Cinema: Money, Money, Money

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The Florida Governor's race pitted two lavish campaigners against each other. Democrat Robert Graham, a millionaire Miami Lakes land developer and dairyman, spent $2.6 million. His Republican opponent, Jack Eckerd, who built a burgeoning chain of drugstores that bear his name, vowed to spend "whatever it takes" and ended up with a $2.9 million campaign, $2 million of which was his own. But Graham dispelled his wealthy Harvard image with a well-publicized series of 100 one-day stints at blue-collar jobs across the state. He won with a surprisingly large 56% of the vote.

The biggest spending of all was done by ultraconservative Helms in North Carolina, whose $6.7 million was a record for a Senate race. His opponent, John Ingram, a friend and populist protégé of Carter's, raised less than $300,000 and sought to make an issue of the fortune that Helms received from fellow conservatives around the country. Said he: "Helms is the six-million-dollar man and he's not even bionic." It did not work.

But money was not a sure road to victory. Like Clements and James, Tennessee's Butcher had never held elective office, and he used a lot of his own money in his $4.5 million bid for his state's governorship. But his finances became a campaign issue: he was criticized for his dealings with Georgia Banker Bert Lance and for his hotshot banking practices. His campaign spending also became an issue. Charged Republican Alexander: "Citizens of this state won't let Jake Butcher buy the Governor's office." He was right.

One of the most interesting aspects of this year's Southern elections, and the most encouraging for the Democrats, is the emergence of fresh faces. Perhaps the brightest new light is Arkansas' William Clinton, a Yale Law School graduate and Rhodes scholar, who at 32 will be the nation's youngest Governor in 40 years. He worked on the McGovern and Carter campaigns and used his tenure as attorney general to fight for consumers. He is an anomaly for both Arkansas and 1978. He said he might ask for a state tax increase if food and drugs were exempted from the sales tax; his wife is an ardent feminist who uses her maiden name, and he is a competent jazz saxophonist. He looks like a Kennedy and even breaks his campaigning for impromptu touch football games. Along with Alabama's James, 44, Florida's Graham, 42, and South Carolina's Richard Riley, 45, he is part of a drove of Democrats who have infused fresh blood into Southern Governors' mansions and who may some day—it has happened before—be important on the national scene.