A switch to Reagan for a strong America
Novak, Michael
A SWITCH TO REAGAN: FOR A STRONG AMERICA I MICHAEL NOVAK M IY RECORD on supporting presidential candidates is such a poor one that I don't know why anyone would Icare. Early in i 968, I joined...
...I could not...
...Car- ter has assumed the sad position of the old Republicans: isolationism based on weakness abroad and "balanced budget" economics (which, of course, he cannot effect with- out greater productivity...
...It is the pious front he puts on it...
...They are concerned about a growing economy...
...THROWING MY VOTE-- TO ANDERSON RICHARD C. WADE T HE CENTRAL ISSUE of the campaign is the four-year stewardship of the presidency by Jimmy Carter...
...He is not as sophisticated as some with graduate school training, but on his feet he thinks as quickly as, and with greater common sense, clarity, and humor than, the two pietists with whom he fs competing for our votes...
...The power and influence of this country around the world is lower now than it has been for over a half century...
...I thought it reflected the two sides of Reagan--the union or- ganizer of his early years and the conservative turn of his later years...
...The president's reluctance to defend his record is understandable...
...The collapse of Iran opened the door to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan...
...The Soviets have massed twenty-seven divisions on the Iranian border;, the 1,800 U.S...
...As I write, recent polls suggest that Carter is slightly ahead of Reagan nationally and leading in key states like New York, Texas, Illinois and Pennsylvania...
...Is Salt II closer to ratification now than in 1976...
...The only way to prevent war is to be willing to resist Soviet probes...
...I wish he had one--and were good at it...
...These, of course, are complex judgments...
...I opposed him but thought the campaign against him was mean, unfair, and hysterical, especially among professors and educational leaders like Clark Kerr...
...The two central ideas on which the campaign of 1980 is being fought are military preparedness and economic policy...
...The Soviet threat is as awesome as that of Hitler, first because it represents military forces greater than Hitler's (although Hitler was close to gaining a then unrivaled atomic power with intercontinental missiles), second because its internal Commonweal: 590 worKlvlew requires me suppression ot Ilt)erty everywhere Ior its own perpetuity...
...While Carter fiddles songs of peace, the structure of peace is collapsing...
...I resonate strongly to the pessimism Solzehnitsyn bears with him from the Gulag...
...The productive capacity of the United States must be set again on an upward track...
...It is not easy for a Democrat, who means to remain one, to support Reagan openly...
...Reagan was elected governor of California in the first election in which I took part in that state after moving to 24 October 1980:589 Stanford...
...Ideological resistance against Reagan softened during his two terms, but it always remained (and still remains) a liberal ritual to dismiss him as beneath serious consideration...
...A British friend of mine commented that Reagan always tries to do and say the decent thing and gener- ates feelings of health and purpose...
...He is a dirty, mean campaigner...
...If he does not, I am happy to have publicly expressed my admiration for what he is trying to do...
...If one supposes that Carter is (or is not, it hardly matters) a good man at heart, but wholly lacking in agoverning idea, with almost no skills at the tasks of government (as opposed to those of public relations and electioneering), it is not hard to figure out what he will do next...
...I like and admire him simply as a man...
...Peace is obtainable through the dangerous decade ahead only through intense efforts to arm ourselves...
...Besides, he borrowed from an early essay of mine the themes "work, family, neighborhood, strength, and liberty," and is making a more intelligent and concerted effort than any Republican in history to represent the working class and sub- urban ethnic voters who have so often voted Democratic and been so often deserted by its party activists...
...For this reason, I stand with those who want to redress the errors of the last eight years (including the strategic retreat engineered by Nixon and Kissinger...
...He is a comfortable man...
...That is a tragic error of judgment, as dreadful events will probably demonstrate...
...It is more pleasant just to keep one's mouth shut...
...The Republicans--under Reagan, but not under Ford (whose advisors are undercutting Reagan and Kemp)--are seizing the traditional Democratic position...
...During his administration, inflation has depleted the resources of each of us by some thirty percent...
...But, as voters, we have a right to ask certain elementary questions about the conduct of our foreign policy and the management of the economy over the past four years...
...Carter tries to please the left in foreign policy and the right on economic policy...
...Virtually overnight Anderson changed his politics to meet the specifications: even more to the left than Carter was on foreign policy and minority issues, faintly conservative on fiscal issues--just the right moralistic mix for educated persons who "think for themselves" and are "different...
...1 even tried to interview Donald Segretti's father privately, in Italian, to try to break the Watergate case, but failed...
...I like a,touch of sulphur in a candidate, so it is not Carter's hardball politics that offends me...
