Slouch
by Jim Earle
“J m getting encyclopedias, I belong to all of th ’ book clubs, I have been
signed up for at least 50 magazine subscriptions. If I ever find out who
did this to me. I’ll kill him!"
Opinion
Abscam: so what else is new?
Politicians work hard at perfecting their graft.
Instead of being able to relax like everyone else, these
men and women have to work hard. To be elected, they
have to give a lot of speeches, eat strange foods and kiss
babies.
After they’re elected, they have to work even harder.
They have to legislate, give more speeches and worry about
re-election.
In theory, politics is good, hard work.
However, a lot of politicians have a hard time doing their
Igobs, and apparently, a few of,them even have a hard time
Kbeing honest, too.
But everybody knows that. We expect politicians to be
dishonest. The honest politicians are the ones to worry
about. Figure that one out.
Political shenanigans like Abscam, Brilab, Watergate,
and Teapot Dome surprise no one.
If that’s the case — and it is — the news about congress
men and state politicians accepting bribes from undercover
FBI agents probably isn’t worth mentioning.
All these investigations prove is that politicians deserve
the public’s mistrust.
So, what can be done?
Nothing.
Unfortunately, a better political system hasn’t been de
veloped yet. The only solution I can offer is to keep voting
the crooks out of office until we can get it right.
This is an election year.
the small society
by Brickman
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usps
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Viewpoint
The Battalion
Texas A&M University
Tuesday
February 19, 1980
Kennedy’s ‘victory’ in Maine
local
Tri
ber
is like a dog playing checkers
By RICH^
Stal
By ARNOLD SAWISLAK
United Press International
The classic shaggy dog story is about the
man playing checkers with a cocker spaniel
in the park.
A passer-by stops and expresses admira
tion for the intelligence of the pooch. The
man looks up with irritation and says,
“Heck, he’s not so smart. I beat him three
out of four. ”
The recent Maine Democratic caucuses
brought that story to mind. President Car
ter got 45 percent of the vote; Sen. Edward
Kennedy 39 percent; Gov. Edmund G.
Brown Jr. 14 percent.
Kennedy, who got beat 2-1 in the Iowa
caucuses last month and trailed by 19
points in a poll released before the Maine
caucuses, called the outcome “a virtual
dead heat. His chief Maine supporter,
Gov. Joseph Brennan, said Kennedy had
won “a great victory.”
Jody Powell, speaking for Carter, noted
somewhat acidly that where he came from,
winning required coming in first. He
added: “If Kennedy can’t win in New Eng
land, where can he win?”
Kennedy’s comeback, in the face of dire
predictions, was a feat as remarkable as
teaching a dog to play checkers. But it still
was a second place effort, and some might
consider it even more noteworthy that a
Southerner, president or not, could beat a
Kennedy in New England.
Actually, there was more at stake in
Maine than the order of finish in the voting.
A little recent history is in order.
Six months ago, Carter was at rock bot
tom in the polls and Kennedy was way up.
It was assumed that if the Massachusetts
senator challenged the president, he would
be able to get a fast start by winning the
early primaries and caucuses in New Eng
land.
That expectation was reversed when
Carter’s poll ratings boomed and Ken
nedy’s slumped late in 1979 and when the
president beat the senator in the Florida
straw votes and the Iowa caucuses. The
polls showed Carter ahead in Maine and
New Hampshire. There was speculation
about Kennedy quitting.
By beating the point spread, Kennedy
managed to transform a potential disaster
into a respectable defeat. If he didn’t have
to beat Carter in Maine, he certainly could
not have sustained another 22-point loss.
So it is not completely illogical that a
6-point loss looked like a tie to the senator
and victory to Brennan (whose political cre
dibility was on the block even more than
Kennedy’s).
But Kennedy has two problems, one of
which needs solution in the next couple of
weeks. There have been a lot of changes in
U.S. politics in recent years, but candi-
Texas A&M
Body Presiden
traveled to Was
week, and retu
awareness of tl
sponsibility of tl
staff in leading 1
dates still are expected to have
raphical power base, a constituenc]
will back them against all comers
So Kennedy really needs to i
trate, in New Hampshire next w«lg Ka p avik joinr
the very least m Massachusetts M» leaders Frid j
that he does haye a New EngWfl on domestic anc
base. If he lost all the New England^
ies, it would he hard to see howk,
paign would be regarded as anyl
dead.
