As campaign manager, admiring biographer and ghostwriter for Barry Goldwater, Phoenix Businessman Stephen Shadegg appeared to have impressive Republican credentials in Arizona. But they were not enough: last week, seeking the G.O.P. nomination for the Senate seat held by Democrat Carl Hayden, Shadegg took a lopsided licking. The winner: State Senator Evan Mecham, 38.
Shadegg did his level best to grab Goldwater's coattails. He constantly invoked Goldwater's name, bragged of their close association, preached Goldwater conservatism. Like Goldwater, he criticized the United Nations, blasted the New Frontier, complained about the Administration's failure to act against Cuba. But Mecham (pronounced Meek-am) managed to look even more conservative. He invited the support of the John Birch Society, which Shadegg had criticized by saying, "The oversimplified, dogmatic answers of the extremists of the far right offer little hope for progress."
Mecham demanded that the U.S. withdraw immediately from the United Nations, raked the Supreme Court with the accusation that in its school prayer decision it had "leaned over backward to slap God in the face." Said Mecham of the Kennedy Administration: "I can't believe our leaders are traitors, as some have charged, but they certainly must be uninformed when the President refers to the nation's businessmen as s.o.b.s." Like Shadegg, Mecham circulated photos of himself with Goldwater.
What wrecked Shadegg was Goldwater's decision to stay neutral; he wired all G.O.P. county chairmen that "only God and myself will know whom I vote for." The contest thus turned mainly on personality. Shadegg is recognized as one of the nation's most astute political managers, but his cold, seemingly superior personality offended many voters. Mecham, a slight man with a folksy twang, came across better. Born on a Utah farm, he was a high school salutatorian, a World War II P-51 pilot who was shot down over Germany and held prisoner, a self-made businessman who built up a 100-employee Pontiac dealership in the Phoenix suburb of Glendale. He teaches in a Mormon Sunday school, has seven children.
In defeating Shadegg, Mecham won the right to face a man who has served 50 years in Congress—longer than anyone in history. At 84, Democrat Hayden still promises to wage a vigorous campaign.
Says he: "I'm not as decrepit as some people say." As proof of the difficulties confronting Mecham, Hayden could point to the fact that in his own party primary he rolled up 113,026 votes—more than his little-known Democratic opponent, Shadegg and Mecham combined.