At Issue; 61; The Great Society and the GOP

[beeps] The following program is from NET, the National Educational Television Network. The National Educational Television Network presents, At Issue, a monthly commentary on people, events and ideas. At issue this month, The Great Society and the GOP. The moderator is nationally-syndicated columnist, Joseph Kraft. Just about a year ago, when President Johnson won his overwhelming victory at the polls, the death of the two-party system was widely proclaimed. Huge Democratic majorities for the president's program in Congress have only intensified these fears.

Indeed, when Congress closed up shop last month, Senate Republican leader Everett Dirkson said that the session had provided an echo, not a choice. House Republican leader Gerald Ford spoke of one-party dominance. The Democrats didn't say anything along these lines, but their favorite word, "consensus," hardly emphasizes partisan opposition. The vitality of the two-party system, accordingly, is very much in question now. It is even a question, assuming there is some vitality left, whether the death of the two-party system would make much difference. One sure thing is that the state of the two-party system reflects more than a single election and a handful of votes in the Congress. It has something to do with long-term social change, change connected with the general urbanization of America. For these changes tend to blur the traditional lines of political division.

With us tonight to discuss the issue of the two-party system, Mr. Richard Goodwin, former special assistant to President Lyndon Johnson; Professor E. Digby Baltzell, Professor of Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania, and author of a recent book called The Protestant Establishment; Mr. Walter DeVries, Executive Assistant to George Romney, the Republican governor of Michigan; and Senator Thruston Morton, former chairman of the Republican National Committee. I think our first question, gentlemen, ought to be the help, the state of the two-party system. How about it, Senator? Is it alive? - I think it's very much alive. I think, unquestionably, anyone who's objective would have to say that we were bruised and bruised somewhat badly in 1964. We took one of the worst defeats in modern history.

If we had been able to raise the national average by perhaps four and a half percentage points, we still would have taken the defeat at the national level, but we would have had nine more senators and five more governors, which would have given us a better balance. I don't, however, agree with those who say that our party is in a complete shamble. I realize that money and politics aren't necessarily... one doesn't mean victory in the other, but I took over the chairmanship of the Republican Party after the so-called debacle of 1958, and this year, through Ray Bliss and others, we've raised more money by far, perhaps twice as much at the three committees at the national levels, than we did in 1959, even when we controlled the White House. So I say there's still life in the old elephant, and I think the elections of this year are going to be important that we watch them, and I agree with Barry Goldwater when he says

that if we don't make gains in '66, then indeed we are in trouble with a two-party system, but I think we will make gains. - Mr. Goodwin, what do you think about that? Do you think the last election showed some long-term trends? - Well, I think it did, Joe. I think that my answer to your question would be that the two-party system is in good shape, and the Republican Party is not in very good shape. Through most of our history, we've had, has been periods, long periods, dominated by essentially one political party. From 1860 to 1932, there are only two Democrats elected president, and one of them only because the Republican Party is split. But during that, much of that period, the Democratic Party was a useful opposition, was there to exploit and explain weaknesses to people. And it was there to try to take advantage of situations and to hold the Republican Party in check, although not with much success for 90 years, 70 years. And I think we've had almost the same situation in reverse since 1932, with the exception of the

Eisenhower years, and the election of a war hero president, in which the Democratic Party seems to represent in the types of philosophy that's evolved, what more people, the majority of the American people, consider the needs of the nation. But with the Republican Party always there, as they did in the closing days of this Congress, for example, on the 14(b) fight, to explain weaknesses, to find vulnerabilities, to keep the majority party on its toes, and responsive to the people. And once that party falls, it's to win an election. - Mr. DeVries, what do you think about the condition of the two-party system? Is it healthy? Well, I think Joe, my answer would be somewhat like Senator Morton's, that 1966 was the key. I don't assume that we automatically bounce back in 1966 to where we were before, in November 1964. I think if we go on this assumption, we'll be in trouble, because we won't work as hard, and raise the money, we won't put up to candidates.

But I do think there is evidence of strength, particularly in the state houses, with the 17 governors. We did increase one there in 1964. And hopefully the party at the state level will build again in 1966, but the key again is 1966. - Well that's [inaudible] so you don't have any elections to forward to... - I take a more abstract view, and I tend to agree with everything that's been said. But I think I might inject the idea that there's a possibility that a radical movement indicates the way a party may go in the next 20 or 30 years. And I agree with Mr. Goodwin, we've always had really one-party dominance and an opposition, and I would say exactly what you did about it. So I think that for the health of the country, being a Democrat would feel very strongly that we need a two-party system that maybe the last election, may have been a sign for things to come. In other words, no radical right or radical left in a healthy two-party system should

ever win and should really lose badly. But if the radical right lost this time, possibly as Bryan did in '96, it may point to eventual revival of a Republican party. - Why do we need a two-party system? Isn't the reality really much more complex where you have really significant differences in each party, sort of peeling off and making combinations and coalitions with different factions of the other party? - Well, if you're addressing that to any of us, let me try to feel that. - Anyone can have a... - I think that we should have, in the first place, I believe basically in a two-party system. I think you must have that. Otherwise, you get into the proliferation that we've seen under certain systems of government. France is a point in case. Now we have our quarrels with the great general, Monsieur Charles. We have our quarrels with him, but we've got to say one thing.

