Nation: New Faces in the Senate

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Nancy Landon Kassebaum, 46, was four years old when her father Alf was crushed by F.D.R. in the 1936 presidential election. Yet even after Nancy became old enough to understand what had happened, her love of politics remained undimmed. Last year, after helping to raise four children and being legally separated from her husband, a Wichita lawyer, she made her first bid for major political office, starting near the top by running for the U.S. Senate. The petite (5 ft. 2 in.) Kassebaum campaigned at first in a softspoken, gentle manner but quickly picked up the tempo against former Democratic Congressman Bill Roy. She wound up strong-spirited and refreshingly frank, telling Kansas farmers that their demands for 100% of parity on crop supports were unrealistic and inflationary. She told women's groups that she favored the Equal Rights Amendment but was against extending the time limit for its ratification. She told teachers' groups that she opposed a separate U.S. Department of Education. She supported the Panama Canal treaties, which were unpopular in Kansas. Speaking from her experience as a former aide to retiring Kansas Senator James Pearson, she contends that the Senate is a bloated "bureaucracy in itself," loaded with too many staff people who isolate Senators from their constituents.

Carl Levin, 44; made a name for himself as president of the Detroit city council in the early 1970s by taking on the federal bureaucracy—and winning. He did so by deciding to tear down thousands of abandoned houses that had been taken over by the Department of Housing and Urban Development and had become breeding grounds for crime. When HUD's lethargic officials threatened to prosecute Levin and Mayor Coleman Young, the two city officials ordered the housing razed anyway—and HUD did nothing. Challenging Republican Senator Robert Griffin this year, Democrat Levin again campaigned against overgrown government. Yet he never recanted his basically liberal philosophy, bridging the gap by claiming: "People aren't against every government program; they just want their money's worth." A graduate of Swarthmore College and Harvard Law School Levin is a member of a highly active political family. His older brother Sander twice ran unsuccessfully against Michigan Governor William Milliken, and cousin Charles Levin sits on the Michigan Supreme Court. Levin expects to spend much of his time in the Senate attacking governmental waste and inefficiency.