Elections '78: Prelude to '80; Prelude to '80

<v Speaker>Election 78 wrap up. <v Speaker>This program is made possible by a grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. <v Speaker>Good evening, I'm Marilyn Berger. We've had a little over a week to consider the results <v Speaker>of the election, an election we said at the start of the series of programs would be one

<v Speaker>of the most unusual in America's history. <v Speaker>It's not with any special pleasure that we can report tonight that we were right. <v Speaker>We said voter apathy would mean the lowest turnout in any off year election since World <v Speaker>War Two. And it was we said regionalism would triumph over broader <v Speaker>national concerns. It did. <v Speaker>We said the candidates who looked to what the country could do for their constituents <v Speaker>would win over those who campaigned on what they could do for their country. <v Speaker>For the most part, they did. <v Speaker>With me again tonight to assess the meaning of the election, to analyze what it's told us <v Speaker>about where this nation is headed, are Kevin Phillips, author, political analyst and <v Speaker>former Republican strategist, and Ken Bodey, former Democratic strategist and <v Speaker>political editor of The New Republic magazine. <v Speaker>We'll look at who won, who lost. <v Speaker>And we'll try to rate the contenders in the next election. <v Speaker>The 1980 presidential election. <v Speaker>We'll also be retracing our steps around the country, talking directly with Rollan <v Speaker>post in California. John Callaway in Illinois.

<v Speaker>John Siegenthaler in Tennessee. <v Speaker>Ken Auletta in New York. And Carolyn Bato, who's just a few miles away from us <v Speaker>in her office at the Dallas Morning News. <v Speaker>But first, let's take a look at the statistics of this election. <v Speaker>In off year elections, the party out of power, that is the party not in the White House <v Speaker>usually picks up seats. <v Speaker>This year was no exception, but Republican gains were smaller than the out of <v Speaker>power party usually makes. <v Speaker>Look at the Senate. Here's a list showing the last six off year elections. <v Speaker>This year, Republicans picked up three seats, that's better than 1962 when they <v Speaker>lost two seats. That's when Democrat John F. <v Speaker>Kennedy was in the White House. <v Speaker>But it's a long way from the Democratic gains of 15 seats in 1958 <v Speaker>when Dwight Eisenhower held the White House for the Republicans. <v Speaker>Here are the numbers in the House for the last six off year elections. <v Speaker>The Republicans picked up 12 seats. <v Speaker>A poor showing compared to 1966 when they won 47 seats. <v Speaker>That's when Lyndon B. Johnson was president in 1974 during

<v Speaker>the Watergate scandals. The Democrats took 49 seats away from the Republicans. <v Speaker>Well, what are those figures mean to you, Kevin? <v Speaker>I don't think it's too good from the Republican standpoint. <v Speaker>In the House races, the Republicans fell well short of the estimates they made earlier in <v Speaker>the year when they thought the tax revolt would really help them. <v Speaker>A number of their pollsters and strategists are a little bit concerned about that, too. <v Speaker>But in the Senate races, they did pretty well. <v Speaker>Most people expected it would be more or less a wash and the Republicans wound up winning <v Speaker>three. I think perhaps the thing of note is that two races that went Republican, <v Speaker>which nobody expected, were the victory of new right. <v Speaker>Republicans in New Hampshire and in Iowa. <v Speaker>And in that sense, perhaps it's fair to say that the trend this year was more <v Speaker>conservative than Republican. <v Speaker>Probably the most important public policy issue that the new Senate will face will be the <v Speaker>Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty. <v Speaker>And most observers agree that with the defeat of senators like Dick Clark of Iowa, <v Speaker>Haskell Hathaway MacIntire, the retirement of AB risk and the defeat of Andersen <v Speaker>of Minnesota, all of whom were regarded as important salt supporters, that will be

<v Speaker>a little tougher without those fellows on the cutting edge. <v Speaker>For guys in the center like Jim Sasser of Tennessee or Jim Exxon of Nebraska, <v Speaker>people who need a little room to make a decision. <v Speaker>It will also be important that Senator Brooke of Massachusetts, in case of New Jersey, <v Speaker>are both gone moderate Republicans who gave a stamp of bipartisanship to Jimmy Carter's <v Speaker>last foreign policy effort, the Panama Canal trees. <v Speaker>Well, do you think the conservative liberal split you spoke about is reflected <v Speaker>in the states, for example? I'd like to. <v Speaker>No, I don't think so. I think the statistics don't bear that out well. <v Speaker>But look, let's just look at who won, who lost in the states. <v Speaker>The Republicans also had modest gains in the states in the elections last week, <v Speaker>Republicans picked up six governorships, the most since 1966 when they won <v Speaker>eight statehouses from the Democrats. <v Speaker>But the Democrats hold the recent record. <v Speaker>Having picked up 10 governorships in the off year election of 1970. <v Speaker>In the state legislatures, Republicans picked up 275 seats, a <v Speaker>relatively small gain, especially when compared with the last off year election.

<v Speaker>When the Democrats took six hundred and sixty three seats away from the Republicans, <v Speaker>the Republicans had a poor showing only once before in these years in 1962, <v Speaker>when they gained just one hundred and fifty nine seats. <v Speaker>Doesn't look that good for the Republicans, does it? <v Speaker>Well, I think the big question is whether the Republicans have indeed made a recovery in <v Speaker>this election. I think everybody can agree that they more or less held their own. <v Speaker>But we debate the recovery question a little bit. <v Speaker>And I think it's interesting that a number of the conservatives are among those that are <v Speaker>saying there wasn't indeed very much of a recovery because they think that the <v Speaker>opportunity was so much greater in 1978 for conservatives <v Speaker>than they were able to succeed within the Republican framework. <v Speaker>This point was even made by the only announced Republican presidential candidates so far. <v Speaker>Congressman Philip Crane, who said that in essence, the Republicans blew it in 1978 <v Speaker>and they haven't made the bounce back that they need at the grassroots level or at the <v Speaker>congressional level. Now, I think this leads to a very significant question in the sense <v Speaker>we've had the conservative trend that's apparent in 1978.

<v Speaker>It's enlarged perhaps the number of conservatives and conservative sentiment in the <v Speaker>Democratic Party. It's made a number of Republicans feel and a number of conservatives <v Speaker>feel that perhaps the Republican Party can't really take advantage of this. <v Speaker>Now, I think it's because of that, it plays into a cocked hat. <v Speaker>And we see two developments on two sides that are interesting. <v Speaker>Kevin, I think that you look at the numbers historically and you can overstate the case. <v Speaker>It seems to me that the question for the Republican Party this year was one of survival <v Speaker>and that Bill Brock comes off the national chairman looking like one smart fellow. <v Speaker>He recognized that problem. He developed an outreach program, a base building program. <v Speaker>He focused at the state legislative level. <v Speaker>He gained back enough seats there to be sure that the Republicans have some handles <v Speaker>on the question of reapportionment after 1980. <v Speaker>Brock deserves a lot of credit. And what he's going to get is a kamikaze attack from the <v Speaker>new right. <v Speaker>I don't know whether it's gonna be a kamikaze attack because kamikazes die in the crash. <v Speaker>But I think he will be attacked. I think it's clear that's already happened. <v Speaker>Several of the new right people have called for his resignation.

<v Speaker>But I think the larger dimension of 1978, which is fascinating, did it lay the groundwork <v Speaker>for the Republicans to come back in 1980? <v Speaker>And here we have a longstanding pattern for a party to come back in a presidential <v Speaker>election. It has to lay groundwork in the off year elections. <v Speaker>It has to win a majority of governorships and come close in Congress. <v Speaker>The Republicans haven't laid that groundwork, but the withering of the Republican Party <v Speaker>has been arrested. Let's go back to the states for a minute. <v Speaker>Those of you who watched the part of the series that we did before the election may <v Speaker>remember that we went to five states to look at the issues and the candidates. <v Speaker>We were in California, Texas, Illinois, South Carolina and New York. <v Speaker>And tonight, we're going to go back to those states with the help of satellites and long <v Speaker>lines and. The other wonders of television to look at what happened. <v Speaker>You may recall that in Chicago we polled our audience to get a fix on national concerns. <v Speaker>John Calloway of station WTT W, who ran that poll, is back with <v Speaker>us tonight in a studio. <v Speaker>John, moderate Republicans won governorships all across the Midwest. <v Speaker>Your own governor in Illinois ran for reelection and won.

