McGOVERN SEEN AS LIKELY SENATE VICTOR

MINEHAHA CITY, South Dakota, October 8--There is a strong conservative wind blowing across the fields of South Dakota this fall. It will probably knock the entire Democratic ticket down--except for former presidential candidate George S. McGovern.

Senator McGovern is wind-blown all right. Across the autumn-gold corn stalks of a roadside field in this rural county, a billboard proclaims: "McGOVERN--A COURAGEOUS PRAIRIE STATESMAN." And there is McGovern, hair tousled, walking into the wind.

His Republican opponent Archie Gubbrud calls him "the most articulate spokesman for the ultra-left fringe." Gubbrud also consistently attacks McGovern for his "outside connections" and for his liberal and anti-war voting record.

But here in South Dakota there are bigger issues at stake. The senatorial race is revolving around the state's entire conception of the role of the office of U.S. Senator.

"What's at stake in this election is whether a senator should be a national spokesman for South Dakota or an ombudsman, a letter-answerer," says George Cunningham, McGovern's campaign manager.

The war in Vietnam and the senator's voting record have become only peripheral issues, and that is why McGovern is solidly in front of Gubbrud, walking into a conservative Republican wind.

The most recent poll shows McGovern pulling away from Gubbrud, a relatively lackluster figure, a former governor and now a farmer. Three weeks ago, McGovern led by just two percentage points. The latest poll gives him 51 per cent of the vote to Gubbrud's 42.

Gubbrud's campaign spokesman said yesterday, "George McGovern is not representative of the average South Dakotan. This is basically a conservative state."

As proof that McGovern is serving "outside interests," Gubbrud takes out large advertisements in the Sioux Falls Argus-Leader documenting contributions to the McGovern campaign from such "outsiders" as the United Auto Workers Committee on Good Government ($150).

In an earlier attack Gubbrud sewed together several quotations from McGovern's speeches on civil rights to prove that the senator was in favor of flooding South Dakota with millions of Negroes from the large cities.

But these tactics are not working. McGovern has put South Dakota on the map, and his efforts in Washington on behalf of his state have firmly entrenched him in the minds of the voters here.

He is also a genial, personable man, as was evident from watching him campaign for several hours. In Madison, a small farm town in the eastern part of the state, he chatted easily yesterday with voters on Main Street and appeared to know many of them personally. He spoke about low farm prices and his opposition to the administration farm and foreign policies.

His much-publicized opposition to the Johnson Administration is clearly gaining him votes. He appears in the voters' eyes to be more anti-Johnson than is Republican Gubbrud.

Still, it is clear that with a non-Administration man at the head of the Democratic ticket, McGovern would be running far better. "If it weren't for Humphrey's drag on McGovern," said Peter Starvrianos '66, a campaign official, "there's little doubt that the senator would be easily re-elected."

It seems that he will be anyway.