4
Tuesday, August 24,1976
University Daily Kansan
Comment
Opinions on this page reflect the view only of the writer.
Dole familiar—here
Kansans, at least, don't have to ask "Bob Who?"
They do, however, have to ask "Why Bob?"
SOME MAJOR television and newspaper columnists say there are two main reasons for President Ford's selection of Bob Dole as his running mate: placating Ronald Reagan and attacking Jimmy Carter. Dolle is conservative envoy because he has supported Ford completely this fall and is aggressive enough to say and do all the tough, dirty and political things a presidential president can't.
But perhaps there are other reasons.
Perhaps Ford was impressed by the way Bob Dole cleared the aisles while he was acting chairman of the Kansas City convention. Perhaps he was won over by Bob Dole's wit (an attribute unknown to many Kansans until Walter Cronek commented on it and the AP began substituting "he quipped" for "he said" in stories about Dole).
OR PERHAPS he likes Kansas being born in Kansas, will be coming to Kuq next semester.
Or perhaps—and this is the only really likely perhaps—President Ford picked Dole because of Dole's come-from-
behind victory in his 1974 Senate race against Bill Roy. Ford may well be interested in come-from-behind victory, exactly how they are accomplished.
OF COURSE no one reading a Kansas newspaper printed last week could tell Dole won re-election by only a few thousand votes after trailing heavily in the early polls. An ignorant observer will think Dole won in an easy landslide.
One Southern Kansas paper, for example, ran three full pages of Dole copy both Thursday and Friday. There were articles on Dole's wit and Dole's wife and Dole's ex-wife and Dole's last visit there (1974) and Dole's blood in Russell Pine in Salina on his way to Russell and Dole being in Russell and many more.
EVEN IF the Ford-Dole team loses to the Rangers forward to bring the All-Landon of 1995
It is doubtful, however, that the selection of Dole was greeted with the same enthusiasm by editors in New California as it was by editors in Kansas.
To them it is "Bob Who?"
By Jim Bates
Editorial Editor
Staff photo by JAY KOELZER
Letters Ticket prices rise
Dear Editor:
Very soon student football tickets will go on sale for $20 each as opposed to $10 last year.
Letters Policy
Letters to the editor are welcomed but should be typewritten, double-spaced and no longer than 400 words. All letters are edited and may be condensed according to space limitations and the editor's judgement. Please be advised of the signed; KU students must provide their academic standing and hometown; faculty must provide their position; others must provide their address.
The price increase was a result of the discovery that an activity fee subsidy designed to aid in the retiring of a football stadium building bond was not being used for this purpose. The Student Senate voted to discontinue the subsidy.
Convention not same if there
An attempt at a compromise subsidy that would have resulted in $12.50 football with the team when Senate was unable to attain a quorum in a special session called on this issue.
This year a compromise ticket subsidy could be funded by the Student Senate. Students wanting lower ticket prices next year are advised to know how much the fee will cost this year stand on this issue and that they will be present to vote accordingly.
Johnna B. Roberts
Jomma B. Roberts
Lawrence Graduate Student
I didn't get to see much televised coverage of last week's Republican extravaganza in Kansas City, because I was too busy working there as an Associated Press runner. But what I did see deeply impressed me with magical $100,000 television cameras alter our perceptions.
On a color TV set, Kemper Arena looked massive, cool and vibrantly colorful. The speakers' voices boomed above the din of the crowd, except during the demonstrations, and close-ups of the celebrities and more photogenic delegates conveyed a sense of intimacy, compassion and correspondence an anchormen not only reassured with their stable and familiar presence, but they also explained everything and made it seem at once rational and significant, if not absolutely historical.
It was striking to see how many reporters brought portable TV's to the arena to watch during the proceedings. I would think one reality at a time would have been that they preferred the filtered-down version to the inane cacophony of the real thing. Maybe they simply wanted to find out what was going on—like sports fans wished they were V because they miss all the action without an instant replay.
REPUBLICANS AND Republican-haters who watched TV to reaffirm their diverse opinions of the party both would have been surprised if they had really been there. There was a lot of disagreement about the Big Eye shows or the printed word can tell.
For me, there wasn't much to love but there was a lot to learn. This was the Big Time for him. He worked at the press and everybody who
had good enough connections to get into the arena. I had expected to be dazzled by the splendor of the affair and the aura of power that surrounded it. Instead, the crowd and the team reminded me of a state high school basketball tournament.
The arena looked crowded and rather small. The aisles
John Fuller Contributing Writer
were always packed with delegates and reporters, and the TV lights always bathed everywhere on the floor in a white, black, and green jacket.
I WAS AMAZED at how little attention was paid to the majority of the speakers on the platform. Even hot-shot he-man Republicans such as John Connally never got much more than half of the delegates' and spectators' attentions. Speakers
such as Kansas Gov. Robert Bennett and Mayor Wheeler of Kansas City were virtually ignored. The collective conversational hum often drowned them in attention, taking them to shout for attention.