<v Speaker>But everyone knew that he was also running for the presidency. <v Speaker>How did his chances look from there? <v Speaker>Maryland, his chances look a little better. <v Speaker>He ran well, he got 60 percent of the vote, which was a little worse than he <v Speaker>did last time when he ran two years ago for the first time and got 65 percent of the <v Speaker>vote, 60 percent of the vote or six hundred thousand vote margin means <v Speaker>that he won by the biggest percentage for reelection of any governor in the <v Speaker>history of Illinois. So Republican Governor James Thompson is in good shape. <v Speaker>His major problem is that he hasn't been in elective office long enough. <v Speaker>And as he himself said after the election, when somebody asked him about the presidential <v Speaker>politics of 1980, he said that you've you've got to act like a president before <v Speaker>you can run for president. <v Speaker>And he said he's got to be in office longer. <v Speaker>How much longer, of course, is the question. <v Speaker>John, this is Kevin Phillips. If you look at Jim Thompson's victory, what room does <v Speaker>he leave for the other liberal Republican presidential candidates? <v Speaker>Are possible candidates Chuck Percy or John Anderson?

<v Speaker>Well, I think he leaves a great deal of room for other liberals. <v Speaker>I'm not sure about Percy, however, because Percy had <v Speaker>an uphill struggle. He was way behind in the last days of the election. <v Speaker>He finally turned it around in a very bitter contest with Alex Seath. <v Speaker>He got 54 percent of the vote in the end. <v Speaker>But most of the political observers here feel that Percy wasn't really in presidential <v Speaker>politics, frankly, before and that he definitely after this humbling <v Speaker>experience is not. <v Speaker>And as for John Anderson, the reports coming out of Washington, as you know, Phillip <v Speaker>Crane's going after John Anderson already in terms of his leadership position <v Speaker>in the Republican conference. So I think Thompson, compared <v Speaker>with either Percy or Anderson, looks pretty strong. <v Speaker>It's just that Thompson, except for holding down the taxes, isn't known <v Speaker>for anything except winning elections big. <v Speaker>Well, that's the great asset that Jim Thompson demonstrates electability. <v Speaker>And in being reelected, he demonstrated once again a great ability to draw above <v Speaker>the Republican base, to attract independents, to attract Democrats, to attract black

<v Speaker>voters to the Republican ticket. That's gonna be very important if Republicans consider <v Speaker>electability and a moderate or conservative here. <v Speaker>I'd like to ask one more question. <v Speaker>The Republicans did very well among Midwest governors who and winning eight of nine <v Speaker>governors that were up this time. This is the heartland of progressive Republicanism, <v Speaker>moderate Republicanism. Do you think that any one of these Republican governors, <v Speaker>Thompson, perhaps, maybe Bob Ray of Iowa, who is in his fifth term, or Milliken of <v Speaker>Michigan and is part of his fourth term now that any one of these fellows can persuade <v Speaker>all arrest to get behind them and make a go for it in a unified way? <v Speaker>I just don't see any move whatsoever in that direction so far. <v Speaker>I mean, it seems to me that people came out of so many Midwest governors, came out <v Speaker>simply lucky to be alive. And I think it's much too early to predict. <v Speaker>And there's nothing there's nothing here from Chicago or Illinois that indicates that <v Speaker>Thompson has made a move, for example, to try to get that kind of Midwest unity <v Speaker>behind him.

<v Speaker>How about Thompson's strategy? Most people believe that the best way for him to start is <v Speaker>to start at home in Illinois, which has an early and early primary state, but a couple of <v Speaker>months before Illinois or the Iowa caucuses, anything going on that you can see in terms <v Speaker>of movement for Thompson in the Iowa caucuses? <v Speaker>Absolutely nothing yet. It's there is just no indication yet that Thompson <v Speaker>has made that move. And I'm really convinced he hasn't made it yet. <v Speaker>I'm not convinced at all that that we're simply failing to report something that we don't <v Speaker>know. <v Speaker>Jeralyn, take a quick, very quick look at Minnesota. <v Speaker>That was an extraordinary election up there. <v Speaker>What's going to happen with the moderate Republican governor there, for example? <v Speaker>What's going to happen to the farmer Labor Party? <v Speaker>Well, I think what's going to happen to the Democratic Farmer Labor Party really is the <v Speaker>question, because this may have been a special situation in each instance in both <v Speaker>the two U.S. Senate races and in the governor's race, they lost. <v Speaker>They are in a serious and serious disarray up there. <v Speaker>And the question is, was this a one time only situation? <v Speaker>Where are they really in bad trouble?

<v Speaker>And I think the fact that the people who were in office were not elected to office. <v Speaker>Wyndal Anderson, when he was governor, really had himself self-appointed. <v Speaker>I talked to Walter Heller today, who's an old hand up there and in politics, and he said <v Speaker>he thinks that went extremely against the Democratic Farmer Labor Party. <v Speaker>And also there is the whole question of Robert Schwartz winning the <v Speaker>nomination and then the Democratic labor farmer, Labor Party simply <v Speaker>abandoning him. <v Speaker>Thanks very much, John. In our discussions earlier in the series, we saw California <v Speaker>as the future state because what happens there tends to suggest the direction the rest <v Speaker>of the nation will follow later. <v Speaker>Rowland Post of station KQED in San Francisco has a report on the California races <v Speaker>and what the results may move. From 1980. <v Speaker>The story from California was the reelection of Jerry Brown by the largest margin a <v Speaker>governor has ever won in this state is one point three million vote victory over <v Speaker>ever younger, easily top. The previous high set by Earl Warren in 1946 <v Speaker>and Ronald Reagan in 1966.

<v Speaker>As a result, talk of Governor Brown as a presidential candidate has increased. <v Speaker>But in spite of this enormous personal victory, two factors ought to be considered. <v Speaker>Polls taken on Election Day by both the Los Angeles Times and NBC <v Speaker>showed that only 18 percent of the Democrats who voted for Brown listed him as <v Speaker>their choice for president. The other problem for Brown is that the Republicans managed <v Speaker>to take over the lieutenant governor's position last week. <v Speaker>Democratic leaders here in California are going to be reluctant to support, if not <v Speaker>actually hostile to a Brown candidacy if it means turning over the statehouse <v Speaker>to the GOP. But none of these facts seem to deter the governor, who sounded <v Speaker>like a presidential candidate from the very moment he claimed victory. <v Speaker>Brown still sees the major issue of the day as Proposition 13 and has <v Speaker>declared his only interest in the coming year is to cut state government another 10 <v Speaker>percent and not raise any state taxes. <v Speaker>He obviously wants a record that shows he has one Democratic chief executive <v Speaker>who can also be the most fiscally conservative in the country.