He pulled together something that had gotten completely out of hand. I think that in each party, we must have political dialogue and political freedom. If we're going to be conformists, then indeed we'll have, I don't know how many parties in this country. Our constitutional system does not permit this sort of proliferation. We can't get the discipline in either party that you get in a parliamentary system where if you don't vote with your party, the government falls. We don't have that sort of system. And I think that it's important that we do have dialogue in each party and then debate between the parties. I think this is a good thing. I agree that we've had periods in this country, great swings in this country where one party is dominated, but the other party has kept them to a degree on their toes. Perhaps we have done it, with as few as we are, less than one-third in both the House and Senate in this session, this session that recently closed, perhaps we'll do an even better job

next year. There were instances in which I think we were of service as a loyal opposition. But I don't want to see us get into a political system in this country where you have to be a conformist to a certain intellectual philosophy or an ideology and in order to be a member of a party. This I deplore, and I'm glad both parties have a little bit of friction within them. - I think your point is important. The function of the two-party system to me is to keep ideological parties from victory. And I think this has been the strength of our system. Winne-take-all is the strength of our system. And I think what you mean by a radical right is an ideological party. To me, the tremors... - Radical left is the same thing. - Same thing. Exactly the same thing. I think that a two-party democracy depends to me on compromise, and an ideological party

is an uncompromising one. - Do you agree that a virtue of the two-party system is that it tends to leach out the extremes? - Well, I think a virtue of the American party having to be a national party, if you're only going to have two, they have to be parties which have to have a very big tent under which lots of people can come or else they can't succeed. One of the problems that the leading Republican chairman himself pointed out was that there has been a tendency in the Republican party, either accidentally or because of desire, to exclude certain minority groups or ethnic groups. And that's one of the things that has damaged the Republican party as a national party. In other words, it's sort of drawn in the strings of that tent and hasn't made it big enough to cover the country, which is what a national party has to do. But it seems to me the two-party system has two very different kinds of functions. It can represent two parties, it can represent different points of view.

I think the Republican and Democratic party do represent different points of view. And secondly, they can serve simply the purpose of opposition. Everybody is better, keener, sharper when he has opposition. In places where you have had one party systems, in particular areas, in the big cities of the North or some of the Southern states, have suffered the consequences of that, whether it's been Republicans or the Democrats or the majority. Because the lack of opposition has taken away from the quality of the man and the quality of performance in public office: not always, but often. Somebody once said the reason you had two parties wasn't that there were two sides to every issue, but that there were two sides to every office: inside and outside. [laughter] - I think you've got a point there. - I don't think, Joe, that we ought to argue for a two-party system, just to have a two-party system. In other words, one of the parties could be neo-fascist, would you want to maintain the system then? I don't think so. - Or in a situation where one became liberal and one became conservative, I don't think you would want to preserve that kind of a thing.

I think what the party does has already been pointed out. It brings together from across the country, different points of view, but maybe tells you how we can approach an issue in terms of the management of the solution of a problem. But just to argue that we ought to have two parties to have two parties, I don't think that holds water. I think it's what the impact of the two-party system is, and if it is to provide broad consensus across lines in society and then serve a useful purpose, and it also serves the purpose in providing a method for attacking a problem, but if you don't solve the problem, you really don't need a party. - But in order to maintain a vigorous two-party system, you obviously have to have relevant differences between the two parties. Are the differences relevant now or is some kind of realignment in order? - I think the differences are, excuse me - Go ahead, go ahead. - I think the differences are relevant in terms of, say, the approach to proble-solving right now. Take the legislation that's passed, which is called the Great Society legislation. I think basically it's set up some trends or precedents in the management of problems

that may be bad, at least from our point of view at the state level. It encourages direct federa-local relationships. We think this weakens local government, and in also encouraging these relationships, it sets up, it makes it almost impossible for us to reorganize local government and reorganize state government because of existing relationships. Well, I can point out other things that it does. I think there's a central difference here between the way the Republicans would have handled those problems, and the way the legislation has currently been drafted. I'm not quarreling about the goals or ideals of the Great Society. I mean, these have been the aspirations of men for years. I think the dangerous part of it was, the trends and the precedents, in terms of the management of the resources in the personnel in solving those problems. - Mr. Goodwin, do you agree that the direct linkage between the federal government and the local government weakens? - I think we've seen the wonderful phenomenon in a lot of places, the states for years, decades, centuries have neglected their urban areas, especially true in the North and in the Midwest.

