Opinion
Page 4 University Daily Kansan, November 5, 1980
It's Reagan's turn now
The people have spoken. Jimmy Carter will have more time to restrain his brother from embarrassing visits from foreign hachetmen, and Ronald Reagan will have a chance to show the world what he has learned on the back lot at Metro-Goldwin Mayer.
Carter's loss, along with those of fellow Democrats in U.S. Senate and House elections, signals an end to New Deal liberalism. The liabilities of the unwieldy bureaucracy finally overtook its inherent benevolence. The victorious Republicans, led by Reagan, used the bureaucracy as a central campaign theme. Judging by last night's landslide, their efforts were quite successful.
Whether Reagan can do anything about the size of the bureaucracy and its gangly friend, high tax rates, will be decided by his ability to persuade a Congress still held by a shell-shocked Democratic majority.
The Carter presidency was not a disaster—certainly not the disaster of the Herbert Hoover administration, which also suffered a sizable defeat after one term.
Carter's term has been a blend of idealism in foreign affairs and realism in economic matters. Conservatives viewed Carter's foreign policy as too idealistic, and the economy was in such a shape that no one was sure what to think. Despite criticism, Carter has managed to deregulate the airline, railroad and trucking industries. He led the fight for the passage of the Panama Canal Treaty and forged the Camp David agreements. He also hampered the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan by imposing a grain embargo, which caused many Soviets to forgo dinners with meat.
Carter's widespread unpopularity, despite these accomplishments, was partly caused by a voracious media, which was eager to pounce on the smallest gaffe—regardless of its significance to national policy. His Cabinet shakeup was interpreted as uncertainty. Drug investigations surrounding the White House were seen as further evidence of Carter's incompetence to select qualified underlings.
Carter's real downfall came in his dealings with Congress. He failed to get hospital cost-containment legislation, a
coherent energy policy and SALT II through Congress. His various attempts to get the measures passed resulted in either a watered-down version of the original or outright blockage.
Reagan's victory, while overwhelming in the Electoral College, was less than convincing in the popular vote. Reagan's was a team effort that used the services of the Moral Majority and other conservative groups. These groups convinced some of the older voters—who once supported Franklin Roosevelt—to believe that Congress was full of useo-communists.
The biggest favor Reagan could do now for the country would be to realize that he can't play president the way he played the meek cowboy in the white hat. He must delegate responsibility to assistants more in tune with the way Washington works.
Several Senate liberals could not reverse the tide of moralism against which they were campaigning. The liberals simply were swallowed up by their "holier-thanthou" opponents. Senus, Bayh, McGovern, Church and Culver, among others, were defeated.
Last night's election brought home the need for reform of the political process.
The United States now allows the greatest citizen participation in the selection of candidates of any democratic nation, yet has one of the lowest voter turnouts in the general election.
A bandwagon mentality was created on election night when the television networks, with their instant projections, announced the winners of states in the eastern half of the nation, while voters in the West were still contemplating their choices.
More than $16 million was spent on public opinion polls by the two major candidates, which encouraged the further mass marketing of the candidates. More depressing, the two major parties' conventions turned into media events with the outcomes predetermined and nothing settled except meaningless platforms.
Ronald Reagan is now on center stage. And as a 1966 Pat Brown for Governor commercial in California asked: Reagan has his chance to play president, but will everyone be willing to pay the price of admission?
Election Day TV coverage projects media's bad image
The major television networks' coverage
coverage haunts the evening, even if
coverage haunts improved late.
Many to-be viewers didn't have enough time to kick off their shoes and turn on the
For starters, the networks have taken away the enjoyment and suspense once dominant on election night. At 5:30 p.m. yesterday, before most of the polls around the nation had closed, NBC-TV projected Ronald Reagan president-elect of the United States.
FRED
MARKHAM
television -let alone open a can of beer or soft drink.
The modernization of the television networks' coverage has made it easier for viewers to understand the reasons behind the rise in demand and punished the traditional election-return party.
I can recall when neighbors and friends would get together to have a party and to watch the returns. There were no computer tabulations; every vote was counted by hand.
