Primaries: Upset Time

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Rhodes has been forced to give up the Governor's chair because the state constitution forbids a man to hold the of fice for more than two terms in succession. To replace him, the Republicans nominated State Auditor Roger Cloud, a moderate who won 50% of the vote in a field of three that included U.S. Representative Donald ("Buz") Lukens, a Goldwaterite who once led a conse vative takeover of the national Young Republicans. Cloud's opponent will be John Gilligan of Cincinnati, a former Congressman (Taft defeated him in 1966) who swept the nomination with 60% of the Democratic ballots cast.

ALABAMA What slipped George Wallace into second place was the new and fragile coalition that has begun to appear in scattered parts of the Deep South. It is made up of increasingly powerful blacks, the young and the upper middle class, which finds itself embarrassed by the red neck, racist style of old-guard Southern politicians. Governor Albert Brewer, who succeeded Lurleen Wallace when she died of cancer two years ago, possesses a fresh, relatively polished approach that earned him 420,524 votes at the latest tallies, to 409,029 for Wal lace (five other candidates shared the bal ance). Wallace was hanged in effigy at Auburn University. In the Birmingham suburbs of Mountain Brook and Vestavia Hills, wealthy housewives told their maids and garden boys to come to work late or take off early in order to vote for Brewer. It worked. In one Vestavia Hills precinct, for instance, Brewer led Wallace by 1,445 to 397. Alabama is one of the few states where voters can switch parties in a primary, and Republicans openly crossed over to vote against Wallace.

New Day's Dawn. The two men meet in a June 2 runoff that will decide the governorship; no Republican is running.

Brewer, who called his lead "the mir acle Oi the century," has an important psychological edge; only once in the last 50 years has the leader in the opening heat lost an Alabama runoff. Wal lace complained of a "bloc black vote" against him. Indeed, blacks turned out in record numbers, splitting their votes between Brewer and Charles Woods, a wealthy businessman who ran a surprisingly solid third.

Alabama's blacks hold the key to the June 2 result. They will go strongly for Brewer, and there is a possibility that a backlash for Wallace will build among white Alabamians who feel that Brewer is the blacks' candidate. Blacks are well aware of this possibility, and they intend to keep their support of Brewer as quiet as they can.

If Brewer does defeat him in the run off, Wallace will be seriously hurt nationally — but he will not necessarily be eliminated as a factor in the 1972 presidential elections. If Richard Nixon's "go slow" school desegregation policies have not completely mollified the South, and if there is still deep national mal aise over crime, the war and dissent on the campuses, there will be nothing to keep him from declaring "I told you so" and mounting the same kind of di versionary campaign he did in 1968.