Viewpoint
The Battalion Wednesday
Texas A&M University November 12, 1980
Slouch
By Jim Earle
‘Tou know, I thinkTm in agreement with you. Playing a good
game, winning a moral victory, showing your courage and
that sort of thing is okay, but winning is better. ”
Economics cost Carter
in his reelection bid
By DAVID S. BRODER
WASHINGTON — The implications of a
huge Ronald Reagan/Republican victory will be
unfolding over a long period of time, but some
basic points were clear even as the final returns
were being counted.
What defeated Jimmy Carter and the Demo
crats was the failure to control the costs of
necessities and to demonstrate an ability to pro
tect American lives and interests abroad. A year
ago, when the campaign was just beginning,
voters saw inflation as a threat to their personal
security and viewed the plight of the hostages as
a symbol of America’s impotence in the world.
Nothing that happened in the last 12 months
persuaded them that the dangers to personal
freedom or national independence were dimi
nishing under Carter and the Democrats. So
when Reagan asked if voters thought they and
the country were better off than they had been
when the Carter presidency began, the answer
was an overwhelming no.
Reagan’s definition of the issue was so rooted
in the reality of voters’ own experiences and
perceptions that none of Carter’s scare-tactic
efforts to shift the focus to the challenger could
work. And the Reagan tactic played perfectly
into the year-long, multi-million-dollar Repub
lican Party advertising campaign to make voters
believe that the source of their discontent was
not just four years of Carter but 26 years of
Democratic control of Congress.
That unprecedented party effort laid an effec
tive foundation for dozens of individual GOP
congressional and senatorial candidates to tell
their constituents that “if you’re going to throw
Jimmy Carter out, you ought to defeat the legis
lators who supported him.” With this approach
and the resources provided by the party, the
PACs and the issue activists, they tied local
Democratic candidates to Carter’s fatal coat
tails.
As a result, the conservative victory could
hardly be more complete. The back of the liber
al cadre in the Senate had been broken. Five
liberal Democrats went down to defeat in 1978;
in the spring of 1980, Ted Kennedy was re
jected for the Democratic nomination; now
seven more liberal senators have been elimin
ated, along with some of the best-known and
most influential of their counterparts in the
House.
Except for a few, aging traditional liberals,
like Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill and Sen.
Alan Cranston of California, the Majority Lead
er Jim Wright of Texas and his Senate counter
part, Sen. Bob Byrd of West Virginia. President
Reagan will find them accommodating on most
matters.
As for the younger House Democrats, many
are political weathervanes and they will be ea-
Warped
Blackout presents chance
to appraise crisis procedures
Monday’s campus-wide power blackout pre
sented a number of interesting and alarming
consequences for those who were caught un
prepared in an electricity-controlled environ
ment.
Most Aggies managed to handle the hour-
long outage with a fair amount of indifference.
Some, like the engineers in Zachry, spent their
hour without power in more flighty pursuits.
But the loss of power throughout the campus
presents the opportunity to examine a uniquely
artificial aspect of our environment.
We’ve hermetically sealed ourselves into a
mayonnaise jar, with only one avenue of escape
— somebody else has to unscrew the lid. The
power plant people, ever so slowly, have to
begin bringing buildings back “on line.”
When the lights go out, we re more than
merely powerless; we become POWERLESS.
The electricity god probably grins slyly as he
wreaks havoc among humans who have become
too dependant on him for their own good.
Aside from the inconvenience of typewriters
that won’t type, telephones that won’t ring and
drinks that don’t stay cold, a power failure also
presents a number of more significant handi
caps.
Sidebars
By Dillard Stone
Some people are caught in elevators. There’s
no hope if you’re caught in an elevator. If you’re
not a complete claustrophobe when the car
stops and the lights go out, you will be by the
time you get out. After all, who’s to say how
long the crisis will last — and when they’ll come
pull you out of the elevator? And if the campus
phones can’t receive any incoming calls, is any
one ever going to know you’re stuck?
Stairways are supposed to have safety lights
— but the ones in Harrington didn’t. It pre
sents a real safety hazard to those trying to
navigate up and down.
If the building you’re in has lit stairways,
what about the handicapped, caught with no
way of getting down except the elevator? Col
lege Station firemen responded gallmtl
man’s needs Monday, helping him 1
11th floor of Rudder Tower, but it w
those cases of being in the right plats
right time.
You can’t expect the CSFDtoa
knights in shining armor to comet
everybody in need.
On the other hand, it must have best
to be able to sit outside the libraryai!
faces at everyone trapped behind thesis
ly sealed glass doors. Serves th
right; besides, who could ever dreamy
excuse, “I was trapped in the libran
To the credit of most, the powen
didn’t affect some of the more importaali
of Texas A&M. Sbisa kept serving[«
computer at the Remote Computing!
stopped, but it didn’t lose any p
health center service continued unintec
It was evident that a power fails
magnitude doesn’t enter the though!
emergency planners. And while n
managed to cope, there are somesioj
improvements that can be made!
those caught in the next blackout.
