page 4
daily nebraskan
Wednesday, april 30, 1980
Reagan would bring back America's greatness
Probably more important to
voters than it has been for many
years, the presidential primary will
come to Nebraska May 13.
And as students approach the
booths, let's hope they've done their
homework on the current status of
our national dilemma.
The president from Georgia has
seen the inflation rate quadruple,
failed to get a heavily Demo
cratic Senate to ratify the SALT II
treaty he got by caving into Brezh
nev, and seen his foreign policy re
duced to almost total disaster.
To exemplify his naivete in nat
ional politics, Carter was surprised
that the Russians would lie to him
when they invaded Afghanistan; and
when armed with evidence that the
hostages in Tehran were being
abused, Carter's policy was to ask
the World Court comprised of
powerless people to ask terrorists not
to be naughty.
So much for naive administra
tions. Carter now says that Americans
must lower their expectations and
prepare to make some sacrifices.
That won't be easy to do since he
has lowered the typical family's
spendable earnings to 1964 levels,
collapsed the bond market and start
ed sober Wall Street experts talking
about a panic.
With the campaign slogan, "Let's
make America great again," there is
an alternative among the Republican
ranks-an alternative with proven
leadership ability and whose follow
ers are growing daily.
And with the type of people that
may join Ronald Reagan in the presi
dential bid, his personal appeal
should be surpassed only by political
appeal.
Not only have names like Howard
Baker and Gerald Ford surfaced as
possible running mates, but the list
of a Republican cabinet is starting to
look very capable of getting America
back on its feet.
Such noted experts as former
Secretary of the Treasury William
Simon, Milton Friedman, Thomas
Sowell of USC,. and Nebraska's own
Clayton Yeutter seem like a much
stronger lineup than the Carter
"hitters" presently in Washington.
And in all fairness, students must
evaluate the performances .of 69-year-old
Reagan while governor of
California. In a state that would rank
seventh in productivity in the world
if it were a nation, Reagan was able
to reduce taxes while stimulating the
economy a proposal he is advocat-
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ing at the national level much like
John Kennedy's tax cut in 1963.
Reagan's forcefulness and speak
ing ability is sometimes distorted by
liberals who would have us believe the
politician too old for the job. But his
display of politics is an indication of
the strong foreign policy approach
that this nation has needed for quite
some time.
We think Reagan is theman for
the job and are supporting a new nat
ional direction from the Republican
ranks-for a change.
Harry Allen Strunk
Bandwagon ride to cost moderates their influence
When Sen. Howard H. Baker, Jr. of Tennessee came
here lasf Sunday night to give his endorsement to Ronald
Reagan, he joined a growing list of moderate Republicans
who have discovered hitherto unnoticed virtues in the
front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination.
The ability to rationalize the inevitable is one of the
attributes a professional politician soon develops. To a
good many of that breed, Reagan's nomination was look
ing increasingly inevitable in the days before the Pennsyl
vania primary.
So they hastened to board the bandwagon -Govs.
James A. Rhodes of Ohio and Pete DuPont of Delaware,
36 members of the House of Representatives, and a half
dozen senators, of whom Minority Leader Baker was the
most important.
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There are several considerations-aside from simple
bandwagon psychology-that contributed to their
decisions.
There is widespread belief among Republicans of all
stripes that Jimmy Carter is a beatable President in 1980.
With current polls showing Reagan running at least even
with the incumbent, many Republicans agree with New
Jersey GOP Chairman David Norcross (another of the
moderate Republicans to endorse Reagan last week) that
"we've got to get going on November, and I don't want to
spill blood unnecessarily between now and convention
time."
As always with politicians, personal ambition enters
into the calculation. Ever since he folded his own presi
dential campaign, Baker has been talked "about as a
possible Reagan running mate, and, while saying he would
prefer to remain in the Senate, he had the good grace not
to pretend indifference to the possibility of being on the
ticket.
The third force underlying the wave of endorsements is
the belief that those who get aboard now may be able to
influence the future content and direction of the Reagan
campaign and a possible Reagan administration.
Reagan shrewdly played to that motivation by
announcing last week the formation of a "policy council"
headed by anotKer vice presidential hopeful, former Secre
tary of the Treasury William E. Simon. In addition to such
stalwart conservatives as Simon, the council includes such
moderate Republicans as former Secretary of State
William P. .Rogers, former Secretary of Defense Donald
Rumsfeld and former Secretary of the Treasury George
Schultz.
