(2 of 2)
TENNESSEE. Jake Butcher, 42, won the Democratic Gubernatorial Primary largely by spending more than his opponents—$2 million. His wealth became a campaign issue, but Butcher was not exactly apologetic. Supporters wore t-shirts with the inscription IT'S NO SIN TO BE RICH. The candidate liked to talk about the 14 bathrooms in his posh home—one for each year he had to do without indoor plumbing as a boy on the family farm. An aggressive banker who built his empire by heavy borrowing, Butcher told voters: "There are only three ways to make money. I didn't inherit it. I didn't steal it. So I had to borrow it." His tactics resembled those of his friend, go-go banker Bert Lance, who, in fact, borrowed $443,000 from Butcher in 1976 to buy stock in the National Bank of Georgia. Butcher regularly hacks at the King's English, as his wife Sonja admits: "Four years ago, he didn't even know how to say 'gubernatorial' properly." But many of his fans do not care what the slim, silver-haired, smartly dressed candidate says when he flashes his smile. Asked why she was voting for him, a woman with a beehive hairdo gushed: "Lord, honey, them looks!"
Butcher barely got by his closest opponent, Robert Clement, 34, dubbed "Baby Bob" partly because he kept reminding voters that he was the son of Frank Clement, a popular former Governor. Clement's brochures emphasized the connection: "Like father, like son." A born-again Christian, Baby Bob even copied his father's arm-flailing oratory.
Butcher may have a tougher fight against the Republican nominee, Lamar Alexander, 38. A one-time aide to President Nixon, understated Alexander played down his image as a Nashville attorney by exchanging his Brooks Brothers suit for a plaid shirt, khaki pants and hiking boots and trekking 1,000 miles across the state on foot.
Howard Baker proved that in Tennessee, at least, his vote for the Panama Canal treaty hardly nicked him with the voters, even though his conservative opponents attempted to exploit the issue. One made the headlines by printing up fake $100 bills to illustrate his campaign against taxes, only to have the Secret Service confiscate them. Jane Eskind, 45, a long-time Democratic Activist, won her party's nomination and thus became the first woman from a major party to run for the Senate in Tennessee. But she faces one of the most popular votegetters in the history of the state. -