<v Speaker>Fact, Brown said, quote, I think now the Democratic Party is ready <v Speaker>for a new historic mission, and that is to control inflation and control <v Speaker>government spending. Well, Paul Prioleau, the Republican leader in the California <v Speaker>legislature, said how far he can go without incurring the displeasure <v Speaker>of the liberals in his party. That's his decision. <v Speaker>But he has our support. <v Speaker>One interesting sidelight on Proposition 13. <v Speaker>Oregon's voters turned down their version of that initiative while at the same time <v Speaker>electing a conservative Republican as governor. <v Speaker>And two ballot issues of interest in California showed that while the voters here are <v Speaker>fiscally conservative, they're still socially liberal. <v Speaker>They overwhelmingly rejected an initiative prohibiting the employment of homosexuals in <v Speaker>the public schools. They also turned down the measure restricting where people could <v Speaker>smoke. <v Speaker>Well, it turned out in California pretty much the way Mervin Field told us it would, <v Speaker>didn't it? <v Speaker>Didn't they? I don't think that it's entirely clear that Governor Brown's presidential <v Speaker>aspirations were served by this big win, because not only is it true what Riley

<v Speaker>just said, that he has to turn the statehouse over to the Republican Party if he runs for <v Speaker>president every time he leaves the state, in fact. <v Speaker>But it's also true that there's a number, another number besides that one point three <v Speaker>million margin that Democratic Party professionals are going to be looking at. <v Speaker>And that's the even larger number of votes that separated Jerry Brown and his two running <v Speaker>mates, Yvonne Braithwaite, Burke and Mervin Timely, both of whom lost <v Speaker>and no party professional wants to see a candidate for president who simply has no <v Speaker>coattails whatsoever has to be in trouble. <v Speaker>Well, I think the real key with Jerry Brown is the man's ego is bound to have been fed by <v Speaker>this huge win. And if his ego is fed by that and he thinks he beat Jimmy Carter and the <v Speaker>bulk of the primaries, he opposed him in 1976. <v Speaker>Will he do it again? Will he make a stab at those early primaries? <v Speaker>And if he does, then even if he isn't too successful. <v Speaker>But if he were to beat Carter and wanted to, especially in the Northeast, where Brown can <v Speaker>appeal to his fellow Catholics, he can pave the way for Teddy Kennedy. <v Speaker>It's also how he decides to run rallies. <v Speaker>Assessment was very interesting in that regard because what he was suggesting is that

<v Speaker>he's going to run to the right this time. And if he runs to the right, he'll be running <v Speaker>straight at Jimmy Carter, straight at Jimmy Carter's constituencies, and he'll leave <v Speaker>plenty of room on the left for somebody else to run, which is what Kempinski, I guess, is <v Speaker>adoption of late adoption of Proposition 13 proved that he would do that. <v Speaker>Well, let's go to Texas when we were last in Texas. <v Speaker>We talked with Carolyn Bato, who's political editor of The Dallas Morning News. <v Speaker>We talked about the politics of energy and what it would mean for this election. <v Speaker>This is barters in her office for the postmortems. <v Speaker>Carolyn, to the results of the elections, suggest to you a widening of the rift between <v Speaker>the Sunbelt and the snowbelt. <v Speaker>Absolutely, Marilyn. I don't think there's any question about that. <v Speaker>Texas elected for the first time in one hundred four years, a Republican governor. <v Speaker>And this was Bill Clements. The cornerstone of the Clements campaign was energy. <v Speaker>He said repeatedly that he would not stand for the North-Eastern plundering <v Speaker>of our oil and gas. And he said he would turn off the valves, in effect, shut <v Speaker>down the pipelines rather than see federal authorities allocate Texas oil and gas to <v Speaker>other states without just compensation.

<v Speaker>He repeatedly called for the firing of energy secretary has lessened Jr.. <v Speaker>And he also said that he, as governor, would make his voice heard in <v Speaker>Washington. And I believe that he will on the Senate side. <v Speaker>Senator, Republican Senator John Tower, who won that election very closely, <v Speaker>also campaigned that he would be more of a Sunbelt senator than the <v Speaker>Democrat Bob Krueger, that he would go back up to Washington and fight those Crossville <v Speaker>senators. <v Speaker>Carolyn Clements, is not the governor a surprise? <v Speaker>John Powers want a third term. <v Speaker>Just who is the head Republican in Texas these days? <v Speaker>Well, I think Clements Babbitt, by virtue of his position as governor, should be probably <v Speaker>the titular head of the party, if not by virtue of his powers, his position, <v Speaker>by his sheer personality. <v Speaker>He's a very tough talking, tough acting person who does not <v Speaker>understand the meaning of the word impossible, which was shown by his election. <v Speaker>He came up from 33 points down in the polls earlier in the summer.

<v Speaker>I think that he might have to do a little elbowing, though, the little senator, to just <v Speaker>sort of shove him aside, because John Tower is used to being the Republican kingpin in <v Speaker>Texas. On the other hand, Tower might have been humbled enough by the closeness <v Speaker>of his own race to realize that indeed it was Clements, <v Speaker>his strength, that brought him across to another term in the U.S. <v Speaker>Senate. <v Speaker>Let's look at the presidential picture in Texas for a minute. <v Speaker>As we looked at last time, Texas has two Republican presidential candidates, George Bush <v Speaker>and John Connally. And then there's Ronald Reagan in the background. <v Speaker>Who was Bill Clements going to help? Who is he for? <v Speaker>And all of us. <v Speaker>I think that Clements will have to be torn in several directions with the bottom line <v Speaker>being that he will not take any overt position <v Speaker>in the presidential race. But he formerly served in the Ford administration as deputy <v Speaker>secretary of defense. Many of his top strategical advisers in this <v Speaker>campaign before people, on the other hand, the very guts of his <v Speaker>volunteer effort was provided by the Reaganites in the state.

<v Speaker>And with the popularity of Reagan in Texas, he would be very foolish <v Speaker>to come out against Ronald Reagan. <v Speaker>In addition, he has a rather laidback connection with John Connally. <v Speaker>Connelly had to have been instrumental in getting Clements to serve in 1972 as state <v Speaker>cochairman for the committee to reelect the President. <v Speaker>How about the other side of the picture, Carolyn? How about Jimmy Carter? <v Speaker>This election in Texas was at least a referendum on Jimmy Carter's energy policy. <v Speaker>How is he doing in Texas for 1980? <v Speaker>I think it was a referendum on Jimmy Carter as well. <v Speaker>That's what Bill Clements tried to to make it. <v Speaker>And I think that as of today, that Jimmy Carter. <v Speaker>Is not in very good shape in Texas at all. <v Speaker>It had to be a severe blow to the White House to not only lose the Democratic governor <v Speaker>shape in Texas for the first time in over a hundred years, but also to not win that <v Speaker>Senate seat where the Democrats thought they had one of their three best chances in the <v Speaker>nation to pick up a Senate seat. And the White House pulled out all the stops, it said. <v Speaker>Cabinet officials down here, the first lady, the vice president, all to help

<v Speaker>the Democrat Crigger campaign. And it just got them nowhere. <v Speaker>Thank you, Carla. We'll come back to you in a little while. <v Speaker>I want to turn to New York, where Ken Auletta, political columnist there, comes up with <v Speaker>a special twist on politics and pundits that even though he suggests we <v Speaker>may not know what we're talking about. Stay tuned. <v Speaker>We do. <v Speaker>From a journalist's point of view. This election was inconvenient. <v Speaker>Journalists like to pigeonhole things, to draw neat little boxes and segregate candidates <v Speaker>and results into each. <v Speaker>The taxpayers revolt is perfect. <v Speaker>So a box is labeled liberal and conservative. <v Speaker>Well, the so-called anti incumbent mood. <v Speaker>But this election, the citizens of the Northeast seemed to engage in a conspiracy to <v Speaker>confound our neat formulas. <v Speaker>Remember the anti incumbent post Watergate mood? <v Speaker>Well, the incumbent governors of New York, Connecticut, Vermont and Rhode Island were <v Speaker>reelected. So we have a pro incumbent mood sorry, the incumbent <v Speaker>senators of Maine, Massachusetts and New Hampshire were defeated. <v Speaker>The conservative tax revolt. Well, big tax cutters like Jeffrey Bell lost to Senator

