Opinion
Page 4 University Daily Kansan, October 27, 1980
Anderson's the man
Electing a president is a chance to choose a man who can be the strongest of leaders, who can guide and unite the American people and government along a purposeful course.
President Carter was given a chance at policy-making and leadership, and he has dropped the ball. The Reagan-Bush ticket, which in a "normal" election would be the sole option to a second Carter-Mondale term, is a choice only to those who would have the country retrenched in Cold War fears and social inaction.
Anderson's lack of any potential for victory and his relative anonymity among most of the public are not reasons to reject him. A vote for Anderson and his running-mate Patrick Lucey, former Wisconsin governor, would be more effective than no vote at all in expressing disgust for the major party candidates.
Hailing the chief named Jimmy is a hopeless task. Yes, he had Camp David, a good attempt at SALT II, the first national energy policy and a statement of the problem's "moral equivalency to war," and some attempts at dealing with an oil-based economy. Indeed, the Democratic platform itself is agreeable, but the man that party has given the American public is not getting the job done. We are a nation at bay, here and abroad. The people wonder how they can deal with prices constantly scutting out of reach. We are viewed as chaotic bunglers by Western Europe and as weak and indecisive by the Soviet Union. In the Mideast, we have caught a shoelace in the door of an ancient conflict.
So the sacred cow of the incumbency must be spurned, but not for Ronald Reagan. Despite Reagan's recent moderation in public statements, he cannot erase his hawkish statements and fierce objection to the use of government to achieve positive aims. Aligned with the "moral majority," Reagan speaks against the right of choice for abortion, and for prayer in the schools. He is running on a
platform that opposes handgun control and the ERA. His task as president would be to juxtapose a massive tax cut with an effort to restore America's machismo by giving the Pentagon all sorts of new toys.
Apart from the Reagan stands on issues, there is no proof that the man is really competent. Not when under the protective hand of his advisers, who helped him so much in governing California, Reagan appears a bumbling reactionary. His view of America as a "shining city on a hill," spoken with the smooth tones of a seasoned performer, needs to have the syrup wrung from it.
In Anderson, the United States would have a president who understands the legislative process, as Carter seems not to. Anderson, who has made really the only attempt to reach out to young people, has been called a mugwump for leaving the Republican Party. People point fingers at his early conservatism and say he is nothing but a political opportunist. Yet his ideological change has been gradual, and he is now fiscally conservative and socially liberal.
Anderson is speaking a language not before heard on the presidential campaign trail. It is the language of reality.
He is no dove, but he believes in a restraint on the military that is expressed in a moderate defense budget increase and rejection of the MX missile and the B-1 bomber.
He is no rugged individualist, but he supports a moderate tax cut, a balanced budget, income tax indexation and attempts at increasing investment and productivity.
He is no bleeding heart, but he believes in equal rights for women, in a women's right of choice in abortion and in controls on the use of "Saturday night specials." On the energy issue, he emphasizes conservation as the short-term answer, and looks both cautiously and enthusiastically at alternative energy sources.
Carter offers more of the same. Reagan offers fear and defensiveness abroad, and reaction rather than action at home. Anderson, still a largely unknown quantity, offers a new course for the nation based on reason and a clear view of the problems at hand.
Better to travel an unfamiliar road that looks safe, than to endure the peril threatening along the other two.
Put Dole back in
An examination of Dole's Democratic opponent, John Simpson, reveals an opportunistic, politically fragile man.
Few positions are as important for a state's national representation in government as that of senator. After considering the candidates it is clear that Sen. Robert Dole, the man who has represented Kansas for 12 years, deserves six more years in office.
Simpson's campaign illustrates a lack of character more than a deficiency in his stand on any of the issues of the campaign. Yet Simpson has not proven that his ideas are fundamentally different from Dole's, especially in light of his running on the Democratic Party after being a Republican.
Simpson also was one of the major contributors to Dole's 1974 senatorial campaign.
Sen. Dole's campaign, however, has been responsible and has concentrated on the issues facing Kansans.
Dole has seen what can be the pernicious effect of the windfall profits tax on small royalty owners and has taken an appropriate stand by proposing legislation to
exempt the first $1,000 on oil pumped from wells.
His energy policy combines common sense and a realization that none of the available energy sources should be counted out until alternative sources can be developed.