The main coverage did not begin until after 10 p.m. election night. There were interviews with key political leaders and predictions of who would be victorious. But there weren't the means to determine ahead of time exactly which candidates would win.
Before the main coverage started, it was *Pizza Hut*, and *pizza* and *debates* over the candidates.
Once 10 p.m. rolled around, everyone became quiet, even the children. All of us expected to stay up until the wee hours of the morning. It was fun!
Those days seem to have disappeared—for good.
Another negative aspect of the election coverage is that the networks greatly assist in
adding to the length of the campaigning period. The networks seem to follow the candidates from the very moment they declare their candidacies, and then provide a day-by-day, blow-by-blow description of not only their views, but also their personal lives.
When election day came yesterday, most of us were so sick and tired of seeing the candidates—whom we know can never fulfill all their promises they make—we don't care who wins.
These "accurate" polls are the same ones that showed Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford even in the 1976 election. The race was indeed close, but not nearly as close as the networks had claimed. The polls once again showed Carter and Reagan even for this election.
The networks' so-called polls and analyses present more inconsistencies, despite comments from a CBS newsman, who said that they have proven to be "90 percent accurate."
Why not limit the candidates and the coverage of campaigns to three months as does Great Britain? This system has worked well. It has kept campaign expenses to a maximum and has prevented a lot of broken promises made because of extended campaigns.
It appears that the networks were trying to make a dull election interesting. About 28,000 sample polls were stationed around the city, costing millions of dollars. And for what?
To top it off, after all the expense of creating the poll system and building the huge, plush sets with colorful maps, the hill still has not improved much from a decade ago.
Just get it over with.
Yet this presidential election proved to be similar to the landslide election of 1964, when Lyndon Johnson handed Barry Goldwater an overwhelming defeat.
Letters Policy
Given the networks' slow improvement, perhaps it was, in fact, appropriate that the election coverage was almost over before it began.
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... And a Blind Man Shall Lead Them
KU students are resigned to Reagan
Cynical resignation hung thick in Hasinger Hall's fifth floor TV lounge as the network annotated its video of him.
Most of the 30 hall residents filling all the orange sofa clearly were disappointed by the prospect of four years of Ronald Reagan, who yesterday so firmly was given a thumbs-up by the American people. A few Anderson supporters were scattered among a majority of Carterites.
A resident pass through the lounge asked what results had come through. When told that Reagan had an electoral vote margin of 220 to 19, he mock-moaned, "Oh, I don't want to go to
That and other concerns about the aged, exactor, Republican politician were echeoned in the TV room. But as Jimmy Carter made his concession speech through a forced smile and determinedly chin-up expression, there were no tears, no shouts of anger at the Reagan victory. Faces were blank instead as they considered what the voters' choice had wrought.
The residents in that TV lounge already had accepted the result of the democratic process. It was: "OK Ronnie, now you show us what you can do—and can avoid doing."
The mood was the same in Louise's Bar downtown. Inside it was business as usual. The people there were neither celebrating a victory nor drowning their sorrows. Although a silent TV showed election returns, it seemed a Tuesday night like any other.
But of course, it wasn't any other, and around Lawrence, students reinforced the anti-racism message.
"I didn't want Ronald Reagan. I hope he dies soon," said Roland Garland, Kansas City, Mo., junior, as he waited for his wash in the nearly empty Independent Laudromat at ninth and Mississippi. "Bush will make an adequate president."
Garner said that Republican presidents often ended up pushing liberal programs, but that
SCOTT FAUST
Reagan would be an exception to that rule "because of his fundamentally fascist root."
He said he was scared of Reagan mainly because the Supreme Court vacancies expected during his tenure.
"I think his appointments to the Supreme
will be dependent to this country for a long
time."
Daina Hines, Ottawa junior, said she was bothered by Reagan's stiff defense posture and by his stands on the Equal Rights Amendment and Social Security.
"I don't really think Carter's been that bad," she said outside Allen Field House after voting. "He doesn't jump into things. I'm not saying Reagan's a war monger. It's just that Carter's breaking point is a lot higher. He feels the use of force is necessary a lot later."
"I think after you get Reagan, they'll see why the rest of us didn't vote for him."
im Fryman, Lawrence graduate student,
he was orator for Anderson, but thought
him to be a true friend.
