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The Battalion
Monday
Texas A&M University
October 27, 1980
Slouch
By Jim Earle
“/ don’t know who did it. This is a season that brings out the clowns as well as
the witches and goblins. ”
Hooray for Governor Bill!
His honesty is appreciated
People who say what they think have my
respect.
Gov. William P. Clements is one of those
people.
In remarks to editors of the Texarkana Gazet
te, Clements called President Jimmy Carter “a
goddamn liar” regarding national defense.
Now that’s great stuff. I have long wanted to
hear a politician say what he thought rather
than what might be politically expedient.
Clements certainly has a way with phrases.
Beside this latest jewel, rank his comments on
underwater pressurized abortion and praying
for a hurricane to clean up the Texas coast oil
spill last year.
I admit those comments belong in the dung
heap. I would not publicly endorse calling the
president a liar or any other of a hundred di
atribes Carter causes me to utter. But I enjoy
straight talk, especially public, and that’s when
Gov. Bill shines.
Leftovers
By Todd Woodard
I see Gov. Bill like this. Talking over a beer,
he leans back and lets the words flow. He isn’t
concerned with the trivialities and nuances of
fine grammar and namby-pamby prose, he just
talks. His brow is creased and little particles of
fluid fly from his mouth as he goes on.
Now the ideal situation would be that Gov.
Bill’s comments stay off the record, that is, not
for publication. You gotta watch journalists, he
says, they’ll take your rig down every time.
And that is the truth. We ll do anything for a
story, ask any politician. But Gov. Bill needs no
prodding. He is quite a story.
Who would believe a state executive*
say such a terrible thing? Who wouldprii
trash in family newspapers? Look for mvl
in the air.
Clements is my folk hero. He says the
outrageous things. I love it.
All the Limo-crats cry and moanabou
ments degrading the governor’s office
bage. He responded as many other peoplf
privately. The dividing line between puhli
private is very hazy for me; therefore!
ments’ remark causes me no heartbunu
He just had the misfortune that everyone
their voter registration card heard.
The best part of this furor was Cleim
refusal to retract his statement. He saidlt
the remark was justified and would notdi
the statement. He is hardheaded, off-tta
and ribald. I like that.
But 1 would watch my mouth in mixed
pany.
MM)
IW? LeAl^ji rito pfcuicf&c-
SOTHEOLDCOOmNTS
Mondale, Bush picking
up support ‘on location ’
By DAVID S. BRODER
DETROIT — The two islands of civility in
the ocean of calumny and cliche that is the 1980
presidential campaign are populated by Walter
F. Mondale and George Bush and their respec
tive vice presidential entourages.
The very existence of these two traveling
courts is one of the best-kept secrets of the
year. But journalists who stumble across them,
as I did with bush in Michigan and a bit earlier
with Mondale in Illinois and Iowa, know in
stantly that they have entered what are — by
1980 standards — blessed realms.
Life is not leisurely. Neither the incumbent
No. 2 man nor his would-be successor is keep
ing the gentleman’s hours that made, say, the
Henry Cabot Lodge campaign of 1960 a happy
rest cure for frazzled reporters.
Quite the contrary. On the typical day. Mon
dale and Bush will make more speeches, give
more interviews and see more people than their
running-mates. But, perhaps because they are
No. 2 and perhaps because their personalities
are different from those of their principals, they
seem to do their work in a more relaxed, civil
ized manner than the big shots.
Mondale has time to kick off his shoes and
have a hamburger and beer with a handful of
reporters covering him. Bush wanders around a
hotel restaurant, jollying the patrons and chal
lenging friends with such political trivia ques
tions as the name of Eugene McCarthy’s vice
presidential running-mate when he ran as an
independent in 1976.
On the stump, both men can sound the re
quired battle cries. Mondale tells a black
church audience in Chicago, “Ronald Reagan is
to the American worker what Colonel Sanders
is to the American chicken. ” Bush tells a televi
sion audience here, “What burns me up are the
outrageous charges that they are making in
their effort to distort Gov. Reagan’s proposals
and destroy his candidacy.”
But they also play their audiences for laughs,
and they seem to be enjoying the campaigning
themselves. Mondale has built a wonderful
standup comic routine out of Reagan’s flip-
flops. It winds up with the line, “My father was
a Methodist minister and he once told me, ‘The
only trouble with deathbed conversions is that,
occasionally, they get well.’”
