Martin Agronsky: Evening Edition; 34

You You You From Washington. This is evening edition. Now here is Martin Agranski.

Good evening. One congressman recently wrote home and asked his constituents what problem they'd concentrate on most if they were in Congress. You asked a question you'll have to get an answer and the constituent replied I'd stop Congress from meeting for 10 years. We'd save a bundle and might solve most of our problems. Tonight evening edition takes a look at just what the mood of the country is and how that relates to the 1976 elections with two distinguished political posters. Peter D. Hart of Peter D. Hart Research Associates and Tully Plusser of Quail Plusser and Company. Gentlemen, you heard the answer from the constituent. Who does the country blame for the problems of the country? Basically, Martin, it depends upon the issue. In terms of general problems, the Congress is more on the mark.

More blamed than the president. That's correct. We govern. In essence, we set up a scale and ask them whether they feel the executive branch or if they feel the legislative branch, the Congress is more to blame on various issues. And what we find is when it comes to overall blame, they blame the Congress more. But when they start talking about specific issues, when they start talking about issues such as foreign affairs, especially Cambodia and Vietnam, they look at the executive branch. When they talk about spending too much money, they talk about the legislature and they talk about the Congress as being at fault. When they talk about unemployment, they're blaming the president. So it's a mixed bag, both of them are to blame the country's in trouble. I don't think either is home free, so to speak.

Could plenty of blame and they pass it around? They do. What do you find, Tully? Well, one of the phenomena that's interesting to me is, and we see this repeated in states all over the country, is that Congress is getting some of the lowest marks on performance that I've ever seen going back a number of years now. And yet, the individual congressman of the individual district in which you might poll doesn't get marks that are really that low. The same would be true for many senators. In other words, it's the voter saying the Congress as an institution is performing. My congressman is doing the best he can under the circumstances. The second phenomenon that I think is really worthwhile noting is that this milling that we see on the part of the public, this willingness to move up and down and move very quickly or in ratings of the president very quickly, is based in part on the fact that they don't have enough evidence to lead them in the direction of blaming anyone. And they really are milling because they can't point to the cause of an economic downturn or unemployment or high prices or increased crime. And so any little stimulus, any little event is going to move them up and down very quickly.

And we've been watching that now for almost a year. Give me an example. How does it work? The most obvious example I would think in terms of attitudes toward the president is the Myagües incident in which we see public attitudes toward the job the president is doing, move up in many of the national studies as much as 10 percentage points in the course of a matter of a few days. And then with the disappearance of the impact of that down again, 10 percent and then down further as some other small event takes place. I'm thinking in the classic sense of the herd that takes short steps in different directions in response to just the slightest noise. And it's interesting that we've seen the public moving that way, taking short steps in different directions with no real trend. The danger being of course that a milling herd stampede is very easily. I think you can take off from there and you can talk about the leadership. Any response to any type of leadership, whether it be from the Congress or from the president, people do respond. We're not getting any leadership at this stage, so consequently the ratings continue to go lower and lower.

It's a two-edged sword of course because that potential leadership reaction that can occur can go in the wrong direction. And when I say stampede, I mean that almost literally. We could see a stampede of the electorate going into 1976 in the direction of some leadership that wasn't necessarily in the best interests of the nation as a whole, but was a demonstration of leadership. What you're saying is that you perceive a situation to exist in the country today, which could be exploited by the classical man on a white horse by a demagogue. Is that what you're telling? Yes, I feel that way. It doesn't have to be demagogic in quality, but it has to be on a white horse. It has to be on a white horse. Just somebody who takes on some of the heroic qualities that have been missing for some time now in the public view, either economically or socially or politically, but it's that kind of a leadership that could stampede the public in some direction. Take a look at the political spectrum, take a look at the horizon. Does anybody meet that quality?

I think both Peter and I could name a few potential candidates who could generate at least the makings of a stampede, and I think Senator Kennedy is one. Kennedy is one. You don't see him in terms of a man on a white horse, too. In terms of providing enough stimulus, enough leadership, or enough excitement. But that's different. Let's go back to where we began on this. We were talking about people sort of milling about prepared to stampede in effect, ready to follow some leader who raises a standard to which they feel they could repair. And I said, are you talking about that in the sense of the concern we always have of a demagogic leader, demagogic leader who can lead us in this direction, who can exploit that atmosphere. Now you certainly don't put Kennedy in that category.