<v Speaker>elect Bill Bradley in New Jersey. <v Speaker>Wasn't Massachusetts the only state to vote for George McGovern in 1972 <v Speaker>trending conservative? Yes and no. <v Speaker>They did elect Edward King, a conservative Democrat, over a moderate Republican for <v Speaker>governor. But no, they also elected Paul Zangas, a liberal Democrat, to <v Speaker>the U.S. Senate. Confused. <v Speaker>Take heart. You are no less baffled than most of us journalists. <v Speaker>The difference, of course, is that we're supposed to understand and explain patterns. <v Speaker>Even if there are none. So here goes first. <v Speaker>This election strengthened President Carter by demonstrating that the Democratic Party, <v Speaker>which stole the Republican Party's rhetoric, is not now the party of liberalism. <v Speaker>Teddy Kennedy's liberalism may excite George Meany or the A.D.A, but like hula hoops, <v Speaker>it's no longer in, which leads to a second conclusion. <v Speaker>The New Deal is dead to many voters. <v Speaker>Government is now the enemy. What replaces the New Deal is unclear. <v Speaker>Third, it is exceedingly difficult to tell the difference between a Democrat and a

<v Speaker>Republican in New York and Connecticut, for instance. <v Speaker>All the candidates for governor favor tax cuts. <v Speaker>Budget cuts. Encouraging private sector growth. <v Speaker>The trickle down economic theory, as was true elsewhere. <v Speaker>The differences were more personal than ideological. <v Speaker>And if the truth be told, we pundits, like most candidates, only sound <v Speaker>as if we know what we're doing. Wait till 1980. <v Speaker>What do you make of that one, Ken? <v Speaker>Well, there's one very sad statistic that comes out of the area that Ken Auletta reports <v Speaker>from the Northeast. And that is the with the defeat of Edbrooke. <v Speaker>There are no black members in United States Senate. <v Speaker>And it goes further than that, because if you look around the country, you find that the <v Speaker>highest elected statewide black official is at the level of control <v Speaker>or now in the country. And you have enormous talent among black political leaders and <v Speaker>growing talent. People like Maynard Jackson, mayor of Atlanta, Tom Bradley of Los <v Speaker>Angeles, for Dick Hatcher, for example, all of whom would aspire to statewide office, <v Speaker>none of whom believes he can make it at this point. <v Speaker>The catcher says, I'm afraid I'm a permanent mayor.

<v Speaker>That's very sad. Barbara Jordan probably retired from Congress in part <v Speaker>because she knew that would be very tough to make a statewide race here in Texas. <v Speaker>Parent Mitchell, head of the Congressional Black Caucus, a congresswoman from Baltimore, <v Speaker>and probably gonna be a congressman from Baltimore. <v Speaker>I think it's a rather sad reflection. <v Speaker>I'm going to get a word in edgewise there. <v Speaker>Oh, I think the Northeast is a political mess, more or less. <v Speaker>Like you said, you look back to 1970 to the one state to vote for George McGovern in <v Speaker>Massachusetts now has a conservative Democratic governor on the Republican side of the <v Speaker>Democratic Party, is now the Conservative Party, and they're virtually kaput. <v Speaker>What can you make of a region like that? <v Speaker>All right, let's leave it and then go to the south. <v Speaker>There were a number of elections in the south that are likely to influence the 1980 <v Speaker>presidential race. John Siegenthaler, publisher of the Nashville, Tennessee, <v Speaker>reports regularly for public television station WDTN, is in the studio in Nashville. <v Speaker>John Howard Baker, the minority leader in the Senate, had a tough race, but a <v Speaker>surprisingly easy victory. <v Speaker>Does this give him a real boost toward the presidency in 1980, in your view? <v Speaker>Well, Marilyn, I think Howard Baker himself has often, given the complex understatement,

<v Speaker>said it simply and best. He said it didn't hurt. <v Speaker>It was tough campaign. Jimmy Carter came down Tennessee to campaign for the Democratic <v Speaker>candidate running against Howard Baker and Anita Bryant. <v Speaker>And in TV commercials endorsing a baker's independent conservative opponent, <v Speaker>Labor tried to beat Baker. <v Speaker>But he won a substantial, safe, secure victory with <v Speaker>55 percent of the vote to 40 percent for Jane Esq and the Democrat. <v Speaker>It wasn't the stunning or startling Howard Baker never is. <v Speaker>He says now that he first must get reelected minority leader before he can decide about <v Speaker>whether he wants to make a presidential race. And he says he'll wait till next summer <v Speaker>before he decides about that, because that doesn't mean he won't be thinking a good deal <v Speaker>about. In the meantime, as a matter of fact, Maryland, he's thinking about it right now. <v Speaker>Well, nobody wants to be the front front runner at this time of the year anyway. <v Speaker>That's right. John is Minority Leader Howard Baker became the special nemesis of <v Speaker>organized labor. Not only did he beat them on their own special interest legislation,

<v Speaker>Common Situs, Picadilly and labor law reform, but also their entire electoral reform <v Speaker>program, instant voter registration, direct election of the president, public financing <v Speaker>of congressional elections. He was very effective as a minority leader. <v Speaker>It might be that Baker has effectively united a major sector of the Democratic Party, <v Speaker>which is a bit unhappy with Jimmy Carter behind Mr. Carter. <v Speaker>If Howard Baker is the nominee, what do you think? <v Speaker>Well, my impression of it, largely from talking to him about it, Ken, is that that <v Speaker>that he is going to make a move in the opposite direction. <v Speaker>He indicated to me that he knows he has a problem with organized <v Speaker>labor. He is looking for a broad base of support as he thinks about running <v Speaker>for the presidency. And I would suspect that he would move in that direction. <v Speaker>He said to me that he thought that he had to convince <v Speaker>organized labor in some way, that despite that opposition on labor reform and <v Speaker>those other measures that you've talked about, that he really has the working man and <v Speaker>woman. And he said the unions at heart.

<v Speaker>John, what you're suggesting is that Howard Baker figures that he doesn't have to move to <v Speaker>the right, that he'll move the other way. That's. <v Speaker>When you look at the results of the election where the independent conservative <v Speaker>candidate, Anderson, running on a Panama Canal platform drew five percent of the <v Speaker>vote and became a rallying point for some of the right wingers. <v Speaker>Doesn't that suggest that Howard Baker has a big problem with the right wing and is he <v Speaker>wise to write them off? <v Speaker>Well, I think he I think he does have a problem with 'em. <v Speaker>I suppose that he analyzes it and says that with people like Ronald <v Speaker>Reagan and Phil Crane and who knows who else preempting <v Speaker>that area of the spectrum, there is more room for him in the middle. <v Speaker>And as a matter of fact, he cleaves to the middle of the road as if the Holy Grail were <v Speaker>there. I think he's very comfortable with what he perceives to be a moderate position, <v Speaker>Kevin. <v Speaker>John, when John when Robert Kennedy was attorney general, you were part of his team <v Speaker>at the Justice Department. Let's look at Ted Kennedy in the region that we're talking <v Speaker>from now, the south. If Ted Kennedy makes a go at the president- the presidency in 1980,

<v Speaker>how will he do in the south? <v Speaker>Well, I'm. Let me try to be objective about it. <v Speaker>I would say. <v Speaker>Not as well as Carter, but perhaps I would say better than Jerry Brown <v Speaker>or any other Democrat that I can. That comes to mind. <v Speaker>John, thanks very much. Let's let's just go back to Chicago for a minute, because you <v Speaker>mentioned Phil Crane. <v Speaker>John Callaway, what do you think is going to happen to Phil Crane now? <v Speaker>Now that Jim Thompson had such a big win. <v Speaker>Well, it's interesting, Phil Crane, I think Marilyn is generally regarded in <v Speaker>Illinois. You should know, first of all, that he wins reelection big in his suburban <v Speaker>northwest area, Chicago suburban area. <v Speaker>But he is regarded by most of the political commentators that I <v Speaker>know as a national figure without any great following statewide <v Speaker>in Illinois. And so Governor Thompson is much more popular statewide than Crane <v Speaker>is and Crane spends an awful lot of time outside this state appealing to his