He said the nation's presidential choice would not bring sweeping change to national or world affairs and decried the lack of the high-caliber candidates the country once knew.
*whenever is elected, nothing is going to be done.* Prymans said. "There's still going to be war in Iraq."
"There was a time when great men would aspire to be president—Truman, Roosevelt, Lincoln. Now it's a job nobody wants and we get what is qualified, less than competent candidates."
By no means were all KU students holding their heads in despair, however. Many declared that Carter had his chance and that it was someone else had to have a try at governing the nation.
Some said they favored Reagan's promise of military superiority, others said they wanted to see whether Reagan's economic ideas, guided by his policies, could bring the nation out of its economic woes.
But these pro-Reagan folk were clearly the minority in the bars, the Laundromats and the residence halls. Most KU students who had cared for a baby were also to vote disappointed last night.
They saw an uncertain future in a Reagan presidency, and were resigned to wait it out. 1984
Anderson's dreams won't fade with election
It was January then, and he was so wonderful,
of America, telling the folks exactly what he thought.
Brilliant, compassionate, sincere, realistic, sensible, convict, passionate, progressive and visionary. Anderson never had a chance. That is, never had a chance at the presidency. He is too
Hear it now and weep, read it now and shed a retrospective tear—not for what could have been, but for what was, for what is, because John B. Anderson was and is.
The right one never fits. The brilliant one is
never believed. Triumphs are rarely victories.
Triumphs are rarely victories.
Anderson's is such a triumph. Unofficially, he moved barely 6 percent of the population enough to get their votes. But he moved millions more than voted for him. In the polls he never made it much higher than 15 percent, but that didn't matter.
What matters is that the American people would shake this man's hand, that they had the opportunity to shake his hand and that he had the opportunity to wave it. What matters is that this man would hand all over America, an America that so desperately needs such waving hands right now.
His wave splashed the nation squarely in the face. Small as it was, his wave beckons others, no doubt larger others, louver others. Anderson is only the beginning.
Tonight, last night now, there is the initial horror, the initial despair for the loss of liberalism and the initial helpless hopelessness. There is resignation.
but there must be more than this. It simply cannot stop here. The right-minded congressman from Illinois didn't come all this way from the oblivion of the January debates to make third-place November final so that we could force our faces in tear-sand-hardened clerchiefs.
It was said that he was Quixotic, that his windmills were contried, that his contriving sprung from a boundless ego. He was a god of the land, a king of the religious convictions, for audaciously flipping off his
party. And long ago it was surmised that he never had a chance.
Only a few realized that he was the chance, that John Anderson was the winner. He had been from the very start. He quoted Emerson and in his speech he said "As I said, as he did here in Lawrence, Kan., of all places."
Indeed, he did it everywhere: on campuses, in farm towns, in metropolises, in America and
AMY
HOLLOWELL
abroad. He was listened to because he was talking for a reason.
Of course he knew that he would never be president. Of course we all knew that he would never be president. But he was talking the very life out of his lungs because he saw that what this nation was doing, is doing, to itself was neither should be doing nor what it wanted to be doing.
So he took it to the youth, to the fresh, young,
still brilliant minds on campuses throughout
America. These were the minds that were still able to hear and listen; the minds that were deciding now what their world was going to be like, and why Anderson had given himself to his campaign.
He was sincerer in his convictions to this world, to this future. His was a realistic foresight, a
Was? No, this is present tense. This is today,
the morning after, the calm after the storm, the
real thing. And Anderson lives today in all
the brilliance that he did yesterday.
Anderson is as right today as he was yesterday when we stepped in that booth and gave him all we could. He didn't have to conceal anything; if he chance to win, then he never had a chance to lose.
His, more than the new president's, is a lasting triumph, a triumph for all time. His was his own. He was saying what was true, what he wanted to say. what he felt. His was genuine.
There are no roles for John B. Anderson. There are no scripts. There are no star-studded casts, dancing girls or even rave reviews. There is not a public mandate backstage.
He doesn't need it. There is great triumph in his solitude. But still, this man may shake his head and with us, sheed a retrospective tear for what is.
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