National Affairs: Whirlwinds in New Mexico

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On election night, 1950, an Associated Press reporter called a New Mexico voting district headquarters, asked: "How many votes you got?" The district tabulator, who thought it was a county boss calling, replied with a revealing question: "How many you need?" Experiences such as this, plus a series of intraparty whirlwinds, discourage any forecasts of New Mexico's 1952 election.

Republican v. Republican. The Republicans' handsome Ed Mechem, an ex-FBI man who was elected governor in 1950 after 20 years of Democratic rule, is running hard for reelection. White-maned Pat Hurley, the colorful Republican candidate for U.S. Senator, almost seems to be running against the Mechem wing of his own party. Hurley's main target: Mechem-sponsored G.O.P. State Chairman Harry Robins, who openly opposed Hurley for the senatorial nomination.

After the primary, Hurley decided to cooperate with Chairman Robins, but the state chairman coolly asked him for a $100,000 donation to the party's campaign fund, with "no strings." Roaring that Robins was demanding a cash payment for the party organization's support, Hurley tried to get him fired. Now, though Hurley's campaign office and Republican state headquarters are in the same Albuquerque building, there is a solid wall between them. The fight inside the Republican Party tends to obscure Hurley's obvious assets.

Democrat v. Democrat. Unity is no more evident on the Democratic side. U.S. Senator Dennis Chavez, who is often described as affable, is anything but that toward his running mate, Everett Grantham, nominee for governor. Their feud dates back more than a decade to the occasion on which Grantham, then a U.S. attorney, prosecuted some of Chavez' relatives in a WPA political-influence case. In last spring's primary, Chavez ran one of his own men against Grantham, without success. (Chavez managed to win his own primary over a state senator named "Diamond Tooth" Miller, who has a diamond mounted in one of his front teeth and describes himself as "the best senator money can buy.") Another Democratic feud has been boiling between Chavez and his fellow U.S. Senator, Clinton Anderson, but they have stopped fighting—for the duration of the campaign.

Another source of doubt about the outcome of the New Mexico race is the fact that New Mexico's voting population has been infiltrated. For 20 years Senator Chavez' strength has come from his own nationality group, who make up 40% of the state's population. But since New Mexico has 1) become a military and atomic-energy center, and 2) had some widespread modern agricultural development in the southeastern part of the state, a swarm of immigrants from other states has blurred the political picture. Their voting habits are unassayed. One thing they are almost certain to do: lessen New Mexico's notorious apathy toward national politics.

Last week reporters' efforts to spot trends in the races for governor, Senator and President produced little results in New Mexico. One New Mexico politician had this advice: "You'll just have to wait until November. By then the scrub oak will be red, and so will the faces of a lot of political experts."