<v Speaker>constituency, which I think it's fair to say is considerably further to the right <v Speaker>than this profoundly middle of the road state of Illinois. <v Speaker>And he is still the only announced presidential candidate. <v Speaker>That's right. We're still waiting for Thompson to say whether or not his <v Speaker>his great victory here in the last election motivates him to want to move ahead <v Speaker>really into presidential politics. <v Speaker>And I don't think he's going to say for a while, John, a quick look at the Democratic <v Speaker>side, at the local level in Illinois. This time, the results prove that the Daley <v Speaker>political machine is still pretty much intact. <v Speaker>Look at Jerry Brown, Jimmy Carter, Ted Kennedy. <v Speaker>Which of these three do you think that machine would like to pull behind for a 1970, <v Speaker>1980 presidential contest? <v Speaker>I don't think there's any question that they'll stay with Carter. <v Speaker>If Carter gets things together and doesn't get in a heap of trouble and <v Speaker>I may disagree a little bit with Kevin Phillips on that, I don't think he's in as much <v Speaker>trouble as Kevin says he is. So I'd say they would go very much with Carter. <v Speaker>If Carter didn't run for some reason, I think Kennedy has always had because of the close

<v Speaker>attachment with Richard Daley and those around Daley, <v Speaker>Kennedy would be very, very attractive. I don't think Brown would be regarded in this <v Speaker>bread and butter state as a very attractive candidate at all. <v Speaker>Can we go back to Nashville for a minute, John Siegenthaler, this time? <v Speaker>Let's go back over President Carter's general position now in <v Speaker>the South. How would you judge it? <v Speaker>Well, I think that probably very good. <v Speaker>I think the South, like every other segment of the country, has <v Speaker>gone through that period of disaffection. <v Speaker>The romance ended. He had trouble getting problems through his programs, through <v Speaker>Congress. He had difficulties <v Speaker>with the leadership in Congress for a time. <v Speaker>No energy bill. I think the South reacted to that as much the rest of the country did. <v Speaker>Now, I think that Camp David behind him, some congressional wins behind him. <v Speaker>I think some of that supports coming back. Of course, he this was always his strongest

<v Speaker>region. I think it still is. I think he's strong right now in the south. <v Speaker>John, speaking of President Carter's situation in the south, one of his pivots has always <v Speaker>been will be the black vote. Howard Baker has always made a considerable bid for the <v Speaker>black vote. But yet if you look at the election statistics of his three races in 1966 <v Speaker>and 72 and 78, he's going downhill with the Blacks. <v Speaker>Does this hurt Baker? His loss with the Blacks? <v Speaker>I think he made a conscious effort to get a substantial black vote this time <v Speaker>six years ago. You remember George Wallace came in and campaigned against him and that <v Speaker>drove about 35 percent of the black votes to him this time. <v Speaker>He made a conscious effort with Francis Hooks, the wife of Benjamin Hooks, as <v Speaker>cochairman of his campaign. He made a conscious effort to get black votes, but <v Speaker>it was a very difficult thing for him. Congressman Harold Ford of Memphis, who is <v Speaker>black and who has literally control of that inner city vote <v Speaker>there in Memphis where most blacks in this state live. <v Speaker>He put on a big drive for the Democrats.

<v Speaker>And he cut substantially into Howard Baker's margin there, I think, <v Speaker>and and undercut Frances Hook's efforts in Howard's behalf. <v Speaker>It was a campaign in which Howard actively sought to get support from blacks. <v Speaker>But this time just couldn't cut it. <v Speaker>Thank you. I'd like to come back to Texas. <v Speaker>Carolyn can vote. He has a question for you, Carolyn. <v Speaker>For a long time, the Democratic Party of Texas has briefly made this <v Speaker>state a one party state from the statehouse level below. <v Speaker>That's meant that anybody who's wanted to do business with the state has pretty much had <v Speaker>to operate inside the Democratic Party, leaving the Republican Party pretty much in the <v Speaker>hands of the conservatives. Do you think now that Clements is the governor, that some of <v Speaker>these pragmatic Torri Democrats will move to the Republican Party, <v Speaker>making Texas a bit more of a two party state and perhaps giving both parties in Texas <v Speaker>a little bit more of a liberal tilt? <v Speaker>I don't know about giving a more of a liberal tilt at the not the Republican <v Speaker>Party. Maybe the Democratic Party might have more of a liberal tilt, as

<v Speaker>the conservatives are. The Tory Tory Democrats move out and vote for Republicans. <v Speaker>But I think that Texas certainly is looking more and more at <v Speaker>a two party state than it ever has before. <v Speaker>And part of the reason for this is that we have had a number of out-of-state has <v Speaker>come in. Seventy six thousand between 1970 and 1977. <v Speaker>Who, if they voted in this election, for example, could have made the difference. <v Speaker>Well, you know, Texas may have become something of a two party state, but across the <v Speaker>country, we've been seeing voters ignoring party lines. <v Speaker>Now, the labels, Democrat and Republican, mean much less than the words liberal and <v Speaker>conservative. And on both sides, there are people who are dissatisfied that the party is <v Speaker>no longer stand for anything. <v Speaker>On the liberal side, the machinists union is in the vanguard. <v Speaker>And on the conservative side, the new right is pushing controversial single issues <v Speaker>and abandoning party regularity. <v Speaker>Yesterday, Kevin Phillips spoke with Paul Weyrich, a spokesman for the new right <v Speaker>conservatives and director of the Committee for Survival of a Free Congress.

<v Speaker>Paul, what's the new ride trying to do? What are your goals? <v Speaker>Well, I think to put it simply, our goals are to elect conservatives <v Speaker>in a bipartisan context, both Republicans and Democrats, and defeat liberals. <v Speaker>And there is a difference. <v Speaker>Well, a lot of what you're doing can be described as populist or radical as opposed to <v Speaker>conservative, especially your attitudes against the Republican Party and institutions. <v Speaker>How do you react to that? <v Speaker>Well, right now, the Republican Party is rooted <v Speaker>in the big corporations. <v Speaker>The Republican Party is not representative of the middle class, nor is the Democratic <v Speaker>Party, which is rooted with the education welfare complex. <v Speaker>All we're trying to do is to give voice to the sentiments of the middle class, which <v Speaker>frankly reject big government and big business and big labor and <v Speaker>as much intensity. <v Speaker>It looks to me like the new right is moving away from the Republican Party. <v Speaker>Is that true?

<v Speaker>Well, the Republican Party doesn't acknowledge what the new right is doing. <v Speaker>When Bill Brock held his press conference on the day after the election, he never <v Speaker>mentioned the victories in Iowa and New Hampshire because, of course, these senators <v Speaker>aren't his cup of tea. <v Speaker>Frankly speaking, I think we are moving into the Democratic orbit more and more because <v Speaker>what we're interested in is a coalition which will govern America and this coalition <v Speaker>will be conservative regardless of political party. <v Speaker>Let me back up a minute. You said you're moving into the Democratic orbit more and more. <v Speaker>Are you backing a lot of Democrats? <v Speaker>Well, I would say fifteen of the new House members have new right <v Speaker>connections. I think you will find us into increasing <v Speaker>numbers of primaries for United States Senate and gubernatorial elections. <v Speaker>Certainly, the election of Mr. King in the state of Massachusetts <v Speaker>was a new right victory. <v Speaker>Bob Short speeding Fraser in the Democratic primary in Minnesota could be described as a <v Speaker>new right victory. <v Speaker>Let's look at 1980 for a minute.

<v Speaker>Is a new ride going to be active in the presidential campaign? <v Speaker>On the Democratic side? On the Republican side? <v Speaker>What are you gonna do? <v Speaker>I'm not sure what we can do on the Democratic side, although I wouldn't preclude backing <v Speaker>a Democratic candidate. <v Speaker>But on the Republican side, the one candidate which is show who is showing <v Speaker>interest in the new coalition and by a new coalition, I mean, the anti <v Speaker>bussing groups, the anti-gun control groups, the right to life groups <v Speaker>and so on is Congressman Phil Crane of Illinois. <v Speaker>He seems to be reaching out to this new coalition. <v Speaker>All the other Republican candidates don't seem to be interested. <v Speaker>The new right is not for Ronald Reagan. <v Speaker>I suppose there's division in the right of it in the ranks of <v Speaker>the new right on the question of Ronald Reagan. <v Speaker>Right now, it's a wait and see attitude at this point. <v Speaker>Reagan just doesn't seem to be interested in these groups. <v Speaker>Looking at this thing realistically, though, there's practically no chance that Phil <v Speaker>Crane can get the Republican nomination if the No right is confronted with a moderate <v Speaker>Republican nominee, Gerald Ford.

