friday, October 7, 1977
section b
page 5
lie cnure w win
). ;
' rV
"The chances are quite remote that a person could win high public office today"
Comer said, "It's not just circumstance that people who wind up in the United States
Senate come quite old "
"The people who govern American society are achievers," political scientists Kenneth
Prewitt and Sidney Verba have written. "They have shown they can manage large enter
prises or direct the efforts of others or attract the loyalty of large numbers of people."
Prewitt and Verba set the number of important political leaders at all levels in the
United States at about 1 ,500, out of an adult population of 136 million.
Campaigns must be adapted to the race being run, Sittig said. There are various routes
to high office.
"There is a great deal of accident
in a political career."
"It's possible for someone to enter at the top of the ladder " he said. An example is
U.S. Senator Edward Zorinsky who served less than one term as mayor of Omaha and
who had been on the Omaha Public Power District board of directors before winning the
Senate election last year. Sittig termed the freshman Senator a "double outsider" because
he not only was a relative newcomer to politics, but he had switched his registration from
Republican to Democrat just before entering the race.,
Similarly, former Gov. Norbert Tiemann held no post higher than the chairmanship
of his county's Republican Party before his successful 1966 gubernatorial campaign. In
the process he beat a former governor and a lieutenant governor who was a member of
one of the state's most prominent Democratic families.
In contrast,, Gov, iX Exon took a traditional route to office by working quietly for
a decade in the Democratic Party filling a series of party posts which culminated in the
national committee. Then,, after helping others try for election, he made his own bid for
his first high public office-the governorship.
State Sen, Steve Fowler a former ASUN president, comes from yet another mold in
Sittig's assessment of political styles, The Southwest Lincoln representative was part of a
liberal, issue-oriented group of activists, according to Sittig, Fowler and a handful of
"faichfal troopers' ran an intense door-to-door campaign in 1972 to surprise an older
conservative ir.eumbent, . .; "
This "volunteer amateur appraoch' can work in a small district election, Sittig said
';but it is, likely; ,to. fail in city-wide or statewide, contests, which call for, professional canv
paign staffs organized fund raising and purchase of media time and space, A city council
try by a, candidate much like Fowler failed because the scope of the race was too big for
, that appraoch,
A candidate running in a small district needs to be respected only within his neighbor
hood but a candidate in a broader race must have a reputation to match the scale of the
office he said, .. .
Sittig emphaiszed that he is talking about the people who win elections when he lists
characteristics of candidates. . (
"We have a lot of people who pay the filing fee and run for office" he said, "If a
person is' interested in tunning it's wide open. If you want to win that's when some of
these other factors have to be .taken into account "
fail in your business
-What is the traffic count and flow, i.e. how many people come through this area
that might need their poodle trimmed?
-What is the competition like? Does Af if zfc Grooming pose a threat?
-Have you talked with Mitzi's and other firms in the area and listened to what they
tell you about the poodle trimming business?
-If you have some firm answers and supportive figures-what Niehaus calls good
.research-then a loan officer will be willing to cosign for a bank loan for one-third of
the total needed to start the tusiness.
For example if you need $30,000 to start Pieree's Grooming Parlour and are
well-researched count on the bank loaning you $ 10,000.
If your sparkling initiative and profound idea has then convinced, they may even
ban you 25 percent initial equity.
! After you get the money you must know what to do with it,
"No amount of money can make success," Niehaus said. "I've seen people with
plenty of money" he said, but they really didn't have the expertise to know where
to go with the business."
To prepare yourself for your own business, a likely route is to graduate from
college, work for someone with a poodle parlor, eventually manage the place and then
branch out on your own. ,
There you are, with your money and your research, ready to branch,
"You can learn something about a business by looking, but no experience compares
to working in that field for somebody else," Niehaus said. "Make sure you know your
field before you get started ." . .
"And to make a small business work," he said, "you have to put in ions hours.
Some business students are already putting in about 100 hours per semester investi
gating small businesses for academic credit,
Through the Nebraska Business Development Center, students from nine Nebraska
colleges, including UNI, team up to visit a manufacturing or retail company, a
service business or an agribusiness and evaluate employee-employer relations, do
jBurkct feasibility studies, help with bookkeeping and visit customers and suppliers.,
In general they get an inside look it everything from inventory control to store layout.
