Political Notes: Soapy & Some Others

"Boy!" exulted a Democratic legislator. "It's just like old times!" There in the capitol at Lansing, sporting his familiar green, polka-dot bow tie and pumping hands all around, stood G. Mennen Williams, looking for all the world as if Michigan were Mennenland again. Greyer and not quite so well packaged as when he left the governor ship in 1960 after six straight terms, gangling Soapy Williams had come back to campaign for the U.S. Senate.

His reappearance after five years as Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs came only days after ailing Democratic Senator Patrick McNamara, 71, had announced that he would not seek re-election next fall. Might Williams have been gone from Michigan too long? Replied Soapy, now 55: "They'll recognize who I am when I walk down the street." To make sure, Williams last week stumped Michigan streets from Hamtramck to Ishpeming. They recognized him.

Even so, the former Governor may face one of the toughest primary battles of his career. Though Detroit's popular, dynamic mayor, Jerome Cavanagh, has not yet announced his candidacy, he is eager for higher office. Michigan's Democratic machine, which favors Old-timer Williams for the Senate race, has tried to persuade Cavanagh, 37, to run instead for the governorship against George Romney, the Republican incumbent. Jerry might well face a financial problem if he opposes Soapy. Williams could probably count on the money support of the state's Democratic organization and, as heir to a toiletries fortune, is personally wealthy. Cavanagh has scant private means. Nevertheless, the mayor bases his hopes on the fact that more than half of Michigan's Democratic votes are in Detroit's Wayne County. "If I run for anything," said Cavanagh, "it will be for the Senate."

Other contests shaping up:

¶ In Oregon, two-term Democratic Representative Robert B. Duncan, 45, entered the race against popular Republican Governor Mark Hatfield for the Senate seat from which Democrat Maurine Neuberger plans to retire at year's end. Duncan accused Hatfield of parroting the anti-war line of Oregon's Senator Wayne Morse, thus adding to "a discordant symphony of dissension and disagreement that can immobilize this country." Despite Morse's warning that "it's going to be difficult to elect any Democrat who runs on a war platform," Duncan is supported by Neuberger and most other leading Democrats.