He has attempted to take a burden off the taxpayer by supporting legislation that would keep taxpayers from having to pay increasingly higher taxes because of inflated incomes.
Although his 1976 presidential campaign was an embarrassment, and it distracted him from his senatorial duties, he got a better perspective on the issues that are confronting not just Kansas, but the nation.
It would be better, however, to have a senator who embarrassed himself seeking higher office than a senator who embarrassed himself in his senatorial campaign. Simpson's reign as senator would almost certainly be worse than his reign as a candidate.
The choice is clear. A combination of Dole's political experience, know-how and influence makes the choice for senator obvious.
Watkins needs chance
The Larry Winn-Dan Watkins race is more of a contest about Winn's 14-year record in Congress than a debate about 3rd District issues.
Yet Watkins, the Democratic challenger, has raised valid questions about Winn's style of passive politics. Watkins has pointed out to Winn's constituents that Winn has failed to get any significant legislation passed. In addition, although Hwn has been in office 14 years, he has not gained high standing on any prestigious congressional committees.
If Winn has taken a back seat in Congress, it is because he sees his role as a caseworker and constituent servant.
Even Watkins agrees that Winn's constituent services are first-rate, but it takes more than answering letters and phone calls to make an effective congressman.
Watkins typifies a new breed of congressmen, willing to take up a standard of activism in an effort to solve the unique problems facing America in the '80s. He does not approach these problems with pat answers, but rather he advocates pragmatic politics not based on dogmatic solutions.
He supports structural changes in Congress to make it a more responsible body, including lobbying regulations and committee reform. He tempers his strong commitment to national defense by cautioning against huge military outlays.
Winn has been given 14 years to effect positive changes, but what he has actually accomplished does not merit another term in office. It is time to give a more active Kansan a chance.
Profits from South Africa
'Independent' donors gain influence
Those pointing happy fingers at the distinct possibility of a Reagan victory next Tuesday say the nation is on tilt. The American people, they insist, are fed up with a liberal Democratic Congress and are achingly tired of President Carter, and thus are cleaning hard to the right.
Indeed, there has been a definite change in mood, more of a backlash against Carter than anything else. But before the Barry Goldwaters of the nation pick up their GOP banners and go to the treetops, they should consider what kinds of activity lie behind this political upheaval.
Supreme Court rulng reinforced a loophole threaded by a different sort of PAC, further inundating voters' minds with negative campaigns of vicious innuendos and half-truth. The loophole allows organizations to spend unlimited amounts on candidates, both congressional and
One of the forces behind the push to the right are Political Action Committees, which combine individual contributions from within a group, such as a corporation, trade association or union. Since a 1975 Federal Election Commission ruled legalized corporate PACs, and a 1976 Supreme Court decision removed any spending limits from so-called independent PACs, the number of these vile organizations—and their ability to influence—has skrocketed.
The right-wing, influence-buying process includes collusion by corporate and trade unions.
Across the board, corporate and trade PAC spending is expected to increase from some $50 million in 2017 to about $70 million.
Campaign finance laws limit individual contributions to $1,000, but allow PACs to contribute as much as $10,000 to every candidate for federal office. However, presidential candidates, once officially nominated, can't accept any PAC contribution. There is no limit on how much concessional candidates can accept from the PACs.
But the PAC attack doesn't stop there. The 76
SCOTT FAUST
presidential, as long as they have no direct 'collaboration or cooperation' with the can-
A classic and potent example of this phenomenon is the National Conservative Political Action Committee, based in suburban Washington. Using mailing lists provided by NCPAC's "Patron Saint," S恩. Jesse Helms (R.N.C.), NCPAC has culled millions from groups and individuals all across the nation who agree with its ultra-conservative opposition to abortion, gun control, the ERA, and active government.
Asked to do so in Reagan mailings, the Republican candidate's supporters have piled up a $4 million "Ronald Reagan Victory Fund" to pay for it. The former already has pocketed from the U.S. Treasury.
NCAPC's real forte, it seems, is hate campaigns against liberal senators. With eyes on the Senate, NCAPC's real force is
majority in the Senate if 10 Democrats lose, they have collected $700,000 in an attempt to defeat six of them. These include Tom Eagleton of Missouri, Frank Church of Idaho and George McGovern of South Dakota. All these incumbents have been forced to step up their reelection campaigns, and some may lose because of NCPAC's barrages.