<v Speaker>Howard Baker, Jim Thompson and George Bush. <v Speaker>What do you do then? <v Speaker>I think we concentrate on the House and Senate elections. <v Speaker>I think we sit out the presidential election. <v Speaker>Well, if you set out the presidential election, isn't that the same as giving covert <v Speaker>support to Jimmy Carter? <v Speaker>Well, you know, there could be worse things. <v Speaker>Jimmy Carter's election was the greatest thing to help conservatives. <v Speaker>If President Ford had been reelected, he would have done essentially the same things <v Speaker>as Mr. Carter has done, including give away the Panama Canal. <v Speaker>There's only one difference, and that is we can get opposition to Carter's programs. <v Speaker>I think we'd have a great deal of difficulty if George Bush or somebody of <v Speaker>that ilk represent. <v Speaker>Ken Bodies' spoke with William Limpus, singer, president of the International Association <v Speaker>of Machinists, a union that once gave strong backing to candidate Jimmy Carter <v Speaker>but is now disillusioned with President Carter. <v Speaker>You said the machinists have written off Jimmy Carter for a second term. <v Speaker>This is the first time since Truman that a major union has broken so openly with a

<v Speaker>Democratic president. What do you intend to do to get a president that better reflects <v Speaker>the policies that you believe a Democratic administration ought to be following for this <v Speaker>country? <v Speaker>Well, I think first we'll go try to find a Democrat. <v Speaker>I've often said that Jimmy Carter is the best Republican president since Herbert Hoover, <v Speaker>and I believe that. And that's why we've severed our relationships and our support. <v Speaker>And we'll be actively looking for alternatives. <v Speaker>And we're keeping all of our options open over the course of the next two years, as a <v Speaker>matter of fact. <v Speaker>I think that if Jimmy Carter takes a couple of shellacking in the early <v Speaker>primaries, that that be the only alternative the party has to get a candidate <v Speaker>front and center that can win, because at that point, it would seem to be clear that <v Speaker>Carter cannot. And remember, it was a trade union movement of this country that <v Speaker>launched Jimmy Carter on his meteoric rise from obscurity to the front of the <v Speaker>presidential sweepstakes. And that same group can certainly turn that performance <v Speaker>around. <v Speaker>The right wing of the Republican Party has come to the view that the only way to make the

<v Speaker>Republican Party as conservative as they think it needs to be is to begin to knock off <v Speaker>Republicans who are too liberal. <v Speaker>Are you and other unions ready to begin to adopt the same strategy with the Democratic <v Speaker>Party? <v Speaker>I would certainly be the last one that whatever I object to that there's one tactic. <v Speaker>Again, we keep all of our options open. <v Speaker>I would go further and say that I have thought for a long time that the only institution <v Speaker>in our society that has the ability to crystallize or polarize <v Speaker>party views and get some differences created so that you do <v Speaker>the voter goes to the polls with an honest to God choice is between a liberal and a <v Speaker>conservative. Is for the trade union movement to do something akin to what you just <v Speaker>stated, to take positions based upon principle and even some injection <v Speaker>of pragmatism and pick out the issues and identify the candidates and opt for candidates <v Speaker>who are to the liberal side of the equation so that there is an honest to God choice. <v Speaker>Because given that kind of a choice, the American people don't make too many mistakes. <v Speaker>Our history is replete with those kinds of elections and where we get the kind of

<v Speaker>political scene we've had for a long while now, where he who successfully preamps the <v Speaker>center first gets elected. We have a headlong rush for the center. <v Speaker>The voter loses every time because it doesn't make any difference who wins. <v Speaker>I think we've got to get back to the old definitions and party labels and some <v Speaker>allegiance to principles, some allegiance to policies, some allegiance to a platform and <v Speaker>some allegiance to election promises. <v Speaker>If Jimmy Carter's only challenger in 1980 is Jerry Brown, in <v Speaker>your view, within the American labor movement? Pull behind Jerry Brown or fall into line <v Speaker>behind Jimmy Carter. <v Speaker>I am unable to say I would speak only for me. <v Speaker>Individual John Q. Citizen Bill with the schlager because our union has <v Speaker>a test to make a decision, obviously, and I can't make that along. <v Speaker>But for my part, I would back Jerry Brown to the hilt. <v Speaker>Given that scenario, I'm fairly confident I remember as well, too, by an overwhelming <v Speaker>majority, if in fact, not unanimously, if Jimmy Carter is the Democratic <v Speaker>nominee in 1980.

<v Speaker>Would you and the Machinist be prepared to back an independent candidate for president or <v Speaker>a third party candidate? <v Speaker>So neither one of the options that we're certainly keeping open. <v Speaker>I have not given up the notion that if the liberal element in this country, <v Speaker>which includes a big chunk of the American labor movement, can't begin to crystallize <v Speaker>political opinion in a more meaningful way than we've demonstrated in the past half dozen <v Speaker>years or so in the last eight years or maybe even twelve now. <v Speaker>And that's an option we certainly have to look at and make an honest assessment about it. <v Speaker>I wouldn't give up its potential for one minute. <v Speaker>A couple of other things. Marilyn and Kevin came out of my conversations with a woman <v Speaker>singer. One of them is that, in his view, probably Edward Kennedy be the strongest <v Speaker>candidate and the American labor movement today, particularly among the members of his <v Speaker>union. Also, as you remember, the machinists union was the union <v Speaker>that this year decided on a single issue litmus test for the 1978 elections. <v Speaker>They said that no candidate that backed President Carter's compromise <v Speaker>on gas deregulation would get their support in this election.

<v Speaker>Now, the outcome of that is that senators like Hathaway and Dick Clark of <v Speaker>Iowa and MacIntire of New Hampshire lost. <v Speaker>I asked Bill Clinton, singer, how he felt about that. <v Speaker>Would he do it over again if he felt that his support might have made a difference with <v Speaker>these fellows? He said, yes, he would. That it's time for the American labor movement to <v Speaker>begin to bite the bullet on issues like this. Was it that that did make the difference? <v Speaker>And I have my doubts. Judge, I doubt it in any one of the three cases. <v Speaker>I think it's quite clear that there were many other factors involved in each of these <v Speaker>three cases. But the point is that you've got the leader of a million member union <v Speaker>who is willing to be very, very tough on not just the direction that the parties are <v Speaker>taking now, but. The direction that the candidates are taking and the results of the kind <v Speaker>of mishmash of issues that we saw in this election, the important thing is what these <v Speaker>groups represent. <v Speaker>It's obvious that you have on both the left and the right, people that are out to make <v Speaker>trouble for the existing sort of centrist party system. <v Speaker>But I think it and measuring the new right. The Republican National Committee on a number <v Speaker>of centrist Republicans would say that they can't put much muscle where their mouth is. <v Speaker>They did not in 1976.

<v Speaker>But I think it's important to note Weirick in his interview stressed that they they <v Speaker>weren't setting aside the third party or independent candidacy option just as what <v Speaker>the singer did. And I think it's quite important these people mean business and in some <v Speaker>respects, they're not being taken sufficiently seriously by the party establishment. <v Speaker>Well, there's quite a difference between the two parties among Democrats. <v Speaker>They really believe that they can challenge an incumbent president, maybe dump him and <v Speaker>still win the election because the party is big. And that's right. <v Speaker>The party is big enough with Republicans. You know, it's a question in a two party system <v Speaker>or whether you're going to have a viable opposition party. <v Speaker>It's very important to note in this election that the Republicans just did hang on as the <v Speaker>opposition party. And if this time the radical right or the new right <v Speaker>decides to drift off on its own again, it may be that we don't have a solid opposition <v Speaker>party in this democracy. <v Speaker>Ken. Kevin, you've both been talking about the blurring party lines. <v Speaker>But these gentlemen have been staring down at the over my shoulder here do represent the <v Speaker>two parties and they bear the labels, Democrat or Republican. <v Speaker>And I'd like to run over these fellows and see how they are going to fare in the next two <v Speaker>years going toward the 1980 election.

