The Pulse of Politics: Electing Presidents in the Media Age / How to Win Votes: The Politics of 1980 / Playing to Win: An Insider's Guide to Politics

...Barber's new book must contain...

...Remember me in your prayers...

...The staff consisted mostly of young trainees, all smiles but not exactly what you could call adept...

...With touching absurdity, in hindsight, Dr...

...Its republication now p r e s e n t s another opportunity for taking a look at Mihajlov's important, and sometimes unusual, ideas_9 I n Underground Notes, Mihajlov writes: "The great majority of the artists who lost their lives in prison camps or those who are still there _9 . . have never been political opponents of the regime in the Western sense...

...One true a r t i s t is more dangerous to a t o t a l i t a r i a n regime than any political adversary...

...We can only save the system and secure the future of American democracy, Costikyan tells us, by dragging non-voters into the electoral system, whether they want in or not...

...Most of the company and conversation matched the service...

...In "Some Timely Thoughts," the most intellectually daring of the essays in Underground Notes, Mihajlov chastises Solzhenitsyn for his fascination with, and support for, authoritarianism, as expressed in Solzhenitsyn's Letter to the Soviet Leaders...

...Ho, ho, ho...

...The next day at lunch, when a friend asked for an iced coffee he was met with a blank stare from the busboy followed by an incredulous, "What's dat...

...But a fundamental flaw in his political overview g l a r e s through when he a t t e m p t s to play the concerned statesman...

...Seated in a revolving "drinking pod" one afternoon (and feeling rather like a frog or an alien life form) I actually saw one unfortunate fellow guest served a gin and tonic with two Gibson onions instead of a lime twist...

...Somehow, our society has failed to instill that habit in the post-1965 generation...

...Far from being a mere h a b i t , voting is also a r e s p o n s i b i l i t y which, in the eyes of the founding fathers, was a thing to be a s p i r e d to, for which individual citizens had to qualify with certain essential civic virtues, ranging at various times from being a property holder and literate on one extreme to not being a convicted felon on the o t h e r . (Dullards and goldbricks need not apply...

...Costikyan sees it differently...

...But in order to describe just what it is that compels the totalitarian regime to do battle with a r t i s t s , Mihajlov must first address the unusual relation of a t o t a l i t a r i a n regime to the minds of the men over which it rules_9 The artist's understanding of truth, Mihajlov says in Underground Notes, lies in his devotion to an idea--to a religion, for example, or, more f r e q u e n t l y , to an ideology...

...they know less about the issues and have never developed what Mr...

...is the author of The Candidates--1980...

...For this his parents sent him to college...

...Solzhenitsyn is quoted as writing: "Let there be an authoritarian system, but one based not on hatred but on altrui s m . " This moves Mihajlov to declare: " S o l z h e n i t s y n is verily the Great Witness, but it was not his destiny to comprehend the meaning of his own existence...

...Not only that, but all of the decent old hotels--The Dorset, The Plaza, The St...

...At least, I comforted myself, it will all be over once I board the Eastern Shuttle to Washington...

...Granted that voting, like personal hygiene and the prompt paying of bills, is, on one level, an acquired habit...

...Judged by chance encounters in elevators, cocktail lounges, and corridors, they weren't really bad people --just a little dumber, glummer, sloppier, and smellier than their Republican counterparts in Detroit...

...The Plaza, for those of you who haven't had the pleasure, is one of those towering, surreal modern hostelries with a lot of water and vegetable matter making up for the absence of paneling and skilled ornaI * I I I mental handiwork...

...months, having been found guilty of "abus[ing] the freedom of expression which exists in Yugoslavia...

...Mihaj!ov's well-argued--but highly debatable-point is that Solzhenitsyn, by advocating any kind of authoritarianism, unconsciously supports the bondage to which he acted as the " G r e a t Witness" in The Gulag Archipelago...