NCPAC's strategy, since it is "independent" of the candidates it supports, is to do the dirty work of negative advertising while the candidates keen their hands clean during the frav.
Their ads have accused Church of "weakening" the CIA by limiting its invasions on private citizens and of being anti-national defense because of a no-vote on the B-1 bomber, a plane that would be obsolete by the mid-'80s. McGovern has been called a "baby killer."
The Election Reform Act of 1974 was intended to alleviate the kind of influence-buying evidenced by the fact that in 1972, 153 individuals earned $120 million to President Nikon's campaign.
But obviously, that act has not changed the practice of purchasing politicians to be governmental surrogates or ideological robots. Both the corporate PACs and the nationwide independent ones such as NCPAC have slipped through gaps in the well-intended 1974 Act.
Yes, the voters still must determine victory or loss for the PAC candidates, but those voters are basing their decisions on prejudices shoved at them by expensive. PAC-financed media blitzs.
The people may be applauding the "baby-killer" accusations now, but they don't realize that when their hands leave the voting levers, evidence ends. Someone else's is just beginning.
U.S. election important to Europeans, too
By KATE POUND
Guest Columnist
Limerick, IRELAND—Seems that these days, Americans can't go anywhere without being asked, "Who's going to win your election?" Americans abroad are no longer asked about the Iranian hostages or even about J.R.'s health. The world wants to know who will be president.
"It's the most important job in the world," an iranian said. "Your elections can change our world."
An awesome thought, that. Americans are oblivious to the international impact our internal affairs have. Our relative isolation and size make us insensitive to the needs and fears of our allies. We don't seem to understand that every in the stock market, every political promise made by the massador's hand shook by the secretary of state, is watched, carelessly, by the rest of the world.
And this year, it seems, our political games are being watched more carefully than they have been since the Cold War era. The decade of detente with the Soviet Union is over, dying with Russian and Afghan soldiers. a war threatening the brief and fragile peace in the Middle East roars on, as the world's great powers stand against it, the world's economy says listlessly, a tortured wreck there by inflation, reemployment and unemployment. There just doesn't seem to be any good news.
So America's allies now look to U.S. politicians to change the world's fortune. Having been led for so long by the American economy, by the fact that the US is no longer evidence, they depend on American resiliency to
"Carter is a nice man who fries hard," one European said, "but that's about it."
save them. Unfortunately, resiliency isn't a magic cure, and even the staunchest American allies are beginning to realize that neither Jimmy Carter nor Ronald Reagan is the cure.
European said, "but that's about it." Carter is seen as being disorganized, equivocating and an impolite campaigner by many Europeans, but not as a leader of nations.
"And Reagan is an aged cowboy actor," the European said. To be honest, the image doesn't inspire confidence. Without experience in diplomacy and with only a vision of an America long gone, Reagan doesn't seem to have what the world needs.
"You Americans have a loazy choice," the European concluded. And he was right. The United States faces the prospect of being led by a strong, nonimmigrant politicians since Herbert Hoover.
Where are the Roosevelt, the Trumans, the Johnson's of this generation of politicians? Can it be that the best of our breed is gone? The style, the charm, the fortunefulness of those old-times polls was so good that he had all the courage required to win wars, and that courage, along with his easy-going manner inspired an almost devoted generation of Americans to repair the world shattered by World War II. Where is that courage now? Where is the American caskiness that made Harry Tweedy
For it is not ideology, or policy that makes a leader. Leadership requires dignity, humor, concern, grace. It is that indefinable aura that encourages faith. The great leaders of the world, Churchill, Gandhi, Lincoln, and all the rest, combined intellect and political skill with the charm.
and respect for both their followers and op-ponents.
Ignoring political differences, neither Carter nor Reagan have the leadership ability to pull off a big deal.
The election of 1980 should have been one of hope and a new beginning. It really wouldn't matter which party the winner came from; it was important only that a leader be elected. The country, our allies, the world, need a president with the smile of Jack Kennedy, the confidence of Franklin Roosevelt, the ease and grace of Kee Eisenhower.
Leadership that builds confidence, encourages growth, dares to take on challenges would cross ideological boundaries and overcome despair. America cannot offer that leadership to the world.
Kate Pound is a journalism major studying abroad in Ireland.
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