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Viewpoint
The Battalion
Texas A&M University
Tuesday
June 10,1980
Parties feed us what we
deserve: diet ofmediocrit
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Myopic, musical gadfly sets
‘Federal Budget Revue'
by VERNON SCOTT
United Press International
HOLLYWOOD — The rarest of all television fare,
political satire, will blossom briefly the week of July 4th
with “Stan Freberg Presents The Federal Budget Re
vue, or The $600 Billion Misunderstanding.”
Network executives and Federal Communications
Commission bureaucrats quaver with terror at the spec
ter of political satire — using the public airways to poke
fun at sacrosanct individuals and institutions.
If a network comic makes fun of President Carter, he
must poke equal fun at challenger Ronald Reagan; that
sort of thing.
Should a program spoof the Republicans, then it must
also take some shots at the Democrats.
Because the networks shy away from such controver
sy, Freberg’s hour-long special will be aired via the
Public Broadcasting System, relatively free of intimida
tion by bureaucrats and altogether disassociated from
network zombies.
Freberg, as usual, will be seen as a myopic gadfly
examining bureaucratic waste, political maneuvering,
squandered taxes and congressional idiocy.
Scrupulously bipartisan, he weaves allegory and fable
into a delightful musical melange in which the taxpayers
are innocents at the mercy of imbecilic bureaucrats.
Music and lyrics for the eight major production num
bers were written by Freberg, much as he did for his hit
comedy record, “The United States of America, ” which
has become a collector’s item.
He also wrote all the dialogue in addition to producing
and directing the lavish musical hour.
In the opening number Freberg, made up to look like
Chrysler president Lee lacocca, arrives riding atop a
Chrysler tank and offers a two-tank-for-the-price-of-one
sale.
The most colorful number is played in front of a
mock-up of the Capitol. Freberg points to the building
with pride and says:
“Well, it’s just about that time of day when all of the
people in our great federal establishment get off work —
you know, all the White House, Senate, House of Rep
resentatives and all those agencies otherwise known as
The Great Bureaucracy of the United States Govern
ment.
“Hark! I think I hear them now!”
Out of the Capitol and down the broad steps tumble a
phalanx of clowns who break into song and dance to the
strains and lyrics of “The Great Bureaucracy Song.”
The clowns stretch rubber dollars and exchange the
contents of their attache cases in capering joy.
Later in the show a blizzard of genuine tax forms
buries a group of taxpayers to their chins.
Freberg, his blond hair a mass of tight ringlets which
look as if General Electric had styled it, and with horn
rimmed glasses, gives the appearance of an endearing
wombat.
His nasal voice, pitched in a register that resists classi
fication, would pierce lead.
“I think definitely this show could not have been done
with the same freedom at a network, ” Freberg said. “I’m
not sure why there is so little political satire on the tube.
“Maybe networks are afraid of offending people and
the pressure of commercial advertisers. I’ve known the
trembling of many standards and practices men at the
networks, believe me.
“My satire doesn’t take sides. I’ve gone to great
lengths not to grind my own ax. I don’t mention Ken
nedy or Carter or Reagan, but I do say the whole system
of electing a President has to be overhauled.
“The only answer is to invoke the New Improved
Freberg Plan.
“First you build a balcony, the kind the Pope or the
Queen likes to come out on. And you put the balcony out
on some great open flat place like Omaha.
“Then you line up all 37 presidential candidates while
the voters stand below in the great open space. Then
someone like Ted Mack walks behind the candidates
and holds his hands over their heads, one at a time.
“The great applause meter in the sky would give us
the people’s choice in no time at all. What could be more
democratic than that?
“I haven’t worked out the logistics about getting all
the people to Omaha yet. But you can’t really examine
the idea too carefully.”
Freberg describes presidential elections as a kind of
political neutron bomb.
“Every four years the election blows away the pre
vious administration but leaves the federal budget
standing,” he said.
“This is The Freberg Political Neutron Bomb Theory.
The new President comes in and, despite good inten
tions, sees the budget he’s inherited as if it were a giant
Leggo set. He adds bits and pieces until he’s built the
budget even bigger than it was.