...His informative but ultimately wrong-minded study of the n o n - v o t e r r e v e a l s the following characteristics: Non-voters tend to be younger, less educated, less literate, less successful, and less c o n s e r v a t i v e than people who do vote...

...God bless them for it...

...Maybe we made it possible to vote too easily and too more narrow regional, religious, and economic i n t e r e s t s than t o d a y - - presided over the first century and a half of American growth...

...This summer, for example, I managed to dodge the Republican Convention in Detroit, but only after spending eight days Aram Baksbian, Jr...

...No end of suffering in this vale of tears...

...El UNDERGROUND NOTES Mihajlo Mihajlov / Catzaras Brothers / 16.00 Deborah Davis I n 1965 a young Yugoslav writer named Mihajlo Mihajlov published a book on Soviet cultural and literary life called Moscow Summer...

...On the whole, they're more interesting than the books...

...T]he freedom to serve ideo l o g y , " he writes at one point, "would be a great step toward liberat i o n . " According to Mihajlov, the free man is able to believe in ideas that are separate from the state, and is therefore able to judge the state's manipulation of power...

...Barber is an intelligent academic whose main problem is that he desperately wants to fit square politicians into round theories...

...The artist serves the idea...

...It is pleasant reading, but hardly revelatory...

...THE PULSE OF POLITICS: ELECTING PRESIDENTS IN THE MEDIA AGE James David Barber / Norton / $14.95 HOW TO WIN VOTES: THE POLITICS OF 1980 Edward Costikyan / Harcourt Brace Jovanovich / $12.95 PLAYING TO WIN: AN INSIDER'S GUIDE TO POLITICS JeffGreenfiled / Simon and Schuster / $11.95 Aram Bakshian J r. Every four years I promise myself that I will avoid the conventions, and sit out the campaign...

...He was, however, released three years later as a result of the Helsinki accords and has since emigrated to the United States...

...and that any freedom from political domination resides, in part, in spiritual strength_9 These are the beliefs informing the essays of Underground Notes...

...The bulk of his book is canned history, the story of past campaigns and past presidencies tailored to fit Dr...

...Almost certainly Moynihan would be embarrassed to have this speech appended to his book, in which is found this maxim by Michael Oakeshott: "To try to do something which is inherently impossible is always a corrupting enterprise...

...the authoritarian is served by the idea...

...In this sense, ideology may indeed have a "liberating" effect in totalitarian and authoritarian countries, which betray ideology for the sake of power...

...Playing to Win concent r a t e s on the game r a t h e r than the results that follow victory and it is full of good practical advice as far as it goes--more than a few laughs, too...

...We wouldn't be here now if the Costikyan theory were r i g h t . And when be adds, by way of remedy, the suggestion that a good initial "reform" would be pressuring everyone who applies for any sort of government dole to register to vote, his position becomes even more untenable...

...And even as I say this, I am about to get involved in the fall campaign, breaking yet another resolution and sacrificing several weeks of good company and good digestion for the umpteenth time, with my eyes disgustingly wide open...

...I couldn't disagree more...

...This is the point at which MihajIov breaks with Solzhenitsyn...

...In an earlier work of his, The Presidential Character, he glowingly predicted that Jimmy Carter, that most characterless of men, would be an "activepositive" president, fondly asserting: I believe he will t u r n out to be a p l e a s u r e d P r e s i d e n t , f i n d i n g , as did FDR and HST and JFK, t h a t life in the Oval Office can be f u n . . . . _9 I doubt it, but, if Carter has been a "pleasured" president, the pleasure has been all his...

...Costikyan dismisses as the "voting habit...

...An afternoon to cherish...

...For 90 I I | ! I I t There opportunity America...

...The Pulse of Politics maintains, quite plausibly, that there are cycles in politics as in everything else, and that certain political types show to best advantage if they come along when the pendulum is swinging in the right direction...

...Nothing is better for a writer's morale than working on a document that will be widely ignored and universally forgotten within weeks, and the wellintended blundering of the novice personnel at the Detroit Plaza added to the fun...

