Tuesday, October 9, 1034
Pago 4
Dally Ncbraskan
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stranse thing haoDened af-
tor ?imHiv night's irrwsi.
J dential debates. Three Re
publicans, along with a lot of
Democrats, told me they thought
Mondale won.
None of them said they would
change their votes, nor would
they concede any advantage to
Mondale at the polls. But they
thought Mondale won. Not with
his lackluster voice or average
appearance, but with hb words.
And that is what counts.
An Associated Press story also
gave Mondale the edge. Seven
forensics experts, using a stand
ard debate scorecard, gave Mon
dale 174 points to Reagan'3 157.
Mondale countered Reagan's
claims well and seemed to have a
better grasp of the issues. Mon
dale was smoother and even
pulled a couple smooth moves on
smatelaes dletete
the "Great Communicator."
Reagan denied claims that he
tried to cut social welfare pro
grams, including Social Security.
Mondale recalled that Reagan at
one time wanted a 25 percent cut
in Social Security. When Reagan
denied that, Mondale aptly quoted
what Will Rogers once said about
Hubert Humphrey:
"It's not what he doesnt know
that worries me. It's what he
knows for sure but just ain't so."
Reagan said he was running on
hi3 record, but he spent a great
part of the debate defending his
cuts of social programs and deny
ing the damage his programs have
done.
He admitted there are more
poor people now than there were
four years ago, but he contended
his programs would eventually
reduce the number of poor.
It's more likely his policies will
continue to broaden the gap be
tween the rich and the poor. Rea
gan could not deny that his cuts
gave more of a break to the
wealthy.
And cn the subject of Social
Security, Reagan said he would
never cut benefits for those now
receiving them. That's bad news
for those who pay Social Security
now and hope to see some. It
sounds like a falsehood to the
hundreds 6f beneficiaries who
were taken off the payroll because
of Reagan's reviewing of benefits.
Mondals stung Reagan after
the president used one of his old
debate tricks; "There you go
again." Mondale turned that
smarmy phrase right around on
Reagan.
Mondale said, There you, go
again..." The American people
remember Reagan promising not
to cut Medicare, then turning
around after the election and
seeking cuts, he said.
Reagan also lost points on the
deficit question. Mondale has
made his deficit-reduction plan
open. It's a solid plan that would
have tangible results. Mondale
asked Reagan to reveal his plan
for reducing the deficit that has
exploded during hi3 term. Rea
gan responded vaguely that his
recovery plan and government
cuts would slowly mend the def
icit, and he dismissed Congres
sional Budget Office estimates of
an increasing dencit, by saying
the CBO i3 usually wrong.
Reagan might have made up
for hi3 lack of sound answers
with his quick wit and engaging
smile. But neither was there.
Reagan looked a little tired
sounded a little absent-minded
and lacked his normal convic
tion. Even Republicans noticed it.
J rS fCi !A J o
14 X MUST ADfAlT THIS IS JHB STRONGEST Yef . (T SYS,
v IP YOU aGNtETTZS, YOU ARB A JERK ' "
School vouchers
foster free choice
public schools, or more accurately, government
schools, come as close to being a sacred institu
tion as anything in America. Silly Americans. Any
advocacy of change for the better is usually met with
scolding claims that the advocate is ungrateful for what
government schools have provided to him or her as well
as to society as a whole. Such scolding is vaguely remin
iscent of the tired old phrase which is now America's
newest favorite catch-phrase: "I do and do for you kids
and this is the thanks I get."
Well, I'm not ungrateful, but the current method of
funding and structuring education must be rejected as
an unfortunate leftover from the antiquated past. How
ever, the rejection of government schooling does not
necessarily entail the rejection of a form of government
Rogers'
erraro's 'star
uality attracts crowds
G
REENSBORO, N.C. Geraldine Ferraro is sitting
in yet another hotel room, pumped full of Tylenol
and vitamin C, fighting a cold that's run through
the staff and reporters on her campaign traiL It's down
time, between planes and rallies, and she's talking and
nibbling at the platter of cheese and fruit in a compul
sive campaign gesture which as she tells everyone
has added eight pounds to her fighting weight.
Ferraro, candidate for vice president and a working
mother, had left Queens at dawn, carrying clothes for
her daughter Laura, who's waiting at the next stop. "I
bring her a suitcase of clean clothes, then she goes off on
another trip and leaves me her dirty clothes " she says
with a fond and rueful smile about the things in life that
dont change.
Goodman
This is the beginning of what will be one of her most
successful campaign swings through the South and
Midwest, but for & moment the frustration that she feels
campaigning against the Republican ticket percolates
up to the surface. Running a hard-hitting campaign
against Ronald Reagan is just a bit like punching jello.