According to Pit Smythe of UNO's Small Business Institute which controls the pro
gram, 87 percent of the businesses would Ike to have a student research team return.
And 85 percent have adopted some student suggestions for better business.
"Some of the business have tried to hirs the students," Smythe said.
This might be one way to prepare yourself for a future in your own business.
Another is-to borrow a cliche-avoid being out with a pitchfotk when it s raining
up. .
What if it doesn't w ork? t
"It's a bit of a tragedy," Niehaus said. "It's not all that uncommon to find
hankruptcy."
. 'T v.
J r
Jon Comer
Photo by M. Billingsley
ii. ... ! ; P.
ill ji s t yJ v-
Robert Sittig
Photo by M. Billingsley
11
! . ;y v '
eaded back into the womb
And around the bookstores
i ,?'. : - , : A dazed look5 escaped 'through the heavy eye" mascara
and blue lid liner, The apparent freshman was wandering
through Nebraska Bookstore, carrying a course schedule
and a shiny new leatherbound notebook. She spotted
a friend,' ;-; - - " i ' ";rM'. :'
"I've spent $45 on books this week," she said "arid
that isn't tven enough for two classes," u '
I walked away dodging others wearing similar
expressions. The prices were a couple of bucks higher than
they were when I had last deposited my backpack at the
bookstore entrance and wound my way past cash registers
and suspicious door guards to the textbook section.
Across a chest-high stack of "Developmental
Psychology Today" books the freshman had run into
another friend. -
MForty-five bucks on three books this week, and that's
only two classes, she lamented again.
I . mentally added together the prices on my own books: $67 for four classes. Rent is
due, the van needs work and tuition statements come out soon. Suddenly coming back to
college after a year's layoff didn't seem like such a good idea anymore.
lean spend hours intellectualizing about why I came back to school-pick up courses
I wanted to take the first four years but couldn't enhance my liberal arts education,
restimulate my intellect in the academic atmosphere and escape the mental stagnation of
small town Nebraska.
Of course the womb theory of highet education doesn't apply to every graduate
student, or even to me totally. Yet more than a fifth of the University's graduate stu
dents share my role this year-unclassified and having no connection with a department
or degree program.
At first glance the unclassified grad seems to be here without purpose, but this is not
necessarily true. I chose my class schedule for fall with, greater care than I have used the
first four years. And I feel more committed to learning something worthwhile. ,
1 There is a good enough reason for this. Every cent for tuition and living expenses this
year comes from my own pocket, savings from a year working for a small dairy newspaper
in York, My undergraduate study in contrast, had been financed entirely by a combina
tion of scholarships and social security; . , , , v : ",. . , . K 4t r.
Also, a year off puts school in a different perspective. The average undergrad enters
his four or five years of college after 13 straight years of often unrewarding public school
ing. College, then, is just another motion to go through; A ritual to prepare for-or stall
entry to the "real world," ' " ' '
My brush with the 9-to-5 wotld was paradoxical. Hie real world turned out to be less
real than school was. . ;V-v .' , ; :
I lived in a barely habitable basement apartment in York with a small, hyperactive
dog and a scuffed-up store mannequin. This comprised by social circle outside of work
ing hours. ' j
In a small town the options for social interaction are limited. Mainly marriage is a '
prerequisite. For singles there are the bars and parties. For the non-drinker who doesn't
enjoy the bar scene, there are not other choices, except hermitism. .......
In a university town, however, bachelorhood is the predominant state of being," and
there are alternatives to the bars.
A year's absence hasnt been long enough for either the school or me to change very
much. Mainly, the faces are different. Most of the class with which I entered in 1972 is ,
gone now. .. - . -
Leaving the freshman to her $45 worth of books and her tales of woe, I came upon
a high school classmate whom I hadn't seen for several years, a business administration
graduate who works for the bookstore now. His hair was shrter than I had ever seen it,
and he seemed uncomfortable in a tie.
We went through the ritual of reciting where old friends are and what they're doing.
"Would you believe I'm married now?" he said with an embarrassed grin. "Not only
that. . .she's pregnant. I'm going to be a father. Can you believe that-me, a parent7"
Do you believe it?" I asked.
i
I
f