And now, when those local areas cry out in desperation for assistance and the people of those areas who now represent 70 percent of the people of this country, for help with problems like transportation and education. Having long since exhausted their remedies, the state level turned to the federal government. If this serves to spur on the states' governments to take a more active role, I think that'll be a very healthy thing. I think one of the great problems in this country is the centralization... I agree with the Republican point of view, the centralization of programs in Washington. But I think in order to find the alternative to that, what we have to do is get the quality and initiative to handle these programs at the local level, which is... tend to push things. They haven't come to Washington by this. It hasn't been a conspiracy that's brought programs to Washington. It's been a vacuum. - But aren't you talking about some kind of realignment or suggesting it? - Well, don't you think that this reapportionment of rural and urban in a sense, if you look at it from one point of view, it could be a great help to the Republican view of local handling

of problems. Because one of the reasons why the federal government has had to come into urban problems is that the urban vote has been defeated by the rural vote. And in a sense, if the states could handle their problems, then the decentralization, which I think is very, I think, an important difference, although I would tend to agree with you that we all want more decentralization, if we can get an handle on the problems, where if the urban vote had more weight possibly, they could have... - But is this decentralization to the states or to the local governments? Well, decentralization to the states is one way of decentralization. - Well, I think you're referring to the state legislatures. Well, my state, if you take the House and the Senate together, is in the top three, I think of the perfectly apportioned states, 50 is a perfect. And I think if you average the House and Senate, you find Kentucky probably in the top three

of four. But that doesn't mean that they're not coming to Washington. But I think the point that was made here is that if there's going to be political issues that develop in this, it seems to me that if you take the states of Ohio and Michigan and Pennsylvania and New York and look at the record that our party has built in those states, at the local levels, exceeding Democratic governance and having a situation where they had to get the big companies in Michigan, certainly, the big automobile companies, to anticipate their tax payments in order to pay the schoolteachers and industry moving out. And you see this reversal under Republican leadership in these states. And I think that this is a part of the two-party system. And I think this will be an issue that could be a rather important one in the elections

in the years to come. - Can I spark any interest in the notion that the modernization of the country is creating new lines of division? Professor Baltzell, you wrote a book about the Protestant establishment. And one of the theses, I think, was that there was a certain tension between the caste leadership in the country and political power. Doesn't that strike you as the kind of thing that would call for some kind of political change, some kind of realignment to keep opposition? - Oh, yes. Well, I think underneath, and I wouldn't say it was the most important, but I certainly think that from 1932 until today, that the Democratic Party has been successful in drawing ethnic and minority groups into the party. But I'm not as cynical as a lot of people in that they appeal to these votes only. I think they are able to draw leadership into their party better than a Republican party. And this, of course, this will happen.

In any... what we really had, I think, since 1932, was a basic change from an individualistic and urban, uh, rural type of society to a collectivist and urban type. And it seems to me, I would tend to say that England made the transition to a conservative and liberal, welfare collectivist type of society. And I think the Republican Party will have to do this in this country before we'll have a two-party system. Marx was right when he said, you just have two wings of the bourgeois party. Well in a sense, the two-party system means two branches of people who basically agree on fundamentals, but take very strong different interpretations of them. Do you see what I mean? An ideological party means that you're ideologically different than I am, or a Democrat or a Republican or ideologically different. It's very much like a game.

You've got to agree on the rules and then fight to win. I think and the basic change, now I think there will be a change in the other direction eventually. - Well I think it is, but there is, that's a European definition of ideology. You have a difference in the sense that it seems to me that the orientation of the Democratic Party is towards problem-solving. We need more education. How do we go about getting it? We need more housing then how do we go about it? How do we devise a bill to do it? In many cases, and certainly there are many noble exceptions to this, that the posture of the Republican Party has been to oppose these programs, maybe on very solid grounds, but to fail to offer alternatives to the problems, to solutions to the problems which are paining Americans. The American who wants this child to get a good education, who has to live in the city that's full of slums, he wants an answer, and it's not enough to say, well you've got to leave, you don't want a government program because it's going to dull initiative.

And unless you're able to provide those answers in a different way, it seems to me, you are a built-in minority, that is as long as people want problems solved. And I think the modernization is going to make this much worse, because the kinds of problems you have now, like cities and education and the pollution of the air, are problems that don't affect just one economic group, as used to be true of many of the great issues of the past, one economic group against another. They affect everybody. Everybody in New York City, except the few people who can afford to live completely humidified and air-conditioned existence, are affected by polluted air. And therefore, the consensus to me, Johnson's consensus, represents the fact that the nature of the modern problem is that it affects people regardless of their income bracket. And that's why he's able to mobilize this huge majority. They want solutions. - Would you agree that the Democrats are oriented to a problem-solving and the problem and the Republicans weren't, that was the implication of that? - Well, I think, first of all, this has been a problem, I'd say, with some Republicans;

you have to recognize the existence of a problem. Then you go about attempting to find methods to solve it. Now my earlier point was that the Democrats in this Congress and in the past have fallen into a mold for problem-solving, which is government money. And it occurs to me that, once you recognize the problem of clear air and clean water and educating our kids and crime on the streets and all that... - It's not government money, it's people's money. - Well, American people's money. - Once you recognize these problems, that maybe there's a role for government to stimulate the solution of the problem, but not necessarily by setting up a new government agency. Maybe you can do it through existing institutions. At least I suggest we ought to try it. I'm saying that there hasn't been enough of that approach in the session of the Congress. I think this is a dangerous trend in the solution of these problems, but the Republican party, if it's going to become a majority party, has to solve the problems of the urbanite. As you say, that's where 70% of the people are, they've got to grasp what the problems