<v Speaker>Can take the Democrats for us. Tell us which way they're going. <v Speaker>We'll start with President Carter for 1980. <v Speaker>It matters most how Jimmy Carter looks midsummer next year more than it matters how <v Speaker>he looks right now. By then, we'll know whether he's really gotten a handle on inflation, <v Speaker>whether it's next year's budget. It's going to be very hard on the core Democratic <v Speaker>constituencies or not. Still, he has time. <v Speaker>He has the initiatives, the presidential initiatives he can discombobulate. <v Speaker>His opposition used to be that an incumbent president really couldn't be denied <v Speaker>renomination if he wanted to. Too many primaries for that to happen again. <v Speaker>Now, he can't be challenged and probably will be challenged. <v Speaker>His main problem is that he's never really had a strong base in the Democratic Party and <v Speaker>he really hasn't built one pulls in his disparate estates as Iowa and New York in <v Speaker>September indicate that Democrats either didn't really want him to run again <v Speaker>or they wanted somebody to challenge him. <v Speaker>Still, he's the incumbent president, Maryland. <v Speaker>So I think you should put him on the top line all by himself and move Jerry Brown down. <v Speaker>Take away Jerry Brown. All right. Well, while he's in our hands, let's talk about Jerry <v Speaker>Brown. All right. We mentioned his coattail problems. <v Speaker>There's no doubt, I think that he wants to wants to run.

<v Speaker>His performance on Proposition 13 in California probably merits George <v Speaker>Muni's private assessment that he's the most talented politician in America today. <v Speaker>He's got a great capacity to get back in step with the electorate. <v Speaker>His big problem may be the enormous scrutiny that a presidential candidate has to has to <v Speaker>bear up under when he runs and whether his personal style is really in step <v Speaker>with what you might call a civic religion or the rest of the country or just or just <v Speaker>California. Still on his election night victory statement. <v Speaker>He said that he had no intention of running again for governor of California, hadn't <v Speaker>decided what he was going to do. To me, that means either Jimmy Carter should look out <v Speaker>for S.I., Hayakawa should look OK. And my choices, that is probably Jimmy Carter that <v Speaker>he's aiming. <v Speaker>And that's all right. <v Speaker>As a candidate, where do you place a second line and move back to Kennedy and Moynihan <v Speaker>off? All right. He's the first out of the blocks as a challenger. <v Speaker>You have to remember about Jerry Brown, though, is that even if he is not very plausible <v Speaker>as the Olivant nominee, he can play a tremendous role as he goes in the early primaries <v Speaker>and opens things up for Edward Kennedy.

<v Speaker>I think that's right. I've got Kennedy right in my hands. All right. <v Speaker>The conventional wisdom is that Ted Kennedy probably won't go first. <v Speaker>He probably won't be the first to challenge President Carter. <v Speaker>I think that's right. He's got the virtue that he can wait. <v Speaker>Time is on his side. He does have a very strong base in the Democratic Party. <v Speaker>A personal base in the party remains even after Camp David. <v Speaker>The first choice among Democrats is their nominee in 1980 with Kennedy. <v Speaker>Democrats believe they can dump Carter and still win in 1980. <v Speaker>And I think that's a virtue that Jerry Brown doesn't have. <v Speaker>So let's change our mind. Put Jerry Brown down to third place and Ted Kennedy on the <v Speaker>second shelf. <v Speaker>Let's think about what Teddy Kennedy, of course, as the 10th anniversary of <v Speaker>Chappaquiddick is coming up in 1979, while the people are going to look at that again. <v Speaker>So that could either help him or it could take him right off the floorboard. <v Speaker>Well, I know I have Brown. You want to put it right? <v Speaker>Put him on the third on a third shelf. And let's talk about Pat Moynihan, the senator <v Speaker>from New York. His strength is with the right wing of the Democratic Party, the <v Speaker>neoconservatives. They're small in number. <v Speaker>They brought us Scoop Jackson in 1976. <v Speaker>It didn't really work out too well. And I doubt that Moynihan would work out very well

<v Speaker>either. But people like George Meany prefer his foreign policy <v Speaker>kind of get tough with the Russians line on salt. <v Speaker>To Ted Kennedy's foreign policy. <v Speaker>Jimmy Carter's foreign policy and whatever Jerry Brown might have to offer. <v Speaker>Still, it's a small group of people. And if Jimmy Carter does, as many people expect <v Speaker>more. Right. He squeezes Pat Moynihan not just down to the bottom shelf, but perhaps even <v Speaker>off the board. <v Speaker>But you're going to put him on the bottom shot himself. Well, the same people who would <v Speaker>support Moynihan supported him. <v Speaker>Jackson. He didn't do very well. <v Speaker>Exactly, exactly. <v Speaker>So I think that's the way the Democrats shape up. You can't install anybody ahead of an <v Speaker>incumbent president at this point. <v Speaker>Ted Kennedy is very strong. Jerry Brown will be the first one to challenge him, probably. <v Speaker>And Pat Moynihan fortunes depend on what happens in the early primaries. <v Speaker>All right. Let's move over to the Republicans, Kevin. <v Speaker>Well, I think at this point, the danger of them having to do with a dozen is first take <v Speaker>out Gerry Ford and Ronald Reagan because they go on the top rank and the other <v Speaker>people can be moved down. <v Speaker>In the case of Gerald Ford, he's ahead in the polls.

<v Speaker>He typically runs about five to four ahead of Ronald Reagan among rank and file <v Speaker>Republicans. And these are all the polls that say this. <v Speaker>But most people, most professional Republican politicians don't believe that Ford is <v Speaker>going to run. They don't feel he wants to get back in the primaries. <v Speaker>And most of all, he's given a lot of signs that he won't be in the early primaries, <v Speaker>especially New Hampshire, where he seems to have lost most of his organization. <v Speaker>Go to George Bush. So I believe Ford up there because he runs so well in the polls and <v Speaker>rights as an ex-president. But I don't really think he's to be taken terribly seriously <v Speaker>as a nominee. Now, Ronald Reagan, Ronald Reagan as the first choice of all <v Speaker>the Republican activists, and he's widely regarded as the front runner for that reason. <v Speaker>However, Ronald Reagan does have a few problems. <v Speaker>Ronald Reagan is going to be 69 in 1980. <v Speaker>I think most people think that's too old. A lot of people think that's too old. <v Speaker>The second problem he has, he's been getting a bit ecumenical with Republican liberals. <v Speaker>And this is heresy in the eyes of the right. <v Speaker>And they're unhappy with him. On a number of Republican conservatives, a new right <v Speaker>activists are beginning to rally around Congressman Phil Crane if Crane really

<v Speaker>gets in motion. Then Reagan could fall between the increasing <v Speaker>strength of Republican moderates and the increasing strength of the new right. <v Speaker>So I think Reagan could be vulnerable with all this talk of Reagan as a front runner. <v Speaker>It seems to me that what all of his Republican opponents are trying to do is drape the <v Speaker>mantle of Ed Muskie over the shoulders of Ronald Reagan. <v Speaker>And the Reaganites respond to that by saying yes. <v Speaker>But when Muskie stumbles, it demonstrated he had no base. <v Speaker>We have a base in the party and we spent the last two years cultivating that base with <v Speaker>newsletters, appearances, political columns, political commentaries on the radio and so <v Speaker>forth. <v Speaker>But you pick a card, any card where you've got the next six that we have to deal <v Speaker>with would be Howard Baker and John Connally and Phil <v Speaker>Crane. <v Speaker>I'm keeping up. Yeah. <v Speaker>And Jim Thompson. <v Speaker>George Bush. <v Speaker>And by Dortch six.

