Nation: The Bell Tolls for Case

A good week for political rookies and fiscal conservatives

Clifford Case was first elected to Congress in 1944, when Democrat Bill Bradley and Republican Jeffrey Bell were babies. For 34 years the liberal New Jersey Republican defied the odds, winning election to Congress five times and to the Senate four times in a state where there are now 1.5 million Democrats and only 500,000 Republicans.

Case, 74, was proof positive that both major U.S. political parties are ideological jambalayas. In his successful 1954 Senate campaign, he strongly opposed Senator Joe McCarthy's Communist-hunting investigations, and...

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