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A discussion with University lobbyist Gene Budig
and Public Relations Director George Round
produced some interesting comments on changes that
have occurred in the last 10 years at NU and
tentatively point to some things we can expect within
the next few years as well.
1) More Student involvement: The Student Power
Movement has quite successfully marshalled students
into a cohesive, definable group with political
punch. Today's student deals with problems of
greater import than the student of the past.
Budig noted that our generation has been strongly
influenced by the television set: "People who see an
assasin murdered in front of their eyes and who see
Vietnamese children dying are more likely to involve
themselves in other people's problems."
Although students sometimes feel they have no
power whatsoever, they have considerably more than
they had five years ago. The University Advisory
Council, made up of 15 students, advises President
Varner on vital decisions. During Legislative budget
hearings concerning the University, students packed
the hearing roon, a fine example of grassroots energy.
Three students and three faculty members testified
before the Legislature's Budget Committee. Students
have a say in search committees, and curriculum
committees.
2) Resource allocation: University resources are
being used to help solve social problems. Nebraska
Opportunity for Volunteers in Action (NOVA) has
about eight people working on community service
projects. Omaha medical students are working on
badly-needed community health projects across the
state. The ag campus has long been invovled in
extension work, and has also long been helping with
ecological problem-solving like soil conservation. The
PACE program attempts to solve financial difficulties
of monority students.
1) Programmed budgeting: The Legislature's
method of allocating money to the University means
that instead of a lump sum, specific amounts are
earmarked for specific programs.
Last year the money was divided into 13 separate
sections-providing more control, but severely
reducing the Administration's flexibility. A good way.
to lose your best faculty members: somebody else
offers them more money and you're so tightly
controlled that you lose them for a few hundred
dollars.
State Sen. Fern Orme said Wednesday that
programmed budgeting appears to be on its way out,
at least this year. The University budget has been
consolidated into five general areas, allowing
administrators to shift money more easily to
programs that need it. Flexibility is vital to keep the
University competitive and of high quality.
4) Job proposals: the University is and will be
more concerned with job placement. With
unemployment soaring, and the job market glutted
with college graduates, the University Placement
Service is getting more emphasis. Individual
departments, too, have their own placement services
that are being given more attention than before.
5) Statewide: the University is moving toward a
statewide system: perhaps at the expense of UNL and
UNO, vocational and technical schools are popping
up all over the state. There is a trend away from large
schools to more personal junior colleges and small
colleges. A new program being set up, may bring
college into outstate homes through television,
making it unnecessary for students to congregate in
the eastern half of the state.
It looks like the turbulence of the frantic 60's,
with upheavals in every direction and amazing
changes in every field, is only a preview of the decade
to come. Sara Schwieder
Does he or doesn't he? That is the question people and
politicians alike are asking these days with regard to Maine
Edmund Sixtus Muskie's quest for the Democratic Presidential
nomination. And the answer must now be a cautious but
emphatic "maybe." About the only persons really confident
of Muskie's "inevitable" nomination are himself and his staff.
To be sure, he is the admitted fron-runner according to the
nationwide Gallup and Harris polls, albeit by no commanding
margin. He is also getting endorsements right and left (no pun
intended) from such key politicians as Governors John Gilligan
of Ohio and Milton Shapp of Pennsylvania, and Sen. Adlai
Stevenson III of Illinois and California's John Tunney. But as
we look to individual state contests, we find that the people
who really count-the voters-simply are not buying him in the
quantities he has hoped for.
The results of neighboring Iowa's recent Democratic
precinct caucus elections, if not a sharp setback for the Muskie
camp, certainly gave it no new impetus. Fresh from the
endorsement of Sen. Harold Hughes and the United Auto
Workers, Muskie hoped to get over 50 percent of the vote, and
came away with only 35.6 percent. McGovern placed second
with an unexpectedly strong 23 percent. Arizona was the same
story, with the combined Lindsay and McGovern slates
capturing 44 percent to the Muskie's dismal 38 per cent.
Less than three weeks from now comes the March 7 New
Hampshire primary, and a big win-55 per cent plus-is
essential for Muskie to maintain his leading status. Although
he is still expected to win, Muskie could easily wind up with
something less than a majority, and with that a crippling blow '
right in his own back yard.