Bush is the master of self-deprecation, telling
a youngster who had surprised him with a ques
tion on the Equal Rights Amendment, “Amy, I
wish I hadn’t called on you. I support it. Gov.
Reagan does not. And I support Gov. Reagan.”
Somehow, their effectiveness does not seem
diminished by their evident good humor. Mon
dale is the main rallying point for Democrats
who are doubtful about Carter. Ed Campbell,
the Iowa Democratic chairman, introduced
Mondale as “the great ecumenist of our party,
our own Pope John. ” He is being credited with
swinging Wisconsin from Reagan to Carter by
the work he did last week with farmers, union
ists and dissenting liberals.
Bush plays a similar role on the Republican
side, with his appeal to the ticket-splitters, in
dependents and moderate Republicans who are
nervous about Reagan’s social policies and in
ternational pronouncements.
At the urging of Michigan Republicans, the
Reagan campaign put together a statewide 14-
station television network to saturate the air
waves with a half-hour “Ask George Bush”
program. Similar programs have been or will be
broadcast in almost all the Great Lakes battleg
round states.
“The only reason most of our ticket-splitters
are breaking to Reagan,” said a key Pennsylva
nia suburban county GOP chairman, “is Bush.
They figure that voting for Reagan, they’ll even
tually get Bush as President, too.”
That is not so much a reflection on Reagan’s
age as it is a commentary on the future pres
idential viability of his running-mate. Mondale,
too, apears to have that potential, whatever
happens in 1980.
The publicity Bush and Mondale are not get
ting from the national networks and newspap
ers is more than offset by the heavy local cover
age they receive in the cities they have visited.
Both men have small but expert political
staffs of their own with them, and an ever
growing list of local contacts that can be ex
ploited come 1984.
The reason they may be so civil and cheerful
is that for both of them, the fun is probably just
beginning.
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It’s your turn
Students’ children deserve a break
Editor:
Please help us with tjiis problem; A couple of
years ago, the students voted not to allow facul
ty children to play on the campus tennis courts.
We live in College Station and the courts are
the best available for our two daughters to use.
Policy not sound
My husband has taught at this University for
seventeen years, has received three degrees
from A&M, has turned down many jobs which
offered over twice his present salary in order to
dedicate his teaching abilities to the Aggies,
and is one of the world’s leading authorities in
his field, which gives his students a great advan
tage when they enter the job market.
This dedication seems to be a bit misplaced
when professors make sacrifices to stay here to
teach in order to turn out the best qualified
graduates in the many fields offered, but their
families are denied access to campus facilities.
Don’t the students realize that all of these pro
fessors have families with needs to be met just
as the students have their needs?
Give us a break Ags, we are part of the cam
pus machinery also!
Thanks for listening!
Mrs. Lee Lowery Jr. ’67
Editor:
We would like to comment on the Pysical
Plant’s recent directive which forbids the maids
and janitors to sort aluminum cans from campus
trash for the purpose of recycling. The practice
fo recycling aluminum is an environmentally
sound one, while the directive against it is irres
ponsible and wasteful of our natural resources.
The objection is that it takes the maids too
long to sort the cans from other trash. Unfortun
ately, most worthwhile objectives do take a lit
tle extra effort. In this case the extra effort to
sort cans from piles of crumpled papers is very
minimal. We are on campus most of the day and
into the evenings on many occassions, and have
seen first hand that the maids perform the task
of sorting cans very efficiently. It tak«l
seconds more for the maids to put cans ii (
separate waste container from other trast; I
Texas A&M should be the leader i» ! ‘I
Bryan-College Station area for a practitfj
sound as recycling, yet the University P
it. How can the country as a whole effec
control the waste of our natural resourt
other leaders of other communities fdllowW
A&M’s example of actively discouragingf'|
practices.
The Physical Plant should reassess Wi
priorities and make approriate changtfj
policy.
Cindy Dfl>‘ I
Editor’s Note: This letter was accornpaiw' ]
48 other signatures.
Warped
By Scott McCullar
The Battalion
U S P S 045 360
MEMBER
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Southwest Journalism Congress
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