Gubernatorial Races in South and Mayoral Contests in Spotlight Tuesday

Democratic gubernatorial contenders Wallace Wilkinson in Kentucky and Ray Mabus in Mississippi are favored to win Statehouse races Tuesday, while Philadelphia Mayor W. Wilson Goode battles the comeback candidacy of former Mayor Frank L. Rizzo in a high-profile municipal contest.

In San Francisco and Baltimore, voters will pick new mayors. In Houston, Mayor Kathy Whitmire is aiming for a fourth term, while Boston Mayor Ray L. Flynn is seeking a second. Miami Mayor Xavier Suarez faces a challenge from Maurice Ferre, the man he ousted four years ago.

Ballot questions abound, including a Maine referendum in which residents will vote for the third time in seven years on pulling the plug on a nuclear power plant and an Ohio measure on the selection of judges.

No Message Seen

Unlike two years ago, when the Republican and Democratic national parties poured resources into off-year gubernatorial races in Virginia and New Jersey, there is no talk of how this year’s races can be seen as barometers of a national political realignment once hailed by Republicans.

“I think most of these have pretty much a state and local spin. I don’t see much national message coming out of this,” said Paul G. Kirk Jr., Democratic national chairman.

Added Michele Davis, executive director of the Republican Governors’ Assn.: “I think the 1988 presidential race so dominates the political dialogue that everything else gets drowned out.”

President Reagan has stayed on the sidelines, except for inviting GOP gubernatorial candidates John Harper of Kentucky and Jack Reed of Mississippi to the White House for picture-taking sessions. Vice President George Bush made a trip to Mississippi on Friday to raise funds for Reed.

In Kentucky, millionaire Wilkinson is promising a “new day and a new way” as he calls on voters to give him the largest majority in state history. He says he is against higher taxes and favors establishment of a statewide lottery to raise additional revenues.

He’s Bucking History

Harper, 57, is bucking history in a poorly financed bid to become the first GOP governor elected in Kentucky since 1967. A member of the state Legislature and an engineer, he raised less than $250,000, compared to $4 million raised by Wilkinson since the primary election.

Pre-election public opinion polls give Wilkinson roughly 60% of the vote, and Davis conceded: “It would take every break in the book for us to pull this one out.”

Democrats have held the Statehouse in Mississippi since Reconstruction, but Davis says: “Reed is the best shot we’ve ever had.”

The 63-year-old businessman promises change as he also attempts to portray his opponent as a tax raiser. “Ray’s raisin’ taxes. No Mabus about it,” said one television advertisement.

Mabus, 39, is a Harvard-educated lawyer who made his reputation the last four years as state auditor by directing investigations that uncovered irregularities by county supervisors. He campaigned with a populist-style appeal that promises change from “good old boy politics.”

Despite GOP hopes, Mabus went into the final few days of the campaign with a double-digit lead in the polls.

No Signs of Brotherly Love

Philadelphia’s mayoral race between Goode and Rizzo has been nothing if not blunt.

“Wilson Goode stands here and lies,” the 67-year-old Rizzo said in their only televised debate.

Retorted Goode: “The only person who is running for office who is a certified liar is Frank Rizzo.”

Goode, a Democrat, was the first black elected to lead the nation’s fifth-largest city when he won his job in 1983. But he endured severe criticism in 1985 when, in attempting to evict members of the radical MOVE group from their heavily fortified row house, city police dropped a bomb that wiped out the house and five dozen others in the neighborhood. The death toll was 11, all residents of the MOVE dwelling.

Rizzo is a former police commissioner who served two terms as a law-and-order mayor as a Democrat, then switched parties.

Other big-city mayors expected to have easier times winning reelection include Whitmire in Houston, facing six little-known opponents, and Flynn in Boston, whose rival is a fellow Democrat, City Counselor Joseph M. Tierney.

In Miami, Ferre is one of four challengers to first-term Mayor Suarez, the first Cuban-born candidate elected to lead his city. A runoff will be held Nov. 10 if no candidate wins a majority of the vote.

Two big cities are assured of new mayors.

In Baltimore, city prosecutor Kurt Schmoke defeated Mayor Clarence Burns in last September’s Democratic primary and is an overwhelming favorite to become the first black elected to lead his city. Burns is black, but he ascended to the mayor’s office when former Mayor William Donald Schaefer was elected governor of Maryland. The Republican candidate is Samuel Culotta.

Front-Runners in S.F.

San Francisco’s Dianne Feinstein was prohibited by law from seeking a new term, and 11 candidates hope to succeed her. Front-runners include City Supervisor John Molinari, 52, Democratic State Assemblyman Art Agnos, 49, and car dealer Roger Boas, 66, who quit his job as city administrator to run.

In other mayoral races, Republican William Hudnut is favored to win an unprecedented fourth term in Indianapolis over challenger J. Bradford Senden.

In Gary, Ind., Democrat Thomas Barnes, who ousted Mayor Richard G. Hatcher in a primary election, faces Republican opposition from Thaddeus Romaniwski.

Hartford, Conn., will choose as a new mayor either Democratic state legislator Carrie Saxon Perry, 56, or Republican Philip Steele, 43. Perry, who is favored, would be the first black woman to head a Northeastern city.

Salt Lake City Mayor Palmer DePaulis is favored to win reelection over Ernest Dixon.

The nuclear referendum issue is on the ballot in Maine for the third time since 1980.

This time, the movement to order the shutdown of the Maine Yankee nuclear power plant is backed by a $500,000 war chest. But utility owners and their supporters have generated a $3-million treasury to defeat the referendum.

Judgeships an Issue

The Ohio measure would allow the governor to appoint the seven state Supreme Court justices and 58 state appeals court judges from lists of candidates submitted by bipartisan nominating commissions. Appointed judges would face uncontested retention elections after two years on the bench and would have to win a 55% “yes” vote to remain in office for the full six-year term. Judges would face retention elections at the end of each subsequent six-year term.

In other ballot propositions, Texans are deciding whether to legalize pari-mutuel betting and Virginia voters are going to the polls on a proposed state lottery. In Washington state, one measure would put a cap on the amount doctors could charge Medicare patients and another would require the state to file a lawsuit in the Supreme Court challenging the constitutionality of the Federal Reserve System, the nation’s central bank.

In the nation’s capital, voters will decide whether the District of Columbia municipal government should adopt a law requiring at least a nickel deposit on beverage bottles and cans.