Liberal v. Conservative
Avey, John
The Alternative January, 1971 11 touch. No longer is the mind faster than the mouth; no longer does the audience stand in awe of his rough and ready posysyllabicism: no longer do the masses...
...Liberal v. Conservative By Jobn Ave The Alternative January, 1971 12 Liberal: I'm glad I'm so committed...
...Liberal: The problem of communism demands different approaches depending upon local circumstances, historical background and the national interest...
...Conservative: The problem of communism must be discussed in those terms...
...Asked in May to become involved in James Buckley's campaign for Senator, I reacted skeptically and without enthusiasm...
...Captain Harry of "Battery D" is reduced in his eighty-seventh year to slighting comments on the memory of his long-time antagonist, General MacArthur And Old Beagle Ears ("wanta see my scar...
...Most associated the Senate race with Goodell, the incumbent, whom they termed a "turncoat" (the highestrated word in the word association part of Clif White's poll), and Richard Ottinger, who had won the Democratic nomination as a result of his charm, good looks, position on issues, accomplishments, charisma, brilliance and logic, and a campaign budget of $1.8 billion Ottinger's opponents suggested that all the factors except the last accounted for about 10 per cent of his votes I remember 23 June as a particularly melancholy date...
...Now, by Labor Day when the campaign would officially begin, we must convince the news media that this was a serious campaign, meriting coverage equivalent to our two opponents...
...Communism is after all, not a domestic problem...
...By mid-August our full headquarters was set up (6,000 square feet, instead of the two-room suite used during the summer...
...Conservative: The trouble with you on the left is that you see segregation as a completely evil thing that has to be fought your way and no other way You tend to simplify a complex problem...
...Yes, tragically today a liberal political rally no longer smacks of effusive confidence, but rather smells of a death watch...
...But because two people for whom I held enormous respect, F. Clifton White and David Jones, were seriously considering the effort, I reasoned an adventure in New York politics might not be totally preposterous...
...Early in a typical address he defined the challenge: "Either we will take hold of our destinies and restore common sense to our public affairs, or we will see this great republic slowly strangled by the bureaucratic webs we have spun around our lives...
...As Buckley gained, Ottinger became desperate, characterizing Buckley as a nutty right-winger who would drop nuclear bombs (in the Senate...
...They have forgotten that the people have always enjoyed a good scrap--a good show, in Dialogue Liberal: The trouble with you on the right is that you see communism as a completely evil thing that has to be fought your way and no other way...
...Conservative: The problem of communism demands direct action even if that means threatening the international status quo...
...About thirty key staff members had been hired...
...Buckley called me the next day from Israel (he had stopped there on his return from Southeast Asia...
...You tend to simplify a complex problem...
...But you can't kill an idea with coercion Conservative: You want to solve the problem of segregation by force...
...Conservative: Thank God I'm not like them 0 versation at all--unless you are taking a poll During June and July I sought the opinion of every sort of New Yorker above the age of twenty-one...
...Liberal: You are too rigid fighting communism...
...Where are the contemporary liberal fun-makers...
...Conservative: Liberals are so wishywashy about communsim...
...But you can't kill an idea with coercion...
...Even if our terrestrial life is torn asunder, communism must go...
...Now Ottinger was taking us seriously...
...I watched the election results of the Democratic primary...
...Liberal: No domestic peace is worth if it we have segregation...
...economic royalists" and "red-baiters...
...Conservative: I think they are two different problems...
...When I arrived in New York City on 3 June, precisely five mori,hs before James Buckley would be elected United States Senator, I pessimistically reflected on the improbabilities...
...Then came the statistics, for example: "more than 4,500 bombings of private and public buildings in the past eighteen months" or "more than forty American policemen killed by snipers and bombers this year alone" or "more than three times as many New Yorkers killed this year by overdoses of heroin than by the enemy in Vietnam...
...Goodell was not taking us seriously...
...The Kingfish is long in his grave...
...He is modest, softspoken, a good listener, and a straightforward, open person...
...It is here to stay in many parts of the country...
...No longer may the community come together to pass their collective judgement of "Amen, brother...
...identity crisis...
...Cab drivers do talk to a lot of people, and I used to ask them about the Senate race...
...and condone the bayoneting of innocent kids...
...The Journey u'itb Senator Jim Buckley By Arnie Steinberg...
...A modest television campaign had already begun...
...Conservative...
...volving a certain amount of over-blown rhetoric delivered with gusto Politics has always manifested something of the character of an old time melodrama, with stereotyped characters which the audience could hiss or applaud according to their likes...
