Catching Up : What the good guys and the bad guys were up to while all eyes were on the change of guard in Washington.
In Kansas, State Treasurer Tom Van Sickle, veteran of the Goldwater campaign in ’64, the Reagan campaign in ’68, won Republican nomination for Attorney General, getting nearly 50 per cent of the vote in a big field.’ Congressman Bob Bauman, a former YAF national chairman, running for reelection in Maryland, has criticized President Ford for his amnesty stand, his support of the Rhodesian chrome boycott (a hot issue on the Hill just now), and for “preaching economy in government and national health insurance in the same breath.” Alan McKay, another former YAF chairman, former editor of the YAF magazine, New Guard, has declared for Congress in Massachusetts against freshman Democrat Gerry Studds (ACA, 11 per cent) on an out-and-out conservative platform.Yet another YAFer, former Connecticut YAF chairman James Altham, 27, is taking on veteran Democratic Rep. Robert Giaimo, an uphill race.. In South Carolina, it’s wide open, but tilting Democratic, with Charles Ravenel, a relative unknown, winning the Democratic gubernatorial runoff against Rep. Bryan Dorn (first elected to the House in 1946); Ravenel faces another giantkiller, James Edwards, who knocked off Gen. William Westmoreland in the Republican primary. … In South Dakota, POW Leo Thorsness is hitting George McGovern hard, on—of all things—irregular campaign financing. Thorsness charges McGovern has transferred $300,000 to his present campaign from his 1972 presidential funds. … In Indiana, Mayor Richard Lugar of Indianapolis is moving up fast against Kennedyite Sen. Birch Bayh. Going against Bayh: his support for busing, for abortion, for gun control legislation, all no-nos in a generally conservative state Meanwhile, on the organizational level, the American Legislative Exchange Council (an offshoot of the American Conservative Union) held its first annual conference in Chicago Aug. 16-18: it will offer conservative state legislators a chance to exchange ideas on how to put through conservative programs at the state level.And Phil Nicolaides, the public relations man who helped James Buckley and Jesse Helms win their Senate seats, is taking a hand in two Southern races this season: he’s working for George Lankford’s gubernatorial campaign in Georgia and for James Ferris who is running against Rep. Wright Patman (Tex.). Patman is chairman of the House Banking Committee.
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