No, and I say it doesn't have to be a negative characteristic that is dangerous, let's say, from a stampede point of view. It just has to be a characteristic that makes an individual stand out and attract attention and generate some noise that goes above the noise level of everyone else that could move that crowd in his direction. Of course, what you're saying, too, is that we are not really a democracy, that we do want a father figure in the White House. We do want a leader in the White House. And I would say that right at this moment, we're not behaving like a democracy should behave. Not so sure. A leader? Totally. By that argument. But I think we are looking for leadership because I think we're without it. And I think as we look towards 1976, what we found is that we're sort of ignoring the results of 1972 and 1974. When you look at the number of new type of governors that have come in, and the new type of senators who have come in both the 1970s.

The new type of congressman. Okay, and the new type of congressman. And what are we offering the American people? We're offering them, they take the leading candidates of the people that are most talked about. We're talking about people such as Henry Jackson, or we're talking about Hubert Humphrey, or we're talking about Ed Muskie, or we're talking about Ronald Reagan, or Nelson Rockefeller, or Gerald Ford. All of these men are older than John Kennedy would be today if he were alive. And he would have been an ex-president for two terms. And that's what we're talking about. So it's a sort of a question of what kind of leadership and is there somebody that we can look to? The accents on youth, and you're looking at candidates, I think Birch Bies is going to declare, is he young enough? He's a possibility. I mean, we can come up with a whole slew of names. It's a question of who's going to capture the imagination and provide the leadership.

And one of the things that we're finding in our surveys is that the people are willing to go much farther than the leaders are willing to go. You mean go for an unknown? No. They're willing to go for issues and ideas which candidates are afraid to broach. Let me give you an example. We did a national poll just two weeks ago for the People's Vice Centennial Group on the economy. And we asked them what they thought about the economy and a majority or 55 percent said they thought the economy was in terrible shape. Then we asked them what kinds of remedies would they be willing to support? For example, 66 percent of the people suggested that a company owned by the employees and manage or a voice in management would be something that they would believe in or something that they would follow. And then we said, well, what are the possibilities of something like this happening?

50 percent of them believed that within the next 10 years that is a possibility. Well, that's moving toward a belief in socialism which needs to be entirely contradicted. No, quite the opposite. When we said to them and we gave them a whole series and range of options, we said, do you think this would be more good than harm or more harm than good? And we said, for the government to own all major companies, 81 percent of the American people said that would be more harm than good. That wouldn't be the right way. And what I'm really seeing here are vistas which the politicians are not testing. And I guess that's the concept of leadership to try new ideas. The American people have the ideas or are willing to accept it. I think that the leaders are not. You mean the leaders are not sufficiently innovative? Or they don't sense that the people are out ahead of them and looking for new approaches, is that it? Exactly. For example, 41 percent of our respondents said that they would entertain major changes in the economy.

Things that had never been tried before. And what are we getting? What sort of retread of different ideas? Same old third stuff. Are you finding that too totally? Well, I'm always a little cautious about the public claiming that they'll be very receptive to some dramatic changes in economic structure or social structure because in too many instances when presented with the hard realities of what those changes are going to be, they seem to back away. But the point I was thinking of is that it's not fair to point just to the political sector and say that's where the absence of leadership is because we don't see that kind of leadership or perceived leadership on the part of the public in the social area or in the economic area. For example, in a national study of upper middle income and above households, not all households, but those who have some discretionary spending. When we asked the public whether they thought the economy was going to improve or whether they thought they would be better off financially in the future. Large numbers of them felt beginning in actually February and March of last year that that was the case.

Yet when we pressed to find out why, what it was that was being done or that might be anticipated to explain this optimism, they said it was because it couldn't get any worse. They had reached the bottom yet no evidence available for many source to show why it was going to improve or more importantly, of course, who would improve it. So here we have a carryover of milling, if you will, from the political sector into the economic and I'm sure we could find cases where it's in the social sector as well. Now that's a paradox. Let me raise another that really puzzles me and I wonder if either of you had an opportunity to take a look at it. We have in this country today a better and eight percent unemployment. That means that we've got better and eight million people out of jobs very conservatively. A lot of people think it might be more in your nine million unemployed. We have 12 percent of the people at the poverty level or below, which means you're not talking about 24 million Americans who are at the poverty level in below.