of education. One-third of our nation will be in school in the next five years, if they don't grapple with those problems, the party will remain a minority party. But there are other ways to do it than just government for the people's money and government staff, I think there are other ways, to do it. - There are lots of ways. - I think with our customary ingenuity, we've come up with an awful lot of them this year. I think whether or not these programs are doing well, and some of them have been under attack. Things like the community action program or the poverty program is an effort to put responsibility at the local level. A large number of the programs we have, the entire anti-pollution program, is a matching grant program to states, if they display the initiative and begin to draw up the plans, they get money. You'll find a whole range of devices across the field of government for using federal money not to set up a new agency in Washington, but to give incentives to states and localities to go ahead and grapple with the job. But I think we need more of those devices, and I think if the Republican Party comes

up with them, they make a real contribution. - Are there anything... - Basically... - That's their old debate... No, I think basically the difference is that, let's take the center of the Republican Party as I know it in Congress today and the center of the Democratic Party and now there are differences on each side. I think our philosophy, we both have the same goals, there's no question about that. We all want better education, better job, more job opportunities and whatnot. I think the consensus in our party, and I hate to use this word consensus because it's the creation of the Democratic Party, but anyway, it is that the federal government should do the least: give leadership, yes, but do the least. In other words, let's keep it at the lowest possible denominator of government. You talk about this poverty program. We just don't have the personnel in this country trained to implement this program.

That's why it's gotten into the political arena. That's why the ward heelers are running it in many places, because we don't have the trained personnel. I've been in the Congress now for 19 years, and I think each year under Eisenhower, under Truman, under the late John F. Kennedy, under Johnson: historically the Congress has increased the requests of the administration in the field of research in the health field, cancer or various heart disease, strokes and so forth. Congress has increased that because who can be against this? We get up and we say we're going to give them more money. Money doesn't solve this problem. We just plan and you can talk to any Surgeon General we've had, or the the Secretary of H.E.W.; we're giving them money that they cannot, and they admit they cannot spend intelligently, and they don't always spend it.

This is one of the emotional overtones that we get into in an area of this kind. I think when we try to do so much so quickly that we tend to kill the will to produce that really built this country. In our efforts to achieve the goals that all Americans agree, Republicans and Democrats alike, but we tend to, in our effort to get there so fast, we may kill that thing which made us, which is a burning, compelling will to produce. And this disturbs me. - Senator Morton, I, to some extent, draw the conclusion from some of the things you've been saying that the two-party system doesn't really work very well. - I agree with you. - I think it does work. - The tendency is to spend money and put in more and more money on the things that everyone agrees about. And again, I don't think that that system works. The Bureau of Public Roads is spending $4 billion a year on building more roads, but that's not a system that I'm... - Most of that is,

That's in a trust fund, and we decided to do that, and it was one of the most, one of the great forward steps that we took, this interstate highway system. - But it doesn't articulate well, it doesn't work well with the rail transport system and with the problem in the cities. It just pours more cars into that. And I find all over the federal government, these segregated bureaucracies that knock themselves out on roads and some of them knock themselves out on medical research, but there's no coordination of this. And I would have thought that the two-party system would focus coordination. And I think it probably doesn't. I think it's a competition that isn't the... - Well, I think you'll find that the minority party, the opposition party, certainly in the last few years, our party has pointed these... pointed out this problem and brought it into focus. And I think the Democratic Party during the Eisenhower years brought into focus some of the problems, we had an awful...

we had a real hot debate on this, you were talking about roads, on this whole question of the defense highway system, which was an idea that generated with the Eisenhower administration. I think it was a very dramatic thing, as dramatic as the Panama Canal for that matter, or more so. But it was debated. I'm not so sure that it was improved by some of the amendments put on by the opposition, and at least it ended up with a good, logical debate, and finally a conclusion was reached. - Let's talk about one of the new issues that I think comes up that we haven't mentioned at all, which is foreign policy. It seems to me that bipartisan debate in foreign policy tends usually to be really quite unedifying and that instead of achieving a consensus and a balance of opinion, it tends to drive toward chauvinistic extremes, one party in effect blackmails the other. What does anyone think about that?