...But the body politic cries out for relief ; will no one answer its lamentations...
...Liberal: I think they are two entirely different problems...
...Most confused Jim Buckley with his brother Bill, and this could be an advantage or disadvantage...
...Though still a distant second, Buckley had the momentum...
...Liberal: Why don't you feel the same way about segregation...
...The next day one commentator did acknowledge a third candidate, the Conservative Party nominee, James Buckley, (chosen by party convention), but the TV pundit, shrewdly perceiving the irrelevance of Buckley to the November election, forgot his name...
...You are too rigid fighting segregation...
...Conservative...
...Conservative: We don't care whose toes are trodden upon...
...The cab ride from La Guardia Airport to Manhattan was what I expected and usually experienced...
...From the populist antics of Huey Long to the bourbon politics of Norman Mailer, the Democrats have provided us with a marvelous sideshow which has made these two-year exercises in political indigestion go down easier, even if the end result was acute gastric distress...
...Conservative: I'm glad I'm so committed Liberal: Conservatives are so wishywashy on segregation...
...deposits in the Perdenales Alas, all the liberals have left is the White Tornado, George Corley Wallace, and he is something of a vanishing maverick...
...I was tempted to remind the cab driver that traffic is always poor, but--alas--the safest policy is not to engage the cab driver in con Conservative: They oversimplify...
...But funds were coming in too slowly, and it would be mid-October before Buckley could overtake Ottinger...
...Liberal: But segregation demeans hundreds of thousands of fellow Americans...
...A summer publicity build-up (including scores of personal interviews between the candidate and newsmen, and meetings with editorial boards of over twenty newspapers) had set the stage for the eight weeks of intensive campaigning ahead...
...If you ever have something exciting to do in New York, take an Eastern Airlines shuttle from Washington, your enthusiasm for the project will be significantly depleted...
...But then, we were not taking him seriously...
...Which is not surprising because the Vice President knows that there is "no news Like Agnews " 0 Conservative: But communism demeans hundreds of millions of fellow humans...
...Loads of campaign materials had been ordered, printed, shipped...
...Liberal: You want to solve the problem of communism by force...
...Clif White, who brilliantly managed the campaign to nominate Barry Goldwater, was a native of New York...
...Conservative: The problem of segregation demands different approaches depending upon local circumstances, historical background and the national interest...
...Anyone who says such things about Jim Buckley can only lose ground...
...Liberal: If only you wouldn't see the problem of communism in terms of good guys and bad guys...
...Before emerging as a political strategist of national stature and a public affairs counselor to elected officials and corporations, White had been a political activist in New York State Here was his chance to again attempt the impossible-but this time in his political backyard...
...Much of our eventual war chest of $1.7 million did not come in until October, and substantial amounts were not in until the last ten days of the campaign...
...I told him Ottinger won, and that things were going as well as could be expected (the initial campaign costs were being financed by a loan...
...Liberal: We don't care whose toes are trodden upon...
...Something akin to seduction, although the end result is bastard politics, the getting there has been all the fun...
...The American liberal establishment, not understanding the signs of the times, has ranted and raved about a new era of McCarthyism--a charge so mindless that it suggests these liberals are losing their hold on sanity...
...No, there are too few of them to go around...
...Of course this attitude is hardly surprising For the past forty years the Democrats have had a near-monopoly on that superb stageperformer: the posturing politico...
...Liberal: They oversimplify .. Cover Story The idea of toiling long hours in a political campaign simply to give New York voters a choice might interest the Good Samaritan, but not me...
...Public hangings...
...Surely the political pantheon of prolixity is not completely vacated Are there no bilious Solons left to delight the imagination of the homobucolic...
...Liberal: I personally find communism abhorrent, but I think we must recognize we can't do away with it overnight...
...It is here to stay in many parts of the world...
...Liberal: You have no compassion for the downtrodden in America...
...Presently, it would seem, the conservatives have written the script and controlled the casting A quick perusal of the reviews suggest that the conservatives are in for a long run...
...Not simply because such things are untrue, but candidate Buckley never sounded nor looked like an extremist Even-tempered and easy-going, Buckley has all those qualities rare in politicians but abundant in decent people...
...Segregation must go...
...Dave Jones, who simultaneously served as executive director of the Young Americans for Freedom and the American Conservative Union, was eager to apply his organizational expertise to the most challenging circumstances he had encountered in his career...
...If you didn't know Jim Buckley, you wanted to meet and know him...
