The Real Majority
Davis, Tom
Mrs. Robinson in 72 The Real Majority by Richard Scammon and Ben Wattenberg Coward-MacCann, $7.95 The election of 1970 was preceded by a number of interpretive works on the American electorate....
...so you see there is no "issue...
...The central thesis of the book rests on the premise that if the President is able to wind down the war and relatively stablize the economy, Presidential elections throughout the coming decade will (urn on the "social issue...
...Thus, the issues of 1970 campaign were blurred...
...Their emergence has a distinct relationship to the ideology of the sixties...
...So, around the first of May he started edging toward the center...
...The authors vainly attempt to tie it up in a "social issue" which can be neutralized by tough talk, and then let economics and personalities predominate...
...Professor Galbraith asked us Who needs the Democrats, and proceeded to sketch his new majority several degrees left of the present national Democratic party...
...For, their "social issue" is too simplistic, too divorced from economics to really be effectively interpreted...
...We cannot afford to let it be in 1972 when the stakes will be much highter than there were in 1970...
...They also point out that the popular notion of Robert Kennedy's victory in Gary, uniting hard hats and blacks and thus making him a formidable candidate in a general election, is false...
...Thus, the political center was shifted a bit to the right as the liberals moved toward more hard-line stands...
...Somehow people were thought to just "know" that the radic-libs were to blame for much of the social unrest...
...Then, feeling that the "social issue" was neutralized, he began to run against Nixon's economic policies, a safe stance for any candidate in Indiana this year...
...He became concerned about that machinist's wife and worried about crime instead of the criminal for a change...
...To get elected one must go where1 the votes are and as Vance Hartke discovered, Indiana wouldn't follow him down his primrose path to permissiveness and retreat...
...Permissiveness, anarchy and amorality did not, after all, come out of thin air...
...Scammon and Wattenberg...
...Such rapid movement while setting many track records, was partially successful...
...In a broader context, the author's keep hammering away at certain myths which have become the prevailing wisdom on college campuses...
...The Nixon administration's slogan-deep approach to the same problems left too many liberal Democrats in undeserved good health...
...Samuel Lubell updated his Future of American Politics with a Crisis of Confidence...
...The media-tinged ads of conservative candidates this year did not try to articulate philosophical strengths...
...For one, they dismiss the idea that a coalition of the young, the poor, the black and the intellectuals can put together a winning coalition...
...They admonish their party, "it is the judgement of "the authors that the matter in which the Democratic party handles the Social Issue will largely determine how potent a political force the party will be in America in the years to come...
...The Real Majority we are told is "in the center of American politics...
...But, as the authors suggest, "the average voter is not stupid...
...Remember that even Hartke was getting tough on crime...
...If Republicans would articulate this relationship, liberal Democrats like Hartke and Stevenson would not be allowed to escape their due simply by donning police uniforms, and Ed Muskie would not be allowed to say, as he did on election eve, "We are all against violence and crime...
...The authors hold that voters will not tolerate a "liberal" on these issues, and will vote against soft can-didates-a truth amply demonstrated by Daley in Chicago, Maier in Milwaukee and most notably Stenvig in Minneapolis and Yorty in Los Angeles...
...The materialism, permissiveness and economic precursors to the social unrest of the seventies, should not be forgotten...
...First discovered by Goldwater and Wallace, the social issue is now the issue on which Middle America will vote, provided one candidate is on the "wrong" side...
...The apparent dichotomy is explained: "the attitudinal center of American politics today involves progressiveism on economic issues and toughness on the 'Social Issue.' " And, as an all pervading corollary, "The party that can hold this center will win the Presidency...
...Finally, the election results can hardly be interpreted as a liberal left resurgence...
...The impact of this book, however, has already been felt far beyond the borders of this review...
...Instead they describe the typical American voter (70% of us) as unyoung, unblack, unpoor, and unintellectual, though certainly not stupid...
...Congressman Bill Cramer ran a hardline law and order campaign in Florida, but was beaten by an unknown who cut beneath the slogans, walked the length of the state talking with troubled Floridians about their problems, and voiced concern over the broader "socio-economic" issue, not just the narrower "tough on crime" approach recommended by Messrs...
...At the same time that Americans are issuing non-negotiable demands on the social issue, the authors conclude that the Real Majority clearly favors Medicare, aid to cities, anti-poverty efforts, aid to education and other issues traditionally defined as "liberal...
...Finally, Richard Scammon, probably the country's foremost psychologist, combines with Ben Wattenberg to set up straight on what really is The Real Majority...
...This phenomenon, in itself, is a victory over the radic-libs...
...In truth, the middle segment of the American population feels itself attacked from every direction...
...Tom Davis...
...Kevin Phillips articulated the conservative dream in The Emerging Republican Majority...
...Thus, this estrangement from government goes far beyond softness on crime...
...The average voter is a 47 year old housewife from Dayton, Ohio whose brother-in-law is a cop and who is herself married to a machinist...
...The authors cite polls which demonstrate conclusively that this center of American politics today wants tougher administrators on campus, a crackdown on crime, pornography and drugs...
...The erosion of traditional values and respect for authority, the decline of patriotism, the rise in welfarism (instead of taxing the few to help the many as the New Deal did, we are now taxing the many to help the few) the attack on neighborhoods by the "intellectual" social planners and the lack of establishment concern for the average worker's job security and economic well-being, are all part of a more broad "socio-economic issue...
...He started to "talk tough" after eleven years of voting soft...
...Perhaps Republicans were following Scammon too closely...
...The Real Majority is still waiting to be found...
...An American flag appeared on his lapel...
...Perhaps by then the Real Majority will have been provided a substantive program instead of "tough talk" for their malaise...
...Tom Davis laise...
...We conservatives are not helping ourselves by becoming entangled in the web of social confusion...
...Rather they see this as a prescription for electoral disaster...
...The litany of narrow "social issue" slogans showed no awareness of the broader malaise...
...Besides its largely unsuccessful venture, to project a positive law and order image, the administration articulated anti-middle-American stands on expanded welfare and suburb busting...
...This social issue embraces drugs, demonstrations, pornography, riots, "kidlash" and crimes...
...It also showed little awareness of the need to demonstrate economic empathy and concern for the machinist's wife who fears her husband may be laid off work...
...It has been a remarkably influential book...
...The scramble of liberal Democrats like Adlai Stevenson (who called Daley's cops storm-troopers in blue and then played for 70% of their votes) to get back to center ground is a lesson to all of us in practical politics...
...What is formidable is their documentation by polls and precinct data contesting this thesis...
...Personally, I consider the author's claim-that though the American electorate is upset about crime, pornography and drugs, it will accept liberal economic programming-- as rather shallow...
...It didn't work, as the election results showed...
Vol. 4 • December 1970 • No. 2