- I think you did have, I mean, we speak about the Republican Party, but you know, we're really speaking about two very different groups. When I say, for example, that the Republican Party doesn't offer a solution to the problems that really affect the daily lives of people. I don't mean that former Senator Goldwater didn't offer a solution, which was tear down the federal establishment. I have great difficulty in separating out Senator Morton's Republican Party, I hope this isn't embarrassing, from Senator Goldwater's Republican Party, which is an ideological party, which is contrary to the basic tradition of the two-party system, or at least many elements of it were, although it did bring in a lot of the traditional Republican consensus. Does this, and does offer, polarizes debate in foreign policy, not simply as a matter of "we can do it better," which is what most debate about foreign policy is, when it isn't a retrospective criticism of what you just did, it's "we will do the future better." But here too, an alternative was offered, which was to take a much more militant stance

to accept the idea of the world was to be forever divided into opposing camps and fight to win. I think that was our whole statement. So you've got this problem of the two Republican parties, and I just wonder whether they're going to be able to hold together at all after the next convention, those two parties. - One of the things we haven't talked about is the relative importance of issues and personality. We've been talking about issues, but there are a lot of people who believe that the modern world has become so complicated that it's very, very difficult to understand what's going on and with respect to, by looking at it through issues, and the way people tend to simplify is by personalities. Do you think that's true, is that more and more the case? What does that say about the two-party system? - I think, of course, I think the personality of a candidate has always been a very significant factor, but I think that the party traditions and loyalties are also equally strong. I think perhaps it is, through the television and the mass media, beginning to blur that

a little bit. The personality of the candidate becomes even more significant. But I remember with President Kennedy in 1960, he ran just as hard as he could, not as John Kennedy, but as a Democrat. Every speech was laced with the fact that he was in the great Democratic Party tradition in Roosevelt, Truman, et cetera. And I think that around the country, you find it very, very true that people still tend to identify the party and what it means to them is the focal point of why they voted. I think that's why Goldwater got as many votes as he did. - I think... - ...but don't you agree that... Now, you used the late John F. Kennedy, with whom you were very closely associated, as an example. Don't you think an awful lot of it was personality? - Well, I think that that's true. I think sure, that's right. - I think it's a tremendous amount of it was personality. I happen to serve in the Senate with these two very distinguished brothers, and people from all over Kentucky -- I don't know what their politics are -- come into my office, groups

of 4H groups and high school groups, and they say, can you possibly get us in to see one of the Kennedy brothers? This is personality. - Well, I think there isn't. - If they wanted to go in to see somebody that was a Democrat, they'd say, can you get me to see Mike Mansfield? - Exactly. - I think... - Personalities. And you build a political organization at the local level around personalities. The guy who was running for magistrate, you don't, if you want to build an organization in a few precincts, you get a popular guy to run for magistrate and I'll build you an organization. If you build it on strictly Republican or Democrat, well, I think personalities are terrifically and contribute so much to our political system. - It seems to me there's very little doubt that if John Kennedy had not been a Democrat, he would not have won the election in 1960. The chance of his carrying the amount of the South that he did, he carried that as a Democrat, not as an Irish Catholic from Massachusetts.

And I think that that was decisive in the election. - My point is that if that hadn't been for personality, he wouldn't have been the candidate. - Well, I think... - And look what's, look, of course, there was a tragedy and this makes a difference. I think, well, I think Barry Goldwater is a personality, got our nomination. And if you go back to 1960, when he came before and I happen to have been running that convention as chairman of our party, when he made that speech that he made before the convention that nominated Dick Nixon, it was a very gracious speech. And he was, he was... a terrific reception he got. And this was really the springboard. And I think his philosophy probably had something to do with it, but I think it was his dynamic personality. He was the first conservative that had come along for years who was a real conservative, who had a sort of a dynamic quality that people, people just like. You can't sit down, nobody can sit down in a room with Barry Goldwater and not like him.

And everybody had missed this, his friends and his enemies alike. And I think definitely it was a personality. I think definitely the nomination of the late John F. Kennedy was a question of personality. Well, if you put it just on a political form sheet, Lyndon Johnson could have given him hearts and spades and beaten him from here to Eighth Street. - I think that you've got to say that John F. Kennedy won the 1960 nomination because it's very, unless you mean a very superficial meaning of personality... - I don't mean a superficial meaning. I don't mean a superficial meaning. I don't mean a superficial meaning. - Character, intelligence, conviction. When I say personality, I include character and individual. - And political organization at the local level. - Oh, it was a terrific organization, the personal quality, the dynamic quality that enabled you to build an organization. You can't build an organization about no around an old washing machine. - I didn't mean for you to take that question so seriously! - I'm sorry. [crosstalk] - Well, I think it's a very important one. Well, don't you, professor, think... - No, I think that, but let's put it another way.

I think when you think of a two-party system that, unquestionably, the only way the Republican party will come back, as possibly a dominant party but a more equally competitive party, is through personalities. In a sense, the winning people, the Democrats are always more likely to talk about party because party issues are winning. But it seems to me the Republicans come back when a man comes up, and we were talking earlier, a man maybe who isn't even known today, who will be able to articulate the issues and articulate them from a Republican point of view. And I also would say that I can think of two or three other Republicans who I think would have beaten John F. Kennedy in 1960. - Well, if you'll yield to that. - I don't think you can generalize about either party, you can say that the candidate is more important than the issues of the party. In my state, 45% of the people are Democrats, 25% are Republicans, 35% or 30% of ticket splitters.