For the sake of their consciences-or constituencies
the endorsers draw a picture of the bandwagon driver that
is consistent with their own conceptions of the qualities
their party nominee should have. Thus, the endorsing '
congressmen overlook Reagan's lack of Washington
experience and find him a man with sensitive understand
ing of the executiveJegislative relationship. In a similar
fashion, industrial-state Republican leaders dwell on his
"compassion" and his concern for the unemployed.
This is all part of the internal coalition-building process
that helps a party prepare for the general-election
campaign. Democrats went through a similar exercise four
years ago. It was at Pennsylvania primary time that many
of the liberal and labor groups that had been fighting
Carter's nomination acquiesced in the inevitable and came
aboard his bandwagon.
In the first two years of his presidency, Carter worked
conscientiously and with occasional success to carry out
his commitment to those liberal foreign and economic
policy goals.
But in the end, the liberal rationalizations have proved
to be just that -rationalizations. The reality was that
Carter had defeated the liberal candidates in 1976, and
when the crunch came for him, in the third and fourth
years of his term, the choices Carter made on his budget,
his domestic programs and his foreign policy were choices
that were dictated by his own more conservative political
tendencies. They were choices that drove many, if not all,
of the liberals into political opposition.
By the same token, however they may now rationalize
it, a Reagan nomination would mean a defeat for the
moderate Republicans who controlled the main areas of
policy in both the Nixon and Ford administrations.
Reagan may follow Carter's example and accommodate
them in the choice of a running mate and even in some
areas of the platform in order to broaden his electoral
coalition for the fall campaign. But when the crunch
comes for him, he too is likely to rely on the personal
convictions he brought to his candidacy Just as Carter has
done.
In Reagan's case, those are profoundly conservative
principles. And they will be powerfully reinforced by the
.expectations (and perhaps, one should say, the demands)
od the conservative activists who justifiably would look
on his nomination as a vindication of their 20-year
struggle to gain control of the Republican Party. They
have fought for a generation to liberate the GOP from the
grip of just those moderate Republicans who are now
rushing to join them behind Reagan's standard.
The moderates can rationalize what is happening to
their heart's content. The conservatives are tod busy cele
brating to care.
(c) 1980, The Washington Post Company
G HGns editor
Once again, our illustrious student government has
shown where its true interests lie. Students had a recent
' victory regarding free speech, at UNL when the regents'
(who can be receptive and rational, contrary to popular
belief) passed a change in the university religion policy.
Where was our student government during all of this? As
Lynn Rogers (April 24) pointed out, "ASUN had not ex
pressed interest in it of any kind," except perhaps, our
honorable student court who put four Christian groups on
probation on the basis of the former vague policy and is
now dragging its feet in lifting the probation under the
new policy.
It concerns me that ASUN showed so little interest in
such a vital issue. They seemed more concerned with duel
ing over dual membership in Innocents and Mortar Board
(two groups who affect a trifling minority of students,
many of whom just happen to be members of student
government). Or perhaps they were too busy deciding
which side of the fence to fall on regarding the Kruger
rand issue, or worrying about Fund A cuts which would
endanger student elections (which wouldn't be a terrible
loss, aside from its yearly comic relief) and the Daily Ne
braskan (what would ASUN do without its headlines?).
Little mention was made of other serious losses resulting
from a Fund A cut, which was outlined by Marie
Mahoney (April 25). Just maybe ASUN was too occupied
with censuring Prokop to worry about a minor thing such
as freedom of speech . . .
The Daily Nebraskan displayed neglect in this issue,
too, relegating it to the inner pages of the paper rather
than giving it front page coverage where it belonged. They
instead made the judicious decision' to give such things as
Mortar Board-Innocents and TNE scandals front page
headlines.
Hundreds of students organized themselves, wrote
letters, planned a protest march, and worked long months
to get the policy changed. And Wessels had the gall to ask
to table the issue by claiming there wasn't enough student
input, merely because she hadn't done her own homework
and the issue hadn't gone through ASUN channels. (Or
maybe ASUN just wanted a chance to belatedly climb on
the bandwagon and take some credit for the decision.) It
escapes me how delaying the decision could have garnered
more input, as we are nearing the semester's end, and
most students will be in such cozy environs as Minatare
and Primrose, Nebraska, when the next Regents meeting
rolls around.
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