Word: byrds
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...hours. When the votes were counted in last week's Democratic primary, "Judge" Smith, 83, longtime leader of the conservative Southern bloc in the House of Representatives, was dispossessed of the seat he has occupied for 35 years. Senator Willis Robertson, 79, like Smith a member of the Byrd organization, was also defeated. And, in the Old Dominion that has been a family fiefdom for 40 years, Harry Flood Byrd Jr., 51, won the nomination for his father's old Senate seat by only 8,300 votes out of 434,000 cast...
Smith and Robertson shared a number of common problems. Prototypes of a bygone era, they faced relatively young, vigorous opponents of modern mien and moderate views. Both incumbents suffered from the erosion of the Byrd machine, which has lost some of its far-right adherents to a new Conservative Party. On the other hand, among the independent-minded white voters who inhabit swelling suburban developments in a crescent extending from Washington through Richmond to Norfolk, there is little loyalty to the old regime. In addition, tens of thousands of Negroes have been added to the electorate since passage...
Competition at Last. Robertson also had a special problem. After decades of reliance on the organization, he received, at best, tepid support from his old allies in this year's campaign. Some Byrd advisers suggested bluntly that Robertson, who was never an important figure in the combine, should follow Old Harry into voluntary retirement. Instead, Banking and Currency Chairman Robertson years' campaigned on the strength of his 20 years' seniority in the Senate. Wearing the traditional white linen suit favored by Old Harry, he stumped the state making florid (and familiar) speeches denouncing the evils...
...victim of changes at home. The civil rights movement and the end of the poll tax are adding Negroes to the voting rolls, while the old Harry Byrd machine, of which Smith is a prize cog, faces attack from all sides. Smith's district has been reapportioned to his disadvantage since the last election, now includes a large segment of liberally inclined Fairfax County, a suburb of Washington. Nonetheless, Smith's cause, like his equanimity, is far from lost. Much of the district is still rural and conservative, and there is considerable affection for the Bible-quoting, foxy...
Rather, it has been youth vs. age (Spong is 45) and a sort of mixed liberalism against a newly-defined conservatism. "On fiscal matters I'm as conservative as he (Byrd Jr.) is," Boothe has declared. "But where funds were available (in the state senate) and needed--truly needed--I was willing to appropriate them." Byrd Jr., who likes to talk about what he's doing in the U.S. Senate rather than what he did in the Virginia senate, calls himself a "forward-looking conservative...