In order for a Republican to win, he needs 95% of the Republican votes, 75% of the independent vote, and 20% of the straight Democratic vote to win. Now, you're not going to do it with just straight party strength, as is your case. The candidate can win in our state, just on the straight party label. - That's what I meant. You have to do it through the issues and the personality. And as you are reduced to a minority party, you have to depend more on the personality on the issues than you can on the party organizational structure. Without it, as the party doesn't, if the Republican party doesn't grasp the issues and the attractive candidates in '66 and '68, the basic Democratic strength is such that you just can't overcome it. But, you see, I think it depends on the, which party you're looking at at what point in time. - No, that's what I mean. I mean, you're looking at it from the Democratic point of view. It's very easy to talk about the party and not the man. - I think when you're at a minority... - Although, I think it's important to have good candidates. And it's important to have men of conviction and intelligence and skill, and it is important to have good issues. All of these things are important, but it's, I don't think yet we're in the position, the national politics in this country, where that's the only contest.

- Oh, I don't think that... - ...the party plays a significant role. I think no Republican, for example, could have beaten Lyndon Johnson last time, President Johnson. I can't... [crosstalk] But translating this dialogue into terms of just our party, I've forgotten now what Dwight Eisenhower's majority was in '52, but he carried the Congress by a very thin majority. In fact, it's one of the two that we have controlled since way back in the early '30s. He won by a much more impressive and overwhelming majority in '56, but we didn't carry the Congress. Now, this is where you must admit that in both parties, personalities, I mean, whether it's John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, or in our party, Dwight Eisenhower, personalities certainly have been effective in the political scene in our history of our country.

- Is there anything in... any difference between the two parties and in their capacity to reach out and find the attractive personality and throw them up to the top? Is there a difference? - We have a leader in Philadelphia, Mr. Thacher Longstreth, who I'm convinced could be in the Senate today if the Republicans had the ability to move capable men into leadership. In other words, I think that we have in the city of Philadelphia, where you know more closely the best Democrats are in politics, the best Republicans are in business or in private life and are not. And here is a man, an example, and he would love to be a senator and governor. And I think he could have, but he is in private business, he's not in politics. And I think, unquestionably, I think since Wilson, and then since Roosevelt, that Wilson and Roosevelt drew the imagination of the American leadership into politics.

And I think we've got to give credit to the, I think, that the Democratic Party has five men to one of ability around the country in politics. - Let me try this hypothesis on. - [crosstalk] -... When a minority party does produce personality candidates. Let me just take a look at the, say, the 17 governors, Rockefeller, Scranton, Romney, and so on. Take a look in the Senate. But there are more better known Republicans in the Congress, and among the governors, than there are Democrats. And I think this is a party of function of personality, that the minority party has to produce them where it can't win. Of course, it's not personalities divorced from issues, but that's just a general hypothesis. I haven't tested it before... [crosstalk] - But you think the Republicans are producing personalities... you would disagree with Professor Baltzell? - Well, I think a minority party does in order to survive, because he can't capture it on the basis of straight... - Well, I have publicly criticized my own party for this. I think that we have been behind the Democratic Party in recognizing the changes of what's

necessary for a candidate to be effective in this modern world. I used to campaign around the creeks and hollers of Kentucky when I was a kid, 50 years ago with my grandfather. And what it took then to win an election was a shadbelly vest, a big cigar, and a capacity to talk in a July sun for an hour and a half. Now, a lot's happened since: we have the electronic media. We have radio, television, and a much more sophisticated press conference than was ever the case in those days, because the reporter wouldn't dare ask a question of, you know, 50 years ago that he'd ask anybody in politics today, I mean, he might, but he'd ask it with a velvet glove. And I think that the Democrats have done a far better job than the Republicans on recruiting men and women who can handle the sophisticated media of today, who can do the job.

I've been preaching this for some years, and I think with some degree of success, I think where we are getting more dynamic candidates. I'm speaking now at the local level, county, state and Congressional, Senatorial and whatnot, gubernatorial, but the point you make is a good point, that if you just take the governors today, our governors, they get the news. They're the competent people, they're the real leaders of our party. - What happens when you have a really skillful political leader in the White House? Someone like Lyndon Johnson. Don't you find, as in the head of an opposition party, that you're not running against Lyndon Johnson, you're running against poor people and Negroes and mothers and sick people that a really skillful political leader, using all the advantages that you have, particularly the publicity advantages you have in the White House, can make the task of an opposition party almost impossible?

