Primaries: Upset Time

In Democratic primary elections last week, two disparately celebrated personalities suffered surprising defeats.

John Glenn, the first American to orbit the earth, splashed down second to a millionaire who was a political unknown when the campaign for the Ohio Democratic Senate nomination began. In Alabama, George Wallace earned a place in a runoff for Governor — but trailed the incumbent, his onetime protege, Albert Brewer.

OHIO "It's a bitter pill," Astronaut Glenn confessed. He had to withdraw from the Democratic primary for Senator six years back after a household injury.

This year the smalltown, all-American hero found himself outhustled and drastically outspent (by an estimated $1.25 million to $300,000) by Cleveland Lawyer Howard Metzenbaum, 52, who sold out a prosperous airport-parking business for some $20 million.

Said Metzenbaum: "It was impossible to run against John Glenn the man, be cause he is rightly held in such high esteem by everybody, including myself."

So Metzenbaum ran around him. Glenn could not escape marginally valuable autograph sessions with schoolchildren well below voting age; Metzenbaum had no such time-wasting troubles. Glenn had opposed the state Democratic organization six years ago. "John doesn't even bother to see the county chairman when he is in town," a Metzenbaum aide ob served. Glenn's opponent had managed two tough, victorious campaigns for Senator Stephen Young and made good use of the party pros.

Metzenbaum challenged Glenn on his own ground: Glenn favored continuation of massive spending on space exploration, while Metzenbaum argued that the money would be better used for the mundane. Metzenbaum attracted labor backing, heavy Jewish support and the endorsement of Cleveland's black mayor, Carl Stokes. Most of all, how ever, what put Metzenbaum across was harder work and a costly, deftly executed television campaign.

Two-Way Loss. Whether Metzenbaum can come from behind again in No vember to win the Senate seat that Young is relinquishing is problematical.

His training in taking on the famous, however, will hardly be wasted. His op ponent is Robert Taft Jr., still "Young Bob" at 53, scion of the state's most honored political family. Taft squeezed past Ohio's popular Governor James Rhodes to win the Republican senatorial nomination by only 3,165 votes out of more than 900,000 cast. Ohio experts agree that what made the difference was al legations in LIFE that the Governor had been unduly kind to a jailed Mafioso, and that he had run into trouble with the Internal Revenue Service over alleged misuse of campaign funds.

Rhodes also may have been hurt by the killing of four Kent State students the day before the primary. He had successfully opposed hard-line state legislation against student protesters, and Taft headquarters criticized Rhodes for that opposition only hours after Na tional Guardsmen — ordered to Kent State by Rhodes — shot the students.

On the issue of campus violence, Rhodes had no way he could possibly win. He was damned because he did and damned because he didn't.