...He never said what pie did not want to say He chose to concentrate on three issues which concerned him and which also concerned New Yorkers: crime and civil turmoil,student unrest and the drug problem These were the issues with which the candidate identified, in his statements and press releases, in his brochures and campaign material, in his newspaper and television advertising and in "The Speech"--the basic text he used throughout the campaign...
...The condition is indeed serious Formerly the Saturday night fracas at the local temple of worship provided the citizenry with a sense of unity and participation in high purpose even if it was only their conviction by some latter-day Jonathan Edwards of sin worthy of hellfire...
...What has happened...
...Conservative: I personally find segregation abhorrent, but I think we must recognize we can't do away with it overnight...
...no longer does the audience stand in awe of his rough and ready posysyllabicism: no longer do the masses salivate at the mention of "trade unionism...
...Liberal: They glorify quick solutions...
...Liberal: We must recognize segregation as an absolute evil and the President should make unequivocal, forthright statements of his feelings about it...
...I recalled this statistic from fifty pages of detailed findings by a "survey of political attitudes in New York State"--a poll commissioned by Clif White...
...All that remains is the political rally and it has been fast fading under the deadening influence of liberalism's...
...I didn't tell him about those television commentators who left me so discouraged...
...All of which is preface to the conclusion that far from intensifying polarization, Agnew's speechifying is increasing social cohesion by bringing groups together• some to say "Amen, brother," others to conclude "Lord Help Him, Brother...
...If the political rally dies out due to lack of fodder, what communal rite short of war will remain...
...In fact it was the liberal-left which sounded more and more apocalyptic as the campaign entered its final weeks...
...Conservative: You have no compassion for the enslaved throughout the world...
...Communism must go...
...And if you knew him, you wondered why such a nice guy was taking time away from a delightful family for politics Buckley was himself during the campaign He read what he signed, and read what somebody wanted him to say, and modified and approved statements attributed to him...
...Liberal: Even if our life as a nation is torn asunder, segregation must go...
...Liberal: Communism must be fought, certainly, but with reason and by taking into consideration all the subtleties and differences within the communist system Conservative: Segregation must be fought, certainly, but with reason and by taking into consideration all the subtleties and differences within the segregated systems...
...Conservative: No international peace is worth it if we have communism...
...or destroyed by violence and intimidation...
...Liberal: The problem of segregation calls for direct action even if that threatens the national status quo...
...Segregation is, after all, not an international problem...
...It means so many different things...
...But alas, Liberalism, rapidly approaching senility, forgets its garrulous past and demands a one-to-one correlation between rhetoric and reality when bespoken by conservatives, while anything will pass as eternal veracity when presented by a liberal woofer...
...The cab driver complained about the city, poor tippers and the traffic...
...A third-party candidate with no prospect of adequate campaign financing had to convince over two million New Yorkers to cross party lines and vote for him On the other hand, one recent poll stood out in my mind--nearly two-thirds of New York's voters thought of themselves as either ''conservatives" or "moderates...
...Unfortunately, with church attendance declining, few arenas remain for an oral affirmation of the community's commonality...
...Liberal: But you just can't say "communism...
...All the television commentators speculated on a Goodell-Ottinger race...
...All our soundings and polls told us that he was running third with us second...
...Conservative: We must realize Communism is an absolute evil and the President should make unequivocal, forthright statements of his feelings about it...
...Either way, the result is a revitalization of an American ritual...
...Liberal: The problem of segregation must be discussed in those terms...
...The personal reason for his candidacy began to become apparent: "The headlines bear almost daily witness to new breakdowns in the system of order and self-restraint, of civility and mutual respect without which freedom cannot survive...
...Reaching a high in the summer polls of about 44 per cent, he learned that Buckley was rising fast...
...Conservative: Why don't you'feel the same way about communism...
...Town hall meetings" Centralization has taken much meaning from them...
...But perhaps that was because I was no longer discouraged, but angry...
...It means so many different things Conservative: But you just can't say "segregation...
...By Labor Day, all the prerequisites for a precision campaign were in evidence...
...Conservative: They glorify quick solutions .. Liberal: Thank God I'm not like them...
...What oral exercise remains for this symbolic reaffirmation of the bond between the individual and his society...
...County organizations were beginning to function...
...From where will the body politic receive its biannual dosage of laughing gas in the future...
...Conservative: If only you wouldn't see the problem of segregation in terms of good guys and bad guys...
Vol. 4 • January 1971 • No. 3