<v Speaker>All right. Here we go. Not Helms, not Helms. <v Speaker>Jesse Helms doesn't right up in that second row. <v Speaker>All right. I'll take all of these people, the one that you have to begin with as Howard <v Speaker>Baker, who ranks typically number three in the Republican national preference polls. <v Speaker>He's got a couple of problems, though. <v Speaker>He's antagonized the right wing over Panama. <v Speaker>They don't like him. They'd like to beat him. <v Speaker>He's also got to operate from his base as Senate minority leader. <v Speaker>And what we've seen there is that he has to compromise. <v Speaker>He has to do things that offend people. <v Speaker>And it makes you sort of think of Henry Clay, the great compromiser of the 19th century, <v Speaker>who couldn't make it from that base either. <v Speaker>But I think Baker has the right as a serious one among these six, Kevin. <v Speaker>His position as minority leader also is another problem for him, and that is because it <v Speaker>takes so much time to run for president these days. <v Speaker>It's now said that if you want to run, you should buy a jet plane now and not get off <v Speaker>except the drought, the dry cleaning out for two years. <v Speaker>You can't do that and be a leader of the opposition. <v Speaker>And let's not do it in part. Precisely right. <v Speaker>Well, you've got six equally on all the six aren't equal.

<v Speaker>I think you take George Bush now. George Bush seems to represent the <v Speaker>candidacy of the Ford people in the New Hampshire primary. <v Speaker>He's got most of the Ford organization. He could be strong in Iowa, too. <v Speaker>His family comes from Connecticut. So he'll stake his all, I think, on the early New <v Speaker>England primaries. And he's either got to do pretty well there or he's out. <v Speaker>But a lot of people think he may do well. So leave him up there in that second. <v Speaker>Right. John Connally has a lot of problems, starting with his image as a wheeler dealer, <v Speaker>a man who changed parties, his indictment. <v Speaker>But he's a very strong political personality. <v Speaker>He's a dynamic man. And he just got a boost when his associate Republican ally, <v Speaker>Bill Clements, was elected governor of Texas. <v Speaker>So I think that while Connally has a lot of difficulties, he also is the type <v Speaker>character that could come out, couldn't make a long haul. <v Speaker>I believe John Connally up there in the second. Right. <v Speaker>Kevin, John kindly represents two things, big business and Watergate. <v Speaker>Those are the two things that seem to be dragging the Republicans down with the people. <v Speaker>I think if the Republicans want to nominate a winner, they should drop John Conley down

<v Speaker>to the bottom. <v Speaker>Again, one of our earlier programs, Reagan, said that he would have won in the last <v Speaker>election if he didn't have the Watergate tag, if he had been nominated. <v Speaker>As a matter of fact, as a man who didn't always work right and Ford was drawn down by <v Speaker>Watergate only by having been. <v Speaker>Well, speaking of heavy handed imagery, I think another fellow on the second, Ryan, who <v Speaker>has to be put there but suffers from it, is Bob Dole on the surface. <v Speaker>Bob Dole ought to have an awful lot going for him. <v Speaker>He's sort of midway between the Ford people and the Reagan people. <v Speaker>He's a moderate conservative. He comes from the Middle West, which is probably the <v Speaker>Republican pivot. But I think people, when they think of Bob Dole, think of his more <v Speaker>abrasive side. And they remember that a very unfortunate vice presidential debate in 1976 <v Speaker>with Walter Mondale. So I leave Dole there. <v Speaker>But I think Bob Dole is a guy that could very easily drop from the second rank into the <v Speaker>third unless he shows a little bit more of a statesman like quality. <v Speaker>Now, as for the others out there, Jim Thompson of Illinois winning such a strong <v Speaker>gubernatorial reelection victory this year, he has to be up there, <v Speaker>even though the moderate Republican governors rarely get their act together.

<v Speaker>Thompson has been taken seriously as a presidential candidate. <v Speaker>He has to be there. I kind of suspect he'll wait and maybe he's more interested in 1984. <v Speaker>I want to leave Crane there, too. <v Speaker>How about these other four, Phil Crane we take down, I think, to the third rank because <v Speaker>he doesn't have a chance at the nomination, but he can play a very, very important role <v Speaker>in the Republican sweepstakes if he becomes the rallying point for the new right. <v Speaker>And if they do well enough in the early primaries that they helped knock Ronald Reagan <v Speaker>off. And I think a lot of them would like to do that. And that could be Crane's role. <v Speaker>Now, as far as these others, the other four Republicans take Jesse Helms and <v Speaker>put him down on row four because Jesse Helms is essentially the one of the <v Speaker>candidates. Richard Viguerie new right fundraising operation. <v Speaker>He doesn't have a prayer of nomination. He's just somebody who could influence the race. <v Speaker>Jack Kemp, I think, lost some ground because Kemp Roth didn't score well in <v Speaker>the 1978 elections, his tax program and his protege, Jeff Bell, lost <v Speaker>in New Jersey. So I'd take Jack Kemp and I'd put him down in row four to Chuck Percy. <v Speaker>I think Chuck Percy did poorly enough in the Senate race that we can put him down in row

<v Speaker>four or we can almost drop him off the presidential picture. <v Speaker>And the same goes for his fellow liberal Republican from Illinois, John Anderson, because <v Speaker>John Anderson, I wouldn't take him off, but he's gonna be so overshadowed by Jim <v Speaker>Thompson in Illinois. But it's hard for me to see how John Anderson can get in <v Speaker>motion presidentially. I'm going to take him with me. <v Speaker>What are the issues you think people ought to be looking for during the next two years as <v Speaker>we move toward 1980? <v Speaker>I think in terms of issues, the real things to watch for inflation and cynicism, because <v Speaker>together that's a very volatile and explosive combination. <v Speaker>I think among the Democrats, the most interesting three characters are going to be Jerry <v Speaker>Brown with this time. Can't start late, as he did in 1976. <v Speaker>He's got to start early. He's got to decide who he is and which side of Jimmy Carter he's <v Speaker>going to run. Ted Kennedy, no Sherman like statement from Ted Kennedy this time, as he <v Speaker>did in 1974 when he took himself out unequivocally. <v Speaker>This time, his political future could be very much clouded by Jerry Brown for Jimmy <v Speaker>Carter. You run for president best by being president. <v Speaker>President Carter knows that. And he'll campaign from the White House.

<v Speaker>Well, let's not forget that Carter is going to have a lot of opportunities. <v Speaker>He's go- he wants to have a summit with version of if he gets his sole treaty, he'll have <v Speaker>it. Maybe he'll find a way to have it. Without that, he may want to go to China, as Nixon <v Speaker>did. There are lots of possibilities. <v Speaker>Any dark horses that you would like to give us a hint about on either <v Speaker>side? Possibility. <v Speaker>Anything we haven't talked about? <v Speaker>Possibility in Iowa. Governor Robert Ray, if he decides to run Republican, decides <v Speaker>to run in the Iowa caucuses and did very well and somehow showed Spark in other early <v Speaker>primaries, he could be a moderate Republican rallying point, not on the Democratic <v Speaker>side. <v Speaker>I think we've got him on the board and I think we've got him in the right order. <v Speaker>We're not going to have to remind you that that you forgot someone. <v Speaker>I invite you to do it. All right. <v Speaker>Well, that just about wraps it up for elections 1978. <v Speaker>We said it would be an unprecedented election. <v Speaker>And for us at least, it was an unprecedented series of programs. <v Speaker>I hope Kevin Phillips and Ken Bodey will agree with me that it was for all of us an <v Speaker>education in the politics of America. <v Speaker>We hope it was for you. And we hope that in the next two years, as you watch the

<v Speaker>candidates declare and the issues develop, you'll be able to say you heard some of <v Speaker>it here first. <v Speaker>I'm Marilyn Berger. Have a good evening. <v Speaker>This program was produced by KERA-TV, which is solely responsible for its content

<v Speaker>and was made possible by a grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.