And yet there is no indication of the country of any unrest on the part of that 24 million. There is no indication in the country of the unemployed becoming a problem, demanding jobs, going into the streets. There is no indication of any real concern among the rest of the population. And the attitude seems to be, I've got mine, Jack, and you know, we don't care about the rest. I don't understand this. I don't understand how you can have the highest level of unemployment. The greatest number of Americans out of work that we've had in this country with the exception I think of the Depression years in 1932 and 1930 and 1928 on. And no reaction. What does it mean? Do you ever look at this?

It's a problem of mobilization, I think. How do you put them together? And where are they? They're in pockets. What you're answering the question is to why we haven't heard greater noise from the group itself. The other part of the answer, I guess, is the reason why we haven't heard from the 80-some-odd percent who are not in that group. They don't care. We have an extraordinary half-hat, of course, an extraordinary standard living in this country to the point where people in that 80-percent group haven't been dented at all in lifestyle. And second, we lead extremely insular lives in this country, and not too many people really recognize it. Insulated. Insulated, separated, removed, and the trend, of course, sociologically, is to increase that by the movement out of the cities into the suburban areas or the non-urban areas, if that's more or more correct. To allow people even further installation from the problems that you're talking about. Well, another thing I'm curious about. Why doesn't a populist leader in effect show up?

A Fred Harris, for example, who has now declared candidate, former senator from Oklahoma, declares that he's a populist. He doesn't seem to be catching on as a populist. Suppose a poppy's leader would have come along, look at those 24 million Americans who vote, poverty level, and below, and say, I can swing an election with his group. Could that happen? He'd have difficulty getting nominated by either of the major political parties, I suspect. And of course, it's extremely difficult to get elected if you're not nominated by one of those parties. So I think that's the first problem. I don't think that the constituency that you're talking about would be the same constituency that would deliver a nomination at a democratic or Republican convention. And the other thing that's related to this, of course, is the fact of, are you building something or are you just shooting something? I think the Harris approach is really just aimed at, let's say, general voters or aimed at different corporations. What is he doing for the average person?

And it's very hard to lead a movement, which in essence is just tearing negatively and not leading positively. And I think that's the problem that I see with the Harris. Here's another thing that puzzles me. The Congress, the conventional wisdom is that the Congress is the mirror in which one sees a reflection of the mood of the country. It's the wide spectrum that reflects what supposedly they are reflecting what their constituents think. Why doesn't the Congress reflect the mood of the country? If the country is looking for innovation, if the country is saying it effect as you people seem to find, do something, do something different. What's with the Congress? Why doesn't it reflect that? I don't think that that's true. I think the Congress really does reflect the general intent or interest of the public. But I'm going back to Peter's earlier comment. What are we providing or presenting to the electorate that satisfies what I think is a very honest demand for innovation and for differentness?

We have tiers of candidates in the coming presidential election. In the first tier, the ones who are most frequently discussed, I don't think we're offering right today. With the exception of the potential compromised candidacy of Teddy Kennedy, and that is off to one side, I don't think we're offering the innovation. We have a second tier of announced candidates who don't have any bases yet, some of whom have some of this, but it's interesting that the news media are focusing their attention on the third tier who have more of this innovative ingredient, or a French church, or a Kevin White, who are appealing to constituencies with approaches that are somewhat different, using Kevin White as an example and approach to the middle income and lower middle income homeowner. Well, move that to California. Look at young Governor Brown. It's difficult really to analyze that in the absence of any data, because it's a new situation, and one that I don't think has really been tested yet, that is I don't know if the voters have really been put to the test of reacting to their governor, but we haven't made the measurements.

It's a favorable rating at this period, but it's far too early to judge his real performance and his real popularity, but indeed there are an innovative idea and an innovative approach to government may not be all good though. Well, another thing that puzzles me. You're always running these questionnaires. You just did one, I think, on Gallup that did this last one on Kennedy versus Ford. Here we have a senator who is an undeclared candidate and says he doesn't want the nomination, et cetera. And he beats the president of the United States on one man against the other man basis, 50 to 43%. Why doesn't anybody ask, why would you vote for Kennedy? Does anybody ever ask that? What does this mean, this persistence of the Kennedy thing, that people do not accept that he's out of it despite all these disclaimers?

