, 53, and Republican Lieutenant Governor Raymond P. Shafer, 49, by the morning of Nov. 8 will have lavished at least $3,600,000 on the cashkrieg campaign for the governorship.

Though the G.O.P. plans to spend $1,600,000 of that sum, Millionaire Shapp has made Shafer look like Scrooge. In Philadelphia and Pittsburgh alone, the Democrat's homely, intense visage peers out from 180 buses and 400 taxis. Along highways from the Alleghenies to the Poconos, 1,200 bright orange Shapp billboards vie with the autumn foliage; 80 radio stations play his 30-and 60-second spots ("If you liked William Penn, you'll love Milton Shapp"). Local TV stations will carry at least 300 last-minute Shapp spiels; his workers are mailing a four-color, 16-page brochure to 3,500,000 voters.

Beyond Frederick. Shapp, an engineer by training, parlayed a $500 investment into a fortune exceeding $10 million with a Philadelphia-based electronics firm that bears his middle name. Though he had long hankered to get into politics, the keepers of the Keystone State's Democratic machine—not unlike the G.O.P. bosses in John O'Hara's Ten North Frederick—wanted Milt's money more than they wanted Milt. To many party leaders, Shapp seemed an egotistical buffoon. There was also the fact that he was born Milton Shapiro—and no Jew had ever run for Pennsylvania's highest office.

The non-O'Hara sequel to the Frederick standoff was that Shapp decided to go it alone—with $1,400,000 of his own money. In May, he scored a triumphal 50,000-vote primary upset over the Democrats' machine-backed candidate, and badly shook both parties. While the Republicans tried feverishly to anticipate Shapp's strategy, Democratic bigwigs belatedly sought to win the parvenu's allegiance. At a banquet in Harrisburg, ex-Governor David Lawrence, longtime Democratic kingmaker, allowed: "Crow should have been the main dish. I must admit I am eating mine." Shapp thereupon served him another portion. After the dinner, he charged—with some reason—that Lawrence's organization had "stalled" Democratic progress, and demanded—unsuccessfully—that he be given control of the machine.

The Decibel Gap. By contrast with Maverick Shapp, Yale-trained Attorney Shafer is a dutiful, if undistinguished, party pro; he served two terms as a state senator before running with William Scranton—who cannot succeed himself—in 1962. While Shapp is a wispy, almost Chaplinesque figure, Shafer, son of a Protestant minister, is a craggy-faced, sandy-haired, 6-ft. 2-in. ex-athlete who won nine letters at Allegheny College to go with his Phi Beta Kappa key. Lawyer Shafer is as taciturn as Tycoon Shapp is talkative. Shafer "comes on like Mount Rushmore," as one Pennsylvanian puts it, "and is about as animated."