...p ERHAPS it is only a Slavic sense of pessimism and gloom which afflicts me...
...The fact needs no new 24 .October 1980:591...
...My reasons are not like those of the Kennedy Supporters...
...By April of 1976, I began to think that Jimmy Carter didn't have any vision of what he wanted to do, was naive, and might prove to be both incompetent and a fraud...
...He has reduced his press conferences to an occasional event, and then treats them as a campaign appearance, not as serious give-and-take with reporters on the crucial questions facing the nation...
...Facing strength, the Soviets will draw back...
...In foreign policy: Are our relations with our European allies better now than they were in 1976...
...it looks like a Carter victory...
...Moreover, he has successfully avoided having to defend his record directly bywriggling out of promised debates with his opponents both in the primaries and the general election...
...Weakness encourages war...
...His commercials dwelt on the "character" of Senator Edward M. Kennedy and now on Governor Ronald Reagan's, not on whatever "accomplish- ments" his adminstration might claim over the past four years...
...Most of my CDM friends supported Carter...
...Is American influence in Latin America, especially the Caribbean, stronger now than in 1976...
...Reagan is a builder, not a knocker...
...itself is embroiled in Soviet-supported Marxist entanglements in Nicaragua, Panama, Cuba, Jamaica, and perhaps El Salvador and Honduras...
...Much as I admired McCarthy, I did not like his claim that the educated and the sensitive supported him...
...marines in the Indian Ocean are no credible dete.r- rent...
...The Soviet-armed Iraqi are, as I write, marching into Iran...
...In 1972, I wanted Muskie, who more andmore sounded like McGovern, until McGovem is what we got...
...On both these points, Reagan has occupied ground which the old ADA liberals used to hold: internationalism based on military preparedness and a highly productive economy...
...He handed it over to Jerry Brown--as the latter was obliged to admit--in excellent fiscal shape...
...Carter is forever looking into the mirror of his own vanity,trying to strike'a profile in courage for someone or other...
...With one foot in Georgia and one foot in Massachusetts, he feels pain right about Washington...
...He ran a good, relatively scandal-free, attractive, sound state government...
...The left has been triumphant since Vietnam...
...Not long ago, in recognition of my efforts (which had, alas, been observed by others) Bill Brock gave me an award as the Republican's Favorite Democrat, but on condition that I would never endorse a Republican, even mentally...
...This, too, endears him to me...
...Many on the left seem to regard a strong U.S...
...Are we closer to the control of atomic weapons now thah we were in 1976...
...For over a year he has tried to switch the emphasis to his opponents' personalities rather than to his own performance...
...Events have forced me, despite myself, to return his award since I can no longer honor its condition...
...Reagan is the only can- didate we have...
...But the paramount issue is both the imbalance of conventional forces and the low state of operational readi- ness even of our outnumbered forces...
...viz., that Carter is not "lib eral" enough...
...And I apologize if my endorsement dooms him...
...He is in love with his own "integrity"--and will do anything he needs to make it prevail, you can depend on it...
...It will not be long before the U.S...
...Then after Kennedy died and Humphrey was nominated, I wrote urging anti-war Democrats not to support Hubert Humphrey, even though that meant Nixon might win, on the grounds that we needed to rebuild the party for 1972...
...On both, Reagan's positions represent hope and those of Cartei" disaster...
...For 1975, out of loyalty and esteem, I supported Sargent Shriver (whose moves to the left disappointed me) but told Jimmy'Carter, who asked to see me in July 1 975, that he'd do very well and I'd be glad to support him if Shriver failed...
...What Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., thought of as "the bad Bobby" is the one I liked...
...They ought to be thrown on the defensive themselves for the next fifty years, if the world desires fifty years of peace...
...I wish he were younger and more experienced in Washington...
...We are now plummeting towards war because we are deceived by our own desire for peace...
...The strategic vulnerability of the U.S...
...The prognosis is bleak...
...We've had fifteen years of contempt for our own political economy, this rare experiment among the world's nations...
...Although I had not quite formu- lated the concept, I was already offended by the highly edu- cated new class, at that time liberal rather than radical...
...Most highly educated persons I meet, especially in the East, put him down severely and regard those who support him with horror...
...Those events can be prevented by strength and determination...
...otherwise, infla- tion and deterioration will slowly (or rapidly) destroy us...
...It is not required that we resurrect the politics of the 1950s, but that we face the far grimmer realities ahead of us in the 1980s...
...He has faced relentless heavy weather from the more sophisticated parts of our population...