Authoi
stories
tation
Fictior
ger to adjust to the conservative winds, lest
they be swept away when the Republicans go
all-out for control of the House in 1982, as they
surely will do.
So, for next two years at least, Reagan and the
conservatives in Congress will have things very
much their own way. The question for the coun
try is whether they will govern in a broad,
expansive spirit or a mean and and narrow one.
Reagan projected himself during the cam
paign as a comfortable, outgoing leader,
reaching out for support and seeking to broaden
his understanding as he widened his consti
tuency. But historically, he has, as he puts it,
set his “feet in concrete” on many divisive
issues. And many of the newly elected conser
vatives in Congress look like grim apostles of
the right-wing version of revealed truth, who
view any dissent as heresy.
The atmosphere in Washington may be like
London under Cromwell when, as when the
doggerel goes, people said, “England’s gov
erned by Objectors. Lord protect us from Pro
tectors.”
The first tests of the Republicans’ tolerance
will be internal. Will the GOP senators keep
Howard H. Baker, Jr., of Tennessee as their
leader, or will they purge him for “crimes of
moderation,” as they blackballed him for a
place on the national ticket?
Will Reagan insist that places on his White
House staff and in his administration be open to
all Republicans and to “discerning Democrats, ”
or will he permit the ideologues who have a
long investment in his career to bar access to
everyone but their philosophical clones?
Those are the earliest clues the country will
get about what kind of people it has voted into
power, but the most important test — in my
view — will lie in what Reagan and the victo
rious conservatives do to reassure worried black
and brown Americans about the implications of
their victory.
Carter was accused of demagoguery when he
said a Reagan victory might separate the races
on America. But, in fact, that separation occur
red in the voting booths last Tuesday, as blacks
and brown, almost alone, gave their support to
Carter in overwhelming numbers.
Many in the minority communities are fright
ened by their isolation from their partners in
the old New Deal coalition and by the fact that
the victorious conservatives owe them nothing
politically. There is little they find reassuring in
Reagan’s past pronouncements on civil rights
laws and social welfare issues.
Dealing with those fears will be the work of
many years, but it can begin by including strong
black and brown leaders in the planning and
staffing of the new government. Nothing would
contribute more to letting Reagan launch this
new conservative era on the right note.
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It’s your turn
Rebuttal about Texas A&M soccer teai
$300 to
ment alio’
. One oi
Anderson
Editor:
This is in reply to the letter which appeared
in the November 10th edition of The Battalion
entitled, “Soccer good but it could be better,”
by John Wainio.
First, it was not until this past June that
Coach Telmo Franco accepted the task of
coaching the A&M team. Because of this, there
was little time for recruiting. Also, most major
univerisities had completed their recruiting
earlier in the spring. Even if Coach Franco had
arrived in time to recruit players, what could he
offer them? We receive no scholarships and
certainly he could not brag about the facilities.
Secondly, the players that are presently on
the team are forced to make great sacrifices in
order to play and represent the University. Be
cause of the time we put into the practice and
games, we are forced to take lighter class loads
than we normally would (we must take at least
12 hours) and therefore, must stay an extra year
to finish our degrees. Many of the players which
Mr. Wainio speaks of were not willing to make
this sacrifice.
Physical fitness is very important to soccer,
Mr. Wainio, and it is not obtained quickly as
you stated. During tryouts, every player was
required to run two miles in under 12 minutes
before practice and after three hours of prac
tice, run wind sprints and other conditioning
drills. Many players were cut or quit because
they could not or would not meet these require
ments. No matter how skillful a person is, he
must be in good shape to play against the very
physical teams that comprise the SWC. What
good is skillful player is he is too tired to run and
must sit down and rest on the bench?
As for the friendly scrimmage Mr. Wainio
talks about, he did not tell the whole story. The
TAMU team had practiced for an hour before
the scrimmage started. During this time we had
to run five miles and completed other condi
tioning drills. The team that we scrimmaged
consisted mainly of players who had, at one
time or another, played for, or tried to play for,
the A&M team. Some of these players are good
enough to play for the A&M team, but chose
not to because of schedule problems or they
were not willing to do the work required. None
were cut because Coach Franco did
them. This is a poor excuse whichsomeP* ou “
use to justify their lack of skill and
from the team.
inants’
ses te
Kir owi
To those of you who think you
about soccer than Coach Franco, I ailr^ n( j ers
compare your qualifications to his. Hel%kshingt
cated his life to soccer. Before he leftfi'eommuni
starred as a professional player, and sin® ed tec
ing to the U. S. he has coached collegeswoups w]
eight years and earned a master’s deffdings
physical education. Mr. Wainio, ifyo® 5-
you can match up to these qualification^ t acte
vite you to come out and practice withtl'*
team for a week and we will see il
the same way. I don’t think you
pn
By Scott McCullar
The Battalion
U S P S 045 360
MEMBER
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Southwest Journalism Congress
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Editor Dillard Stone
Managing Editor Rhonda Watters
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