In the first place, the candidacy of Los Angeles Mayor Sam
Yorty is taken more seriously there than elsewhere. Yorty has
a well-deserved reputation as a spoiler of California elections
and a winner in his own town against great odds. They mayor
is working the populous southwest corner of the state
exhaustively, and he has the enthusiastic backing of William
Loeb, publisher of the Manchester Union Leader, the state's
only daily and read by two-thirds of the voters.
Loeb, fond of labeling his neighboring senator "Moscow
Muskie," is unofficially credited with being able to deliver
from 1 5 to 20 per cent of the vote to anyone he endorses (he
is also supporting Ohio Congressman John Ashbrook in the
Republican primary). Furthermore, Yorty is an amiable and
energetic candidate in his own right, and shows a strong grasp
of national issues.
An unknown factor is the intense $200,000 write-in effort
on the behalf of House Ways and Means Committee Chairman
Wilbur Mills, an Arkansas conservative. Mills will probably
capture up to five per cent of the votes, votes which probably
would have otherwise gone to Muskie or Yorty.
Some delegates have entered themselves for Hubert
Humphrey, Henry Jackson and Edward Kennedy, indicating
write-in votes for them since they did not formally enter the
N.H. primary.
Two other factors which must be considered are the 40,000
Jikely new 18 to 24-year-old voters, and the state's numerous
Independents, who can choose which party's primary they wish
to participate in. Both groups are giving most of their support
to the underdog candidates, unfortunately for Muskie.
So with the big candidates, the little candidates, the
semir-candidates and the non-candidates, Muskie will very
likely poll below 50 per cent of the votes in a neighboring New
England state he was supposed to own.
Why the gradual decline in the senator's fortunes?
Alternative candidates are only part of it-the other problem is
the senator himself. Muskie has promised to give us a "New
Beginning" (as if there were such a thing as an "old"
beginning), but because of his intimate association with the
Johnson-Humphrey administration with its record of war,
inflation and domestic turmoil, it is apparant that, should he
gain the White House, the much-heralded "New Beginning"
would wind up having the same old ending.
Muskie is also wooing us with his so-called "Politics of
Trust." A more apt name would substitute "bust" for "trust."
He is an expert at evading issues. On a January "Meet the
Press" appearance, Muskie was shallow and indecisive, a master
of obfuscation.
When asked how much and in what areas he would reduce
defense spending, Muskie said, "I don't think you can specify
a number that fixes the line between national security and
national insecurity." Questioned if he thought that the voters
had a right to know just what type of defense budget he
favored, Muskie dodged, "Well, elect me President and I will
try to present one."
Coinciding with this is Muskie's distorted reputation. While
the press and his campaign staff, sensing where most of the
votes are, insist on calling him a "moderate," a "centrist," and
a "middle-of-the-rode" Democrat, the facts sh'v clearly that
the senator is just another creature of the liberal left. His
National Youth Director Lanny Davis is going around the
campuses saying, "I don't see how George McGovern is to the
left of Muskie on anything," in a desperate attempt to cut into
McGovern'1s college support and show that he is not really
what he appears to be.
The ultra-liberal Americans for Democratic Action (ADA)
regular y gives Muskie a liberal rating comparable to Kennedy,
Mondale, Harm, Pro x mi re and other leftists. His 1971 rating
of 85 per cent puts him only 11 points behind Sen. McGovern,
4 behind Hubert Humphrey and 29 points ahead of
J'vu11'1? ,ack80n' the truc t Democratic
? t' CTaI iuotieni wou'd no doubt have been even
higher if he had been there to vote more often
f JfiUklC'f abntee rat of 4 P cent was the fifth highest
not tfl nate democrats for 1971. All these items are certainly
not very good talking points for the "Politics of Trust "
wittSe S ?;!?iC halfaIlCn n vcry hard times- What
5 "PoIitiS of tSS- Z f J" JPmmickv "New Beginning"
tsrr Mainc might dc
PAGE 4
THE DAILY NEB RASKAN
THURSDAY. FEBRUARY 17, 1972