...The lesson seems to be so obvious...
...Is the dollar stronger abroad now than it was in 1976...
...Personality aside, his policies have so reduced U.S...
...My objections are not to his ideology...
...To be sure, my reasoning seems more consistent to me than it may to others...
...I worked extremely hard for McGovem, the party, and for Mr...
...The president would prefer it otherwise...
...Early in i 968, I joined a candlelight demonstration signing petitions for Eugene McCarthy to appear on the California ballot, but then after Indiana and Nebraska, switched to Robert Kennedy, just in time to help him lose in Oregon (where 1 stumped for him and learned the right and the wrong way to pronounce "Oregon...
...The pressure on Mexico and Venezuela will be great...
...After the deceptiveness of Nixon, the niceness of Ford, and the mean hypocrisies of Carter's pieties, I look forward to the implacable affability of Ronald Reagan...
...Carter gives the world piety and love with both barrels...
...After the Democratic convention in Chicago in 1968, on which I reported for Commonweal, I determined that the Democratic party needed to be built up around its working-class and ethnic base...
...Some might say that Carter is an easy grader, but even the president himself considers his performance as mediocre...
...I begin from the fact that I cannot tolerate the thought of another four years of Jimmy Carter...
...The left minimizes Soviet superiority...
...They called it hypocrisy...
...When asked by the press how he would grade his own performance, he gave himself a "C" on both domestic and foreign policy...
...Our armed forces have deteriorated in readiness, trained manpower, state of repair, and deterrent value...
...Each of us must choose where we stand...
...He seemed to me more affable, decent, and commonsensical--less extremist, less paranoid--than those "liberals" who despised him...
...Is the Middle East more stable now than it was in 1976...
...Anderson may be considered to be running for the presidency of a major college, on the irresistible grounds of being a former Republican with Kennedy-like positions who is a Certified Independent and a proven fundraiser...
...nuclear force is also a grievous worry...
...The issue is primarily one of conventional forces and clear insight into the aims of marxists of many varieties but one major international source of arms and aid...
...To me, the situation, mutatis mutandis, is like that of the late 1930s...
...How one interprets the meaning of the Soviet empire is the number one political issue of our genera- tion...
...Are American products more competitive in international markets now than in 1976...
...to lose military effectiveness in the Middle East...
...He embraced the Shah in January 1978, ~ind told him how Jimmy Carter and yes, the people of Iran, "love" their Shah (both about equally, as events of 1978-1979 later showed...
...Reagan struck me as far more intelligent than many who challenged him...
...I joined the Coalition for a Democratic Majority after the election...
...I hope Reagan wins...
...He will always do the thing which (a) makes him look most pious, to one constituency or another...
...But the alternatives--Carter and Anderson-- seem to me far more dangerous...
...Whereupon Jackson lost...
...His recent assault on Governor Reagan's "racism" (orchestrated over several weeks through present and former cabinet officials and the Rafshoon agency) was, typically, below the belt...
...In my view, the left was correct in its resistance to the war in Vietnam, but absorbed from that war the wrong lesson...
...He was comfortable with political and economic princi- ples from both traditions...
...Surrogates are more useful to them than their own forces...
...and (b) most helps to counter whatever damaging perception of him is showing up in Pat Caddell's polls...
...He could make both work as an executive...
...In a certain desperation--the Soviet threat being very much on my mind, and the deterioration in the position of Israel and the entire Mid-East, too--I flew to Pennsylvania to help Senator Jackson in that critical primary...
...The righteousness and upper class bias of the left had bothered me in the McCarthy campaign...
...If some still doubt whether or not there is a "new class" in American life, they might inspect the Anderson constituency...
...I remember the New Republic gloating that, beneath his conservative rhetoric, he was really, if one regarded his programs, a liberal in disguise...
...In the fall, I remained publicly neutral but privately rootC'xl for Ford, who lost...
...Reagan's policies show higher probabilities of peace than Carter's do...
...I never saw him worsted in press conference, debate, or public dis- pute...
...Facing our present weakness, they choose targets at their leisure...
...I ad- mired his pragmatism, sound government, and obvious execu- tive skills...
...The American left, egging on the worst in Carter (Kennedy's stated views are even worse than Carter's), is leading the country into war with silly protestations of peace...
...In economic matters, Carter's policies involve phenomen- ally high taxes on productivity and rapid descent into zero-sum factionalism...
...Carter has allowed the U.S...
...It is unlikely that disarmament will prevent them...
...military presence, especially in well-equipped, fully staffed, operationally ready conventional forces, as the main enemy of world peace...
...The pie will