University of Virginia Library

Rod MacDonald

From Agnew To Victory

Welcome to election year 1970.
This is the year when the politicians
reiterate the promises they left
unfulfilled since they were last
elected, claiming they will actually
do something about them this time.
This is also the year when the
President of the United States, who
is not himself standing for re-election,
is nonetheless the major issue
as he tries to build a Congressional
majority behind his program.

I didn't like President Nixon's
performance for his first six months
and haven't found it enchanting
since then. But one must certainly
admire this political virtuoso who
has rebuilt the Republican Party in
the wake of Democratic self-immolation.
Through Vietnam, inflation,
and the frustration rising
crime inflicts on the middle class
Mr. Nixon has restructured the
political alignments so that many
Democrats, especially in the South,
must vote like Republicans or lose
their seats. The political style,
labeled by columnist Stewart Alsop
as "preempting," has become obvious
by now: adopt the noncontroversial
issues as your own,
use the Presidential prerogative to
make your opposition on the
controversial issues look bad. Perfect
examples are his taking up the
standard for conservation and environmental
measures, and on the
other hand repeatedly nominating
southern conservatives to the
Supreme. Court and painting the
liberals who oppose him as holding
up progress.

Successful Politician

As a politician, he is being very
successful. Mr. Nixon has effectively
tapped the latent reaction of
Americans to hippies, freaks, Black
Panthers and theater nudity. His
subtle style personifies their own
longing for the old virtues, prayer,
less open sexuality, and conservationism.
When it departs from morals
to politics, it still pursues the
"non-extreme" strain of subconscious
bigotry and strong law
enforcement. And for those who
desire more frank interpretations of
middle Americanism, there is Vice-President
Agnew. Mr. Agnew is
right we are intellectual snobs,
expecting Democratic government
to be just instead of popular.

Poor Performance

But the politics and the performance
are two different things. The
President, despite his environmental
speech on the quality of life, has
only budgeted $214 million for it
this year, a far cry from his
projected figure of $10 billion. The
Bureau of the Budget, moreover,
may be impounding the $586
million left from last year because
the President chose not to spend it.
The $10 billion is a nebulous figure,
which Mr. Nixon may expect to be
supplied mainly by the states, a
difficult proposition since municipal
and state bonds are reportedly
tough to sell. The President has
ordered federal agencies to stop
pollution themselves, a worthy
order; but the real problem is
private industry, automobile
makers and riverside factories, and
so far the President has shown little
disposition to stop their actions or
spend money to correct their past
dumping.

On other scores the Nixon
administration has improved somewhat.
He has stopped most of the
chemical-biological warfare and secured
some draft redo (although
the Pentagon's estimates of prospective
draftees seem far too low).
Some troops have been withdrawn
from Vietnam, although a full
withdrawal or peace still seems far
away. The President seems to hold
out "peace" as one leads a dog with
a bone, trying to appease the
moderate left and placate the hawks
with rhetoric and still pursue the
war with a slightly diminished
force.

Civil Rights & Justice

My last column on the President,
back in October, gave him
low marks on both civil rights and
justice, and these have improved
little. The new law that allows
federal agents to enter private
residences without warning is a
frank invasion of privacy; the Black
Panther hunts have shown the
Justice Department at its worst.
Moreover, the administration has
diluted the Voting Rights Act, and
gone on record in favor of delaying
full integration of schools, which
has already been delayed 16 years
since it was first ordered. Last, he
has nominated a "strict constructionist"
who has a record of "strict
obstruction" in segregation cases.
Having been overruled several
times, Harrold Carswell may now
make final rulings.

The major campaign issue will
be inflation and spending priorities.
The nation now has a different
philosophy than under President
Johnson: we cannot afford everything
any longer. Returning to
scarcity economics, the nation must
decide for what it wishes to spend.
The President has so far won an
appropriation for the ABM and is
back asking $20 billion more to
"protect the cities"; he has made
no serious effort to extricate
ourselves from the war immediately,
which, regardless of political
consequences, would certainly
t spending. On the other hand,
he has vetoed the entire HFW bill
because it spend nearly $2 billion
more than he wished to spend, and
seems to be waiting for inflation to
clean up before spending much on
environmental control. Democrats
would, of course, prefer to buy
more schools and books, while the
administration and the Pentagon
prefer missiles and draftees. The
issue is clear.

Right now I have little doubt
that most close elections for Senator
or Congressman would go to the
President's supporters. Things may
change, however; for example, the
administration response to inflation
is to increase unemployment, and
unemployed workers are known for
their propensity to vote out their
politicians. The President could
easily win re-election, but he will
have difficulty winning Congressional
support for such issues as
the Court nominees (except in the
South), missiles for the already-Democratic
cities, and the many
local factors that influence those
elections. So look for much more
rhetoric, many more promises, and
one more factor: look for the
liberal intellectuals who remain the
whipping boy of the politicians, for
the effete snobs who think government
should be moral and egalitarian
do not constitute a political
majority this year.