Wednesday, October 8, 1980
page 4
daily nebraskan
Economy is the issue that affects voters the most
A year ago, before the hostages
were taken, before the Soviets invad
ed Afghanistan and poised troops on
the Polish border, and before Iraq
and Iran began their war, the main
issue of the 1980 presidential elec
tion appeared, with great certainty,
to be the economy.
Edward Kennedy initiated and
conducted his campaign on the basis
of his concern for the economy, and
in the early stages it looked like
Jimmy Carter might be dumped by
his own party in favor of a Democrat
with Democratic ideas about infla
tion, employment and taxes.
Ronald Reagan attacked Carter's
economic record, justifiably during
the primary campaign, at the Repub
lican convention and in television
ads. Around the time of the conven
tions, a tax cut frenzy swept through
Washington, with Reagan and the
Republicans pushing the Kemp-Roth
tax cut and the administration
countering with a more moderate
proposal.
But somewhere along the line the
economy became a constant, rather
than an issue. Of course there is
some rhetoric about inflation and
tax cuts, but our financial state of
affairs cannot reasonably be called
the major issue of the race.
Political observers must give credit
to the Carter campaign on this
count: The president's economic rec
ord is sad, to say the least. The cost
of living has skyrocketed during his
term, right along with interest rates
and Carter's own "misery index," so
gleefully used against the president
by Gerald Ford during his GOP con
vention speech.
But voters cannot give credit to
Carter for slipping the economic
state of affairs under the rug. We arc
the ones who have to live with it now
and for the next four years. By this
successful campaign tactic, Carter
has done a disservice to the public.
Why? Because he has not discuss
ed how he would make the next four
years any different than the last
four. Maybe this is why he did not
want to debate; he would have been
forced to discuss that.
Also, Carter's light treatment of
the issue, which, realistically is more
important than any other domestic
concern, has enabled Reagan to slip
by without speaking more specifical
ly of his economic goals than rhetor
ic about a balanced budget and an
unrealistic tax cut bound to fuel in
flation. Granted, the international crises
present have diverted Carter's atten
tion. But the fact is, unless the cam
paign takes a drastic turn in the next
three weeks, Americans will go to
the polls not knowing what either
candidate will do, in realistic terms,
to help solve their personal crises.
Tb keep Reagan out
blacks need to vote
To hear it from some of his black supporters-by-default,
Jimmy Carter has but a single attribute to commend
him for a second term in office: he's not Ronald Reagan.
Black political sophisticates can talk to you for as long
as you care to listen about the weaknesses and shortcom
ings, the incompetencies and betrayals, of Jimmy Carter.
But ask them about alternatives, and what you get is
not analysis but catechesis.
You cannot vote for John Anderson, since a vote for
Anderson is a vote against Carter, which makes it ("mea
culpa") a vote for Ronald Reagan.
IaLiL
raspberry
' You cannot even stay home. Any vote withheld out of
disgust with Carter is, naturally, a vote for Reagan.
If a vote for Anderson or a vote not cast is a vote for
Reagan ("mea maxima culpa") must count as two votes
for Reagan.
Ask the catechizers why even an indirect vote for
Reagan should constitute moral sin, and you might get
anything from unintelligible mutterings to incredulous
raised eyebrows. What you aren't likely to get is anything
that makes sense.
Quickly, lest you be misled, let me say that 1 am as
worried about the implications of a Reagan presidency
as the next man. Given the shallowness of Reagan's ex
perience, his innocence of any knowledge of how Wash
ington works, and the balefulness of some of his most
ardent supporters, I'd say there is a very good chance
that a Reagan administration would be a terrible thing,
especially for blacks. Perhaps nearly as terrible as the
Carter administration has been.
If there is a good chance that a Reagan presidency
would be worse for blacks on race-specific issues and
judicial nominations, isn't there at least an equal chance
that it would be better for blacks on economic issues?
It's hard to imagine how a Reagan administration
could be worse than the present one on such matters
as unemployment and inflation, two issues which, while
not directly involving race, certainly are of critical. im
portance to black families.
Given that blacks have no candidate they can em
brace with any degree of warmth, might this not be an
ideal time for message-sending?
The same people who worry that any deviation from
Democratic orthodoxy constitutes racial suicide will
complain that the "Republicans ignore us and the Dem
ocrats take us for granted."
But why shouldn't the Democrats take the black elec
torate for granted if the black leadership can urge Car
ter's re-election on the sole ground that he isn't Reagan?
And why shouldn't the Republicans ignore a black elect
orate that would rally behind the Democratic incumbent
even while loguing his manifold sins and deceptions?
The disaster for black Americans, in the long term,
would be for Reagan to win the presidency while Carter
gamers,' say, 95 percent of the black vote.. The lesson for
Republicans would be that the black vote is both unob
tainable and unnecessary.
But if Reagan and Anderson manage to attract, say
20 percent of the black vote- no matter who wins the
election- it would change the campaign tactics of both
major parties for years to come.
Fundamentalists threaten women's choices
The Bible doesn't have to be interpreted so that
women are reduced to child-bearing machines. But be
cause the fundamentalists' surge to the forefront of politi
cal lobbying, women may once again be reduced to such
powerless victims. This time the issue is a woman's right
to choose something as personal as the right to have con
trol over her own body.
Continued on Page 5
Twenty million Americans call themselves "born
again" and 30 million are strict Bible believers. The 1980
Gallup poll showed that 18 percent of the population said
abortion should be "illegal under all circumstances."
R. Benjamin Garrison, a minister and the chairperson
for the Nebraska Religious Coalition for Abortion Rights,
said his organization believes a woman should not be
forced by law to carry a pregnancy to term. His own
writings stress the damaging effects of religion's meddling
with laws.
Garrison's humane outlook came from personal experi
ence. It came from the realities of counseling a 46-year-old
woman with four children who didn't want the fifth
she was carrying, and from the pregnant 20-year-old who
already had two children who were less than 20 months
old and had depended on her husband's vasectomy for
birth control.
It is an unfortunate fact that birth control is imperfect
and often dangerous. Aware of this fact, the fundamental
ist's refusal to see abortion as a final form of contracep
tion in an imperfect world implies that sex is for procre
ation only and to be practiced when conditions are con
ducive to raising offspring.
More than this, the fundamentalist and right-to-life
groups dictate as fact that a fetus is a person at concep
tion. Non-Christians disagree, but so does the majority of
Christian teaching.
The Catholic Church's principle theologian, St. Thomas
Aquinas, taught that "ensoulment occurs several weeks
after conception. Abortion was allowed under Catholic
doctrine until 1869.
The United Methodist Church's official statement is
that "abortion is an issue of responsibility-responsibility
not only to the fetus and the potential child but to the
woman and her existing family."
The statement ot the Lutheran Church in America
says, "on the basis of the evangelical ethic, a woman or
couple may decide responsibly to seek an abortion."
In all, 26 national religious organizations agree that
secular laws should not be based on religious beliefs.
When Ronald Reagan spoke to fundamentalist in
Dallas, he opposed this view and said the First Amend
ment was written "to protect those values (religious ones)
from government tyranny." This is a gross twisting and an
abnegation of the historical perspective and purpose of
the amendment.
The First Amendment was written to allow citizens to
apply their own moral interpretations to their lives,
protecting their beliefs from any group's domination.
Throughout European history power vacillated be
tween church and state for centuries. During the Middle
Ages the lives of the majority were regulated by the strin
gent laws of the church. The power structure was perva
sive, intolerant and all-male. A woman was viewed by the
church in a lesser light than her male counterpart. There
Continued on Page 5
o
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