“Although he knows that on next election day he may
be blown away, he takes comfort in the knowledge that
his budget will be left standing for the next President to
build upon.”
by ARNOLD SAWISLAK
United Press International
WASHINGTON — A comment from the 1972 pres
idential election: “The people chose the evil of two
lessers.”
In 1976, some people were calling the major party
candidates “Bozo” and “The Peanut.”
A 1980 joke: A holdup man pulls a gun and demands,
“Who are you for, Carter or Reagan?” “Shoot, says the
victim.
Is all this just part of the American trait of irreverence
for the high and mighty, or widespread disatisfaction
with the presidential choices provided by the Democra
tic and Republican parties in recent years?
The public opinion polls suggest it is unhappiness
with the two men who seem sure to be the 1980 candi
dates. One poll, in fact, said fully half of the people in the
country find both Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan
unacceptable.
There was some speculation that the increased turn
outs for the early primaries may have been the signal for
a change in the long-term trend toward voter apathy,
but the enthusiasm of the winter and early spring faded
as the weather grew warmer.
Yet both political parties, not altogether willingly,
have significantly changed their candidate selection pro
cesses in recent years to give the public a bigger voice in
the choice of the presidential nominees.
The number of presidential primaries, which all but
eliminate political bosses and machines from candidate
selection, have doubled in the last decade. A number of
states have continued to hold primaries that permit
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voters to cross party lines, which also opens up
system.
Both parties, but particularly the Democrats ta
made real efforts in recent years to involve minoritii
women and other groups traditionally left out in t
cold.
Furthermore, the distorting effect of big money a_
the potentially undue influence of big contributors ha .,-$■{$
been lessened in the candidate selection process"
strict limits on donations and spending. __
So why should the 1980 selections be so unpopula With ad
Some people — including former President Gen
Ford — blame the system, claiming the reforms oft nF nes
last decade have hurt the process of bringing forward t ^ a ^
best presidential candidates
That could be, but it is hard to believe that the cot
try would be well served or would really want to retu
to the selection of presidential candidates by politii
bosses in smoke-filled rooms (Warren Harding) or
trading the vice presidency for delegates (Frank! mphlet
finted t
Dippi
Roosevelt)
It may just be that the problem is not the machine
but the raw material being fed into it, and that itisai ^ an( *
broader issue than nominating attractive president
candidates. k™ on
Finding and developing good men and women to
candidates at all levels certainly is a problem for tl
political parties. But good people are not likely to I ^that
drawn to occupations regarded as inherently sleazy ai taian
corrupt and as long as the public expects politicians tol
clowns and crooks, they probably will get what tin testhat
expect.
Iran's parliamentary ping-pon
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by DICK WEST
United Press International
WASHINGTON — The new Iranian Parliament has
been in existence only about two weeks but already has
exhibited a well-developed knack of juggling hot pota
toes.
It being bad form in Tehran to admit American influ
ence, the Iranians probably would deny having taken
digression lessons from the U.S. Congress.
But the way they have been dawdling on the hostage
issue looks very imitative indeed.
All the world had been waiting for the Parliament to
be formed, the world having been told the Parliament
would make the ultimate decision on the fate of the 53
American hostages.
Then, once the session finally began, parliamentary
leaders let it be known it probably would be at least
another six weeks before they came to grips with the
issue. Or maybe six months. Depending.
As an exercise in creative loitering, it compares favor
ably with the number Congress did on President Car
ter’s energy program.
Bear in mind, however, that Congress has had about
two centuries in which to sharpen its dilatory techni
ques.
What we have in Iran, apparently, is important new
evidence that a legislative body is born with certain
instincts that do more to govern its behavior than ac
quired traits.
Up to now, experts who have studied the devel
ment of legislative bodies have been pretty much btine a
vided on the instinct vs. experience question.
One group holds that all legislative bodies go throu coming
a rudimentary learning process .that determines t
reaction to hot potatoes. According to this thesis,
first time a hot potato is dumped in its lap, a legislati oaccois
body grabs it and burns itself. Because of that learni
experience, the next time it will know how to prot( [restai
itself.