...After its publication, he lost his lecturing post at Zagreb University and was soon a f t e r sent to prison for nine Deborah Davis is a journalist whose first book, Katharine the Great, a study of the political power of the Washington Post and its owner, was published last year...

...Maybe it was the muggy Manhattan weather, or their mood of unhappy resignation at the prospect of having to vote fi~r Jimmy Carter again...

...Barber, for all his study of politics from the sidelines, simply does not understand what makes voters, parties, politicians, and administrations tick--not that their clockwork ever has functioned 28 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR OCTOBER 1980 on r e l i a b l e mechanical p r i n c i p l e s . Edward Costikyan is another matter: a slick behind-the-scenes political operative in Manhattan for many years who, if he failed dismally in his own run for the Democratic mayoral nomination in 1977, at l e a s t has proven his ability to win votes for others...

...But he is also a shrewd, humorous political tactician with a real zest for nuts-and-bolts campaigning...

...Sounds plausible enough, until you remember that a much smaller segment of the population--with much Voting i s . . . largely habit...

...that totalitarianism is therefore no different whether of the Left or of the Right...

...Regis, the Waldorf, et al.--were full and I ended up with a room in a Sheraton that, mirabile dictu, turned out to be the headquarters for the Georgia delegation...

...The only break from convention monotony during my two-day stay in New York was a purely local entertainment--a botched suicide attempt from the Avon Building...

...L e t ' s begin with the authors of the three tomes in question...

...It's just coffee with ice in it," my friend replied_9 And, sure enough, about ten minutes later, the busboy returned with a cup of coffee in which three forlorn ice cubes were fighting a losing battle for survival...

...IE] Sarkes Tarzian Inc...

...According to Mihajlov, the theocrat believes in an authoritarianism based upon altruism, upon the principles outlined in the Gospels, and believes that the only thing wrong with Soviet authoritarianism is that it is grounded in the wrong authoritarian principles_9 And here is where he feels Solzhenitsyn is mistaken: "The issue is not at all ideology, or that, in Solzhenitsyn's view, t h e . . , leaders in the Soviet Union are aiming at false ideals guided by a false ideology_9 The issue is that they do not follow any ideology, and their one and only goal has always been power...

...Greenfield is a political lost s o u l - - a hopeless liberal whose ideological time has come and gone...

...They were devoted to art . . . . Looked at from the standpoint of maintaining a totalitarian dictatorship, the persecution of a r t i s t s is wholly justified...

...Barber's theory...

...Waiting for me on my return was a troika of new books to review on campaigning, the inspired gift of this very magazine...

...In 1968 he published again, this time a collection of essays criticizing certain Soviet writers for acting as propagandists rather than writing about what they surely knew to be true of the Soviet s t a t e . For this book, Russian Themes, he went to jail for four and a half years...

...A former IV/site House Aide to two Presidents, he writes frequently on politics, history, and the arts for American and overseas journals...

...Barber went on to predict that, if Carter had any problem, it would be accomplishing too much, not too little: Like t h e o t h e r active-positive P r e s i d e n t s , his c h a r a c t e r - b a s e d t r o u b l e s are going to s p r i n g from an e x c e s s o f an active-positive virtue: t h e t h i r s t for r e s u l t s . . . . Well, with a record like that, you can imagine how many splendid, fresh insights Dr...

...Bloomington, Indiana minutes, thousands of New Yorkers milled around the blocked-off area, sweating profusely and, most of them, pointing to the wrong ledge on the wrong building, while I viewed them askance from the air-conditioned comfort of O'Neal's, washing down ossified shrimp with overpriced Dutch beer...

...One of the few saving graces shared by millions of our most under-educated, illinformed, slothful fellow citizens is t h e i r complete lack of i n t e r e s t in politics...

...Every four years something goes wrong...