The second Kennedy problemissi;
The basic purpose of the caucuses a:,:
maries is to divide national conventie
legates among the candidates. Thei
date who gets the most votes getstfc:
delegates; the candidate who gets
delegates gets the nomination.
So Kennedy has to start beatingCat
some of these primaries. Ifhedoesii
can’t win the nomination. And that is
the checker game is all about
| briefing, held i
I included addre
cabinet mem!
Carter.
Kapavik said t
sed was the ins
istration and th
tion of women i
“The main tl
appeared to be
draft registrati
speakers stresse
ference betwee
tion and the ad
“They felt sin
sented in 92 j
ALTHOUGH ITMOOWRIY
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And they bot
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They’re all ]
and, sometime:
tin a new maga
students havinj
‘Many of tl
(learned most ol
tion skills, but
(anyway,” said >
Carter needs to end exile in White
House for sake of 1980 campaign
By DAVID S. BRODER
It has been evident for some weeks that
President Carter’s deicision to reject per
sonal, public participation in the campaign
for the Democratic nomination as long as
the American hostages remain in Tehran is
detrimental to the policy dialogue the pub
lic wants to hear in an election year.
But now it is becoming that his self
isolation is also damaging to him and to his
presidency. The best evidence of that was
the Wednesday evening press conference,
which mixed serious discussion of substan
tive domestic and international issues with
some exceptionally rough political invec
tive in a manner that was disconcerting
and, ves, divisive.
Perhaps, if we are fortunate, the hos
tages will be released soon and Carter can
do what he is plainly eager to do — go out
and campaign for renomination. But if that
does not happen, the President really
needs to take another look at his pledge to
abstain, for it is hurting him politically,
frustrating him personally and exacerbat
ing the divisions within the party and coun
try that Carter says he is anxious to contain.
The questioning of the President at his
first televised White House press confer
ence in over two months was exceptionally
pointed — and Carter was in very good
form in his replies. On issues ranging from
draft registration and energy prices to
Yugoslavia and the defense budget, he gave
the kind of answers a presidential press
conference ideally ought to provide —
clear insights into the tone and direction of
the Chief Executive’s thoughts.
In that respect, it was a model of what a
press conference ought to be and a remin
der that the country is deprived of some
thing valuable when there is such a long
interval between these sessions.
But when Carter was asked political
questions about Sen. Edward M. Ken
nedy’s campaign criticisms of his foreign
policy, a different, jarring note entered the
proceedings. The President unloaded on
his challenger a series of verbal blockbus
ters that seemed out of place for a man so
assertedly devoted to national unity.
Let there be no mistake: I am too oil to be
shocked when one politician says another is
guilty of exaggerations, misrepresentations
and plain falsehoods. And Carter, in my
judgement, had every reason to take
umbrage at Kennedy’s harsh attacks on his
conduct of foreign policy.
The senator’s contention that the seizure
of the hostages was the “predictable” con
sequence of the admission of the Shah to
this country for medical treatment carried
the ugly implication that American sanctu
ary is subject to veto by any mob of mili
tants that might be affronted by an act of
compassion.
His claims that Carter dragged his feet
on negotiating the release of the hostages or
was oblivious to the Russian threat to
Afghanistan are equally open to rebuttal.
But the place for those rebuttals is the
same place from which the attacks came —
a campaign platform, not a
press conference. To unleash sucha<*
terattack from a presidential forum,
live on all four networks, whentherefl
no comparable opportunity for rep(
really to use the White House as)
tected base from which the Presideal
pet-bombs” his political challenger,
Carter is entitled to defend his poll)
the length and the pitch of voice aid
Kennedy has critized it. But compi
the rebuttal into the compass ofaf
conference answer invites the kindofl
gerated and divisive rhetoric whichOj
in fact, employed.
It would be far better for the Pres*
for the office and for the country ifkf'
to end his self-imposed political edit!
and make his campaign speeches fro*
stump — not from White House ne*
ferences.
(c) 1980, The Washington PostComl
thotz
By Doug Graha*
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