"I have to tell you," she begins. "I talked to my cousin
last night. He said, Tou know, we're with you.' Then he
said the most amazing thing: 'Everybody I talk to, they
say, too bad Gerry isnt running with Ronald Reagan
because he's such a wonderful man and she's such a
wonderful person.' I said, 'He's not! Dont they look at
what he's cost us! Dont they look at where we're coming
from on the issues!' "
v Ferraro is conscious of the paradoxes of this cam
paign. She is at the center of one herself. The woman, a
political "natural," attracts enormous crowds of the cur
ious as well as the committed. People, especially women,
simply want to see her, touch her. But her star quality
hasn't yet translated into confidence in her ability. In a
Washington PostABC News poll comparing her with
Georga Bush as a potential president, the man who can
hardly scare up a quorum on the campaign trail beats
her 61 to 33 percent
This doesnt surprise or rattle Ferraro, who attributes
it to the wonders of his incumbency, not to her sex. "How
many times do people put faith in people they dont
know?" she asks. "The polls are reflecting the fact that
the man has been vice president of the United States for
four years."
It's the second paradox, the one reported by her cou
sin, that she finds hardest to deal with. "They think he's
wrong on the budget deficits, wrong on trade, wrong on
arms control," she says, reciting a litany of issues. "But
then, when you talk about Ronald Reagan, they say, 'Isnt
he wonderful!' " She repeats this in the manner of a
Queens prosecutor who knows she has a perfect case
but hasnt yet convinced the jury.
Her conviction, that if the Democrats can only get a
handle on the right argument they can win, prompts
Ferraro to throw away her speech the next morning at
the Chrysler plant in Rockford, III, and ask the auto
workers there to "Tell me, Tell me" why the polls say
one-third of the UAW members will vote for Ronald
Reagan. "What is it that would make you vote for him?"
she asks the assembly-line workers, mostly men, open
ing a risky, free-wheeling session that transforms their
reserved body language and wins their respect.
At every stop, Ferraro emphasized the disparity
between Reagan's image and his acts. In Nashville, at a
speech attacking Reagan's strongest point, leadership,
she told the President, "Do not pretend to be a friend of
the very things you undermine."
You dont have to be clairvoyant to see Ferraro itching
to get Ronald Reagan on the witness stand and cross
examine him. What she will get is a debate with his
second and surrogate. For 90 minutes, she will be com
pared to ueorge tiusn, not in abstract notions of leader
ship but in performance. For 00 minut3. shell have her
chance to turn
confrontation.
the show-and-teil campaign into a
Ferraro is dbnscious of the importance of that debate.
"It just so happens that it's the 1 1th of October, Eleanor
Roosevelt's 100th birthday" she says. "How do you like
this as a series of coincidences? I was born on Women's
Equality Day and the debate h on Elsanor Roosevelt's
birthday." Somewhere in the numbers, she reads a
pretty decent omen.
1SS4. Tfc Boston G'c-fct fl&mpsp-sT CftmpsnyWeshston Pert
funding which preserves family choice, namely, some
form of educational vouchers.
Although there are lots of voucher plans, the gist of all
the plans include the providing of an educational cou
pon to families with school-aged children which may be
redeemed at the school of the family's, rather than the
government's choice.
There ere two major arguments for the support of
a voucher system over the current method of govern
ment established schooling. Conservative economist
Milton Friedman advances the first argument. He says
that vouchers would establish competition for the edu
cational dollar and thus foster better education for
children &s each school sought to provide better services
in order to attract more students. Friedman's claim
could be true. But the second argument for the estab
lishment of a voucher system so overshadows Fried
man's argument that it makes it of little ultimate
concern.
Law professors Stephen Arons and Charles Lawrence
III wrote an article, published in a 19S0 issue of Harvard
Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review. In the article
they claim that the popular "equation of the American
school system with social democracy and personal lib
erty, may be more self-serving than self-evident. In fact,
American schooling may be structured in a way that
undercuts the most basic freedoms of democracy. For at
the heart of American school ideology is the belief that
schooling decisions, bice most governmental decisions,
are the proper province of the political majority."
The notion underlying this belief is that educa tion is
never neutral, rather, schooling "is everywhere and inev
itably a manipulator of consciousness, an kiculcator of
values in young minds." Yet this manipulation by the
government, Arons and Lawrcrxe ague, is the very
object which the First Amendment was designed to pro
tect against. The very basis of a truly d emocratic society
is that belief formulation, especially among the most
defenseless members of our society the young
wouia not oe subject to majority .will
Tile Euyorit&ii&n imperialism of government
schooling, Lawrence and Arons rightly argue, falls most
heavily upon those unable to afford schooling in a politi-1
caHy free school the poor, namely the working class,
minorities and women-headed household which com- I
prise the large proportions of this group. Ironically, f
while it is the poor who bear the brent of government
schooling, "all the while, oar present school id tlogy tells
these same poor and working class persons that the j
structure ci scr.ooi is tneir best nope ior
equal place in society."