...But, as Mihajlov makes clear in the book's final essay, "Mystical Experiences in the Labor Camps~" the highest level of thought under conditions of repression is not ideological, but religious, in nature_9 30 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR OCTOBER 1980...

...Despite the best (or worst) efforts of the do--gooders to coerce or cajole civic vegetables to the polls, the worthy lumps still stay away in droves...

...Costikyan, a liberal who is not blind to the changes in the political l a n d s c a p e , is sound in most of his tactical recommendations for winning votes...

...The book's appearance in Yugoslavia in 1974 again resulted in a prison sentence for Mihajlov, this time a seven-year term...

...At the time of his second sentencing, Mihajlov was a devoted and committed socialist, although he complained during his trial that "we intellectuals of socialist societies feel like t r a i t o r s when we speak the t r u t h . " During his second term in prison he underwent a conversion of sorts: He came to understand that truth and "so-called socialism" are natural enemies...

...It meant spending two days in New York City in the middle of the Convention...

...To him, the non-voter is not the odd man voluntarily out, but a challenge to modern Pavlovian science: soon...

...But a totalitarian regime is concerned only with the maintenance of its power, and so it uses ideas as a means to power...

...the idea is his end...

...there editing the GOP Platform...

...Counting Our Blessings is a reminder, even if the convention speech is not, that there is a liberal Democrat who differs intelligently, and compellingly, from the standard Democratic fare: Carter, Kennedy, and all the rest...

...E n a l l y , we have J e f f Greenfield, familiar to many television viewers as a guest commentator on CBS and a f r e q u e n t p a n e l i s t on William F. THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR OCTOBER 1980 29 Buckley's "Firing Line...

...This essay on SALT, like the other essays on foreign affairs, contrasts sharply with the speech Moynihan delivered at the Democratic convention in New York last month, when he applauded SALT II and praised President Carter's foreign policies...

...The attack upon Solzhenitsyn leads directly from Mihajlov's conception of freedom in a totalitarian state, a conception which really has two parts...

...Even when I get my wish, it's in the worst possible way...

...that any political system which is dependent upon the persecution of intellectuals is totalitarian in nature...

...Mihajlov's psychological profile of "Homo sovieticus," which appeared in Moscow Summer, is a p e r f e c t r e n d e r i n g of the abuse of ideology by those in control of a totalitarian state: "[He is] honest, sensitive, pleasant in his personal life, but p r e p a r e d for the g r e a t e s t servilities in the name of a 'higher idea'_9 . . . This was in vain, however, because petty fanatics . . . can in no way understand what it means to serve an idea...

...But far more important, it is also a reflection of attitude, Commitment, and individual initiative...

...One gets the feeling that Dr...

...When Underground Notes first came out in this country four years ago it received very little notice (although it was reviewed in these pages by Maurice Friedberg in April of 1977...

...Think of the mess they'd make if they were somehow rounded up and trundled off to vote, even if one goes on Costikyan's own polling data...

...It's well worth reading if you are one of those poor beasts afflicted with the campaign virus though, personally, I would recommend a religious retreat or a month in the country as a preferable t r e a t m e n t for that p a r t i c u l a r complaint...

...Let us hope that's not always so: After all, trying to defend the Carter administration's foreign policy is to try something of the difficulty of sculling across the Atlantic without oars...

...Forget Costikyan's civic philosophy, pay a t t e n t i o n to his canny hints on how to win e l e c t i o n s , and his book j u s t i f i e s its cover price...

...Not that many days later, having vowed to avoid the Democratic Convention in New York at all cost, I received a last minute invitation to plug my book, The Candidates-1980, on a New York television show...

...Whatever the reasons, if we do not remedy our failure to teach the young the voting habit, things will get worse . . . . Democracy will not thrive and may not survive if our public officials are chosen by a small group of special interests who use the leverage of low voter turnout to capture the bureaucracy of government...

...The artist interprets everything in terms of his idea...