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wdow
The other group argues that a legislative body is bo
knowing how to juggle hot potatoes and will instincts ew tobi
ly do so the moment one is at hand. ^can
“The hot potato-juggling instinct is part of a legislati e &id tc
body’s survival mechanism,” I was told by a leadi
exponent of the latter school. “There doesn’t have to
a warning label on the jacket for a legislative body
know a hot potato may be hazardous.”
I asked how long the Iranian Parliament might pro
rastinate.
He declined to predict an exact date for final action!
the Parliament. But if they play their cards right,
said, by the time they get around to resolving the issi
“the hostages will have died of old age.”
Primary system ‘recklessly haphazard'
Presidential qualifies not emphasized
by DAVID S. BRODER
LOS ANGELES — Defenders of the presidential prim
ary system point out that without it, John F. Kennedy
could not have demonstrated that Protestants would
vote for a Catholic, and Jimmy Carter could not have
proved that Northerners and blacks would support a
Southern white man.
The usefulness of primaries is that they give lesser-
known candidates, and those fighting regional, religious
or other bias, a way to compete for presidency.
But Kennedy in 1960 ran in only four contested pri
maries, while Carter in 1976 competed in 26 — and that
is a world of difference.
After Kennedy had won key primaries in Wisconsin
and West Virginia, he still had to convince party leaders
and elected officials in the non-primary states that he
was fit to carry the party banner. Without them, he
would not have had the votes to be the nominee.
That process forced Kennedy to build alliances with
other leading Democrats — alliances w'hich served him
well as President. Carter, by contrast, gained virtually
all the votes he needed from the primaries and entered
the presidency without the allies who might have
helped him succeed in the job.
With more primaries, and less money to spend under
new federal laws, candidates learned that the biggest
rewards came in winning early contests and letting the
mass-media magnification of those narrow plurality vic
tories build momentum for the later and larger states.
The result is perpetual candidacy. George
McGovern, the first non-incumbent to test this new
system, announced an unprecedented 18 months before
the 1972 convention — and won.
Carter started just as far in advance of the 1976
convention. But while McGovern was burdened with
being a senator, Carter had no public responsibilities
after leaving the Georgia governership and was able to
spend 260 days campaigning in 1975.
Observing Carter’s success, George Bush applied the
same time-table and tactics to the 1980 Republican
nomination. He would have won, too, except that he
had an opponent in Reagan who has had no other full
time occupation for the last six years (six years!) than
running for the President nomination.
In the present nominating system, the determinants
of success are the size of the candidate’s ambitions, the
extent of his leisure time, and the tolerance of his family,
his budget and his job for almost unlimited travel.
Those characteristics have almost nothing to do with
the qualities that make an effective President — as the
results show. It is a recklessly haphazard way to choose
the candidates for that demanding office.
It is too late to go back to 1960, when four primaries
were sufficient for Kennedy, but there are practical
remedies available for the excesses of the present sys
tem. And the parties have the power to put them into
effect themselves.
(c) 1980, The Washington Post Company
The Battalion
U S P S 045 360
MEMBER
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Southwest Journalism Congress
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Staff Writers Uschi Michel-HoweE
Debbie Nelson, Cathy Saath®
Scot K. Meyer, Jon Heidte
Kurt All« fdeonti
Photo Editor Lee Roy Leschperjs
Photographer Marsha Hoeb«
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Between 1960 and 1976. there was a revolution in the
nominating process — a revolution which continued in
1980 when the number of primaries reached three
dozen.
The revolution had its origins in the 1968 Democratic
Convention, when the “insiders’ rejected Eugene J.
McCarthy, the survivor of the primaries, and chose
Hubert H. Humphrey instead. The perceived injus
tices of that outcome were probably more the result of
the murder of Robert F. Kennedy than any failure of
the system. But it led to a complete revision of the
Democratic delegate-selection procedures. And those
new rules, in turn, led to a doubling of the number of
primaries. By 1976, 80 percent of the delegates came
out of the primaries — and that was the ball game.
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