DELEGATES 'SPENT most of their time talking, being photographed and interviewed, reading the paper and acting important. After all, they had heard all the speeches before. They had already decided- or had been instructed- how to vote. What was important was not that you had to do with you; you had to do to get on national TV was wear a funny hat and sit close to the aisle.
WKDC/
Corry and Westpbal
WKDC/
$ \Delta $ HOUSE SUBCOMMUNITEE ON PORNOGRAPHY CAME TO $ \Delta $ PREMIATURE END TODAY WHEN IT WAS REVEALED THAT $ \Delta $ MAJORITY OF ITS EVIDENCE HAD BEEN STOLEN.
Another amusing activity of the security force was practiced by the elite Secret Service agents. It was what I call the cloning of a person. Whenever someone very important to national security such as Betty Ford or Tony Orlando was moved from point A to point B, they were flying wedge around their charges and started walking.
One could imagine the adrenaline pulsing through a delegate's arteries as he saw Mike Wallace or handsome Dan Rather zeroing in on him for a two-minute interview.
The only thing more pervasive than the presence of the press at the convention was the security. Yea, it is harder for a man with no credentials around him to get into the Political Brouhaha than it is for a camel to fit through the eye of a needle.
Credentials were checked four times before you reached the floor and constantly once more, because your hands reach from nowhere for the credentials hanging from my neck as I walked along. It was just some security man or woman around, so he could see them.
**THIS WAS no ordinary walk.** They took their walks very seriously (the boys are touchy about their spotty track record you know) and woe to any poor person who isn't coming. I walked around a corner one night and found myself up against the wall. AS man SS held me there quite firmly as Nelson Rockefeller whizked by. The unspoken message: "I didn't have the courage to ask the question to ask you to step aside. Cooperate or else!"
SECURITY RANGED from black booted highway patrolmen with matching Foster Grants to italy seals and security agents who talked to unseen forces through tiny microphones hidden in their hands. They were supported by a large force of locals in red uniforms, and that they followed to the letter.
As you can see from the two cartoons to the left, the Kansan, after a three year dry spell, paints the strip. The new strip, drawn by Kent Westpal, Kansan staff artist, and written by Dave Corry, is the student's artwork at Baska at Omaha, which was called WKDC.
Exactly what WKDC will be hard to tell at this point. It is known, however, that the strip centers on a metropolitan Washington, D.C. television station, therefore, a fairly good chance politics will pop up from time-to-time.
It must be humiliating for the big political honchos who have great power but don't rate a security brigade to have to walk through crowded aisles and on busy traffic like normal citizens.
The pervasiveness of security personnel is another aspect of the convention that isn't conveyed by TV. Home viewers are watching. They aren't being watched.
NO. THERE'S nothing like being there. Especially when you get those first shocks of recognition.
Still, the Republicans just can't match the Democrats for star quality. Tony Orlando and Sonny versus Jack Kennedy and Warren Beatty? No contest.
Oh! There's Liz Ray, Oah!
Isn't that Rogers Morton? He look!
There's Erem Zimbalist
J. Need I go on?
AFTER THE initial glow of hob-nobbling with celebrities such as Pat Poon and being flattered by the press began to wear off, the delegates joined the spectators in what seemed minor reason for their presence in spontaneous demonstrations.
They warmed-up by responding to key phrases in the first couple of days of the convention such as "it's that free-spending Democratic Congress that's at fault" or "no
amnesty under any circumstances for draft dogers." a whistles and ethnomusicologist allows automatically after one of these phrases, even from the people not listening to the speech.
The arrival of Mrs. Reagan or
Mrs. Ford and Tony Orlando
or Dr. Robert Johnson or
eight minute lots of mosaicine.
These were mere sideways
comparable to the demonstra-
tion for the mother of Reagan
and Ford, however.
Am
Co
wh
REAGAN'S SUPPORTERS brought plastic horns to make sure they were heard this last time as they went down in defeat. And how they were heard! The noise was ear-splitting and seemed eternal. Indeed, the buffoonery lasted so long that even the whoooping, chanting, clapping and sign waving reached a fever pit and stayed there until it became discomforting.
The band kept playing "God Bless America" in futile atlush vocals, with stitches and, sure enough, half of the crowd would start singing. And as soon as the band stopped they would start
One Reagan youth blew his horn right into my ear during the show, and he was wild-eyed and purple-faced and he blew that horn for all the world as though it was going to make a miracle and get his man to run.
Some might say that it is just a harmless way of letting off steam and that it is good to show enthusiasm.
The boy will probably go far in politics.
GETTING CLOSE to that kind of mindless fanaticism; hearing it scream in your ears and pound in your brain; seeing the actual contortions that such people go through; are things I never got from watch conventions on TV.
But I would say they didn't see the pent-up rage and frustration of the nattily dressed matron who waved her anti-abortion placard at the lady holding an ERA poster.
I would say they didn't see the wild-eyed boy or the fat, cigar chomping delegate, who jumped up and down on his chair with an inflatable plastic elephant mounted on his hat.