- Well, I don't think it's almost impossible, but I'll say honestly that I'm glad I wasn't a candidate in 1964. I'm glad my race came up in 1962. - I'll give you saying the same thing. '62 was it? You are in '68 though. - I was candidate in '62, yes, so I'm glad that I was then not in '64. Now, my colleague is running in '66, and I think that, frankly, that the Democratic parties have a great difficulty in finding an opponent for it. I think he's going to, he's been the greatest vote getter in Kentucky in all of history. He's even exceeded Barkley's majorities. And I think that he'll just be a shoo-in. I'm speaking, of course, of John Sherman Cooper. However, a lot can happen in a year and we're all going to have to fight hard, and we will. But getting back to your specific question, of course you... we're going to have

to find issues. We can't automatically say that '66 is an off year and the out party always wins in off years. If we do that and just rely on that, I don't know that we're going to do too well. I think we've got to, we can't just say because we came back in '38 after '36, means we're coming back in '66 after '64. I think we've got a job to do. I think we've got to recruit competent candidates. And I think we've got to develop and dramatize the issues that appeal to the people. - But I want to say, Joe, I think... I agree that President Johnson is extraordinarily skillful. But if there's any implication there that somehow this is a great feat of legerdemain, I think that that's a mistake. I think the President's, the reason that he's such a formidable figure on the national scene is that he is meeting the needs of the American people: for education and for housing and for the health care for

the aged. And he's, aside from the fact that he has a great majority of the people behind him in his foreign policy, including the great majority of the Republican party, as well as the Democratic party, he is going out to meet these needs and there never can be an alternative offered unless alternative ways of meeting these needs, whether they involve more or less federal government activity or different structures are devised. If the issue is always going to be, "Don't do that," then I don't think the Republican party can ever build itself as a majority party again. It was a majority party and the years when it represented what people wanted, which was the growth and industrialization of this country. - Uh, can I question saying, "don't do that." I think the tide will turn when they realize that these programs themselves don't do that. They don't accomplish these goals. We share the same goals, but I think the issue is going to be whether or not these programs are kind of... you take a kid out of the mountains of Kentucky and send him down and you train to operate a lathe

or a machine tool of some kind. Then you send him back up to mountains and there's no job there. This hasn't solved poverty. We can train people. What we've got to do is give them more job opportunities. I don't know. Maybe this is going to work. I certainly hope for the good of my country that it does, but I think an issue will probably exist. The fact that yes, he's got everybody for him now, but these programs that you've mentioned. Not one single one of them has yet been implemented. You talked about health care for the needy aged. You haven't got that, you haven't got anybody on the books yet. Wait till they find out how limited that is. - That's because you've managed to stop that law for a decade. - So what do we, would it be fair to say now... - If we'd done it ten years ago, we'd have a lot on the books! - Senator Morton, would it be fair to say that the way an opposition succeeds is not by developing alternatives, but by raising new problems. How many people know about the alternatives you've developed... - Well, that's true. Now, I had an alternative

proposal. Senator Saltonstall had one, others had one. I don't think we're making too much political mileage on saying we've got a better mouse trap. This is a difficult thing to do. It's true. The thing that, in my mind, makes, develops the emotions that affect political campaigns is a much more fundamental feeling. I mean, "well, I thought I was going to get a new pair of glasses or a new set of teeth out of this, and obviously I'm not, so this program's no good." I mean, that's, that may be the kind of thing that does it. - Well, I don't think an opposition party, say at the national level, should think of itself as an opposition party. I think the net result of that is by the negativistic thinking. And you talk about alternatives to programs. And I think what we're talking about is solving problems. And now we're talking about basically solving urban problems and education problems. My original point was that the federal government should not do anything that precludes the state and local governments for solving problems. And I can

give you all kinds of examples of how federal action and regulations impede our ability to solve problems. I can give it to you in medical care and ADCU and so on. Whereas in establishing regulations and setting up agencies, they preclude us from modernizing our state government, our local government, from implementing our programs, because what happens is people say, well, if we wait long enough, the federal government will give us the money, the grants, and so on to do it. Yet when you set up your grant and aid programs, you almost preclude us from effectively administering these programs. And that was what I meant earlier. As you can on one hand, say, well, there's a vacuum in state government. And in the other hand, pass the programs that preclude state government from being effective. And I think this is what has happened and what is happening. And this is the dangerous trend. Sure, we all want to solve these problems, but allow us to do it. Or give us the resources, give us the federal rebate of taxes, give us block grants and aid, and so on, which will encourage us to do it, and provide us with the resources to do it. I agree. This

is not an argument for inaction, it's an argument for action, but allow us to do it, and help us with the resources, such as the Heller plan. - Well, it seems to me that these programs have grown up in response to felt needs of deficiencies. It may or may not be good programs. And that had these needs been being met at one level or another, I think the city governments are as much to blame, in many ways, as states where there are deficiencies, that the demand for these programs wouldn't have arisen. - I'm not denying... - I don't know whether it's a turn, whether I would think that it would be an enormous improvement to take money which you're giving to relief recipients or for health care of the aged in Massachusetts and turn it over to the state legislature there. I think you'd really have to demonstrate in light of the quality of many, and I accept the two states here, the quality of many of the state governments that, whether or not, those... how well and how ably those funds were going to be used.