Well, first of all, you have to understand that the respondent who's out there answering is given the choice and he'll take the choice. That does not mean that he's fully endorsing that. The one thing that we've discovered in all of our polls, that Teddy Kennedy has a very hard core base of people and it may not be 50%. But there are a number of people who like him, there are a number of people who don't like him. If somebody would give me a spread between 47 and 53%, I would give them all the rest of the numbers in the book and I would bet that Kennedy would fall in that spread. That's how divided opinion is. But I think the more interesting question relates to Ford and how people feel about Ford. Indeed, he continues to go up and down and people keep saying, well, why aren't the Democrats ahead or who will they nominate? Well, the point is, Ford's job rating and the fact that he's not further ahead of people like Mo Udall or Lloyd Benson or any of them indicates that he has difficulties. The fact that Scoop Jackson, who may be known by 60% of the people and probably only 30% really know anything about him, runs dead even with the President, indicates the difficulties that lie ahead for the President.

And I think that nobody has really understood that at the present time and there's been sort of a willingness to say that. People deal with numbers, let me give you a number that might explain it. Only 18% of the people in the country who vote are registered as Republicans. That obviously explains. 18% who identify themselves as Republicans. Whether in terms of voting behavior, examined on an empirical, I mean in the past, and then looking ahead, the figure might be slightly larger, but the 18% is what the Republican National Committee is like. I would answer the question with a couple of other points and we have pushed on this question ourselves. That is on the relative popularity of Senator Kennedy and all of these standings. There is a certain degree of excitement in an otherwise boring life for most of us really do live lives of quiet desperation as somebody said. There is a certain degree of excitement in saying you're going to vote for Edward Kennedy because what's not generally known I don't think is that most people think

that Ford will be reelected even though they themselves may be saying that they would prefer to vote for someone else. We come up with that. National data that's out in July actually. We ask that question, not who would you vote for but whom do you think will be elected? And they came up with just the opposite figure. We came out of a Midwestern state within the past month and we said who do you think will win and by a 50 to 29 margin. Voters said that they thought the Democrats will win in the 1970s. It was a national sample done by RH Bruskin, the last one I saw, a 2500 interviews nationally in which the majority of people felt that Ford was going to be reelected. Yet when they were being asked whom would you vote for, here are a lot of these same people saying I would vote for Kennedy. And I think one of the reasons is that it's not particularly exciting. You're not making a particularly impressive statement about yourself when you say I would vote to reelect President Ford.

You may feel that you're doing something a little out of the ordinary by voting for Kennedy. That's one possibility. And second, what you said earlier I think holds. There is a tremendous appetite for heroic quality for larger than life people in this country and we haven't had that quality in public life honestly since 1963. In fact, in surveys that we did where we asked cross sections of the total population who would you say are today's heroes of the American population. We were getting low frequency mentions of Woodward and Bernstein. I mean, that was the best that people could come up with. And I'm not criticizing them but I would not expect them to be the nationals. Listen, we've only had a minute and you are the advisors political candidates tell people how to get elected. If you were picking the issues, let me get from you quickly, both of you. What issues would you say a candidate would go on if you were trying to get elected? I guess I would have to go on the basis of the economic problems of the middle income homeowner.

Or the middle income man, I wouldn't even limit it to homeowner. We have a segment of middle income people who are feeling the biggest squeeze, even emotionally to a greater extent than the lowest. The economy and obviously related to that is the whole problems of the energy which I guess leads you into your program. Well said, Warren. Thank you for that. Thank you, gentlemen. Good night for evening edition. Friday on evening edition, a discussion of alternative sources of energy with Dr. John Team of the Energy Research and Development Administration, G.C. Zego of the Intertechnology Corporation, and Paul Walsk of the Atomic Industrial Forum. Funding provided by Public Television Stations, the Ford Foundation, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. This program was produced by NPECT, a division of GWETA, which is solely responsible for its content.