- Well, this was a common idea in our your party, not mine, because about three quarters of them are controlled by Democrats. Both state legislature as well as city government... We're 50 of 50 in Massachusetts, and a number of noble Republican... No, I'm just saying to you Dick, that there must be other ways to accomplish the same goals without just, say, federal-local relationships or just federal grants, that there is a role for state and local governments. - Well, I agree with that. - I think the problem, however, is to devise that machinery. It's interesting that the one specific point that you point to has been devised by one of the members of the liberal wing of the Democratic Party, which was Walter Heller's proposal to turn block funds over to the states. - I agree with that. - I agree with that. - Both parties have endorsed. - I don't think it's been quite endorsed yet. - Isn't the Heller Plan a kind of council of desperation? Isn't that an acknowledgement that the only way you can concentrate enough attention and raise enough revenue is through the federal government, so we'll have to distribute it to the states.

- Isn't he saying that if you have to, if you- - I think Heller is saying the opposite, he's saying, you're never going to get the federal government to do all that's needed, so that when you begin to pile up all this revenue, you can do two things. You can cut taxes, or you can just give it to the states and hope they'll do something good with it. And he wants to take the second road. - Well, getting to the point that you've brought up just now about the role of the minority or opposition, whichever you want to call it, since we're in the opposition and also in the minority, I suppose it becomes synonymous, we have had impact on certain legislation and if you take this higher education bill, I think the Republicans in the House got almost 80 percent of what they wanted in that bill and they really changed it considerably from the request or the original bill as introduced at the request of the administration, and I think improved it. And I think in many areas this House group has done quite a job this year, not in stopping

programs, but in trying to get the more into the basic tradition that we as Republicans feel will encourage and not discourage the will to produce in this country. - Well, I didn't mean to suggest that there are many Republican Congressmen and the policy group and so on that turned out a lot of good policy papers and had excellent amendments to the pending legislation. I didn't mean to suggest that. - But some of them, they got through, some of them, they got them through, I'm not talking about just making a speech, you're moving to recommit a bill. - I would like... They did get some things through, not too many and undoubtedly, I think it's a number of votes on our side and some of my votes, perhaps one can say had a political motivation. - But it seems to me that the Republican party at this point in its history has, and not this isn't true in the Congress, I'm not talking about the congressional party, that's a different thing about the national party for which the process of presidential nomination and election is concerned, which is a different party than in many aspects in the Republican

party. - Well, how do you see it as a different party? The national party is nothing more than a coalition of state political organizations. - But those political organizations and not... the leadership of those organizations is not the same leadership that's the leadership of the Republican party in the Congress in many states and in many areas, and often at the national political convention. And here I think there is a serious problem with a large extreme right group. I'm not saying, nothing novel in what I'm saying, almost every responsible Republican leader has said the same thing over the last year that we have a problem. That there is a problem within the Republican party of a very large vocal extreme right which tries to drive, is trying to drive the Republican party away from its traditional position as a national party representing consensus or a group of views. Then I'd like to ask you a question, now that the Democrats have got through what some people say is the program Franklin Roosevelt started with 30 years ago, what do you think the Democratic Party is going to stand for primarily in the next four or five or even ten

years? First of all, Joe, I don't think the assumption is accurate, I think that there are many items in this program which have had roots in the past. I think there are many aspects of this program which I knew and which have been the creation of President Johnson. More importantly, I think the entire package looked at as a coherent whole, which is one of the things that got it through, comes from the imagination and skill of President Johnson. But I think he himself said what, where he's going, and where he hopes to go, and that is to try and cope with these whole new range of problems which are just on the horizon of the cities, of contamination of the environment, of the quality of life for the individual. - Getting back to this problem that you outline that we have and I don't deny it, the ideological problem. What I'm doing to try to solve it is to study the history of the Democratic Party because

you struggled with it so long and really well. I can't see how we have an ideological problem that can even approach the problem that the Democratic Party has lived with and apparently lived with successfully for the past sixty years. - Well, but although there have been extreme groups, not only in the Democratic Party... - Extreme groups, but your whole source of support in both the House and Senate, We charge off the whole southeast one-third of the country. You take them for granted and ideologically, you've seen them walk out of conventions, you've seen this happen, yet you've been able to live with this problem and now you say we've got the problem. Well, I'll admit we've got the problem and I'm reading every book that I can get on every Democratic convention going back to 1900 to find out how you did it and our problem is so much less than yours that I'm going to figure out how we can do it. - Senator Morton, before we close, have you come to any tentative conclusions yet about the

path of salvation for the Republican Party? - My mind is still open. I'm still studying the history of the Democratic Party and how it achieved success being divided more than any political party has ever been in the history of any free nation. - Well, I will say that Senator Morton is successful in his studies and he manages to make the Republican Party imitate the Democratic Party, I think he will be successful. - Not in what it stands for, but in its techniques. - He will be, no doubt, we'll all be working on the other side of the fence on the 16th and that. - Well, I think we've covered an awful lot of interesting material tonight and I want to thank you all for being with us. - In our discussion this evening, we've had Mr. Richard Goodwin, former special assistant to President Lyndon Johnson at the White House, professor E. Digby Baltzell of the University of Pennsylvania, the author of a recent book called The Protestant Establishment, Mr. Walter DeVries, executive assistant to George Romney, Republican governor of Michigan,

Senator Thruston Morton, former national chairman of the Republican National Committee. [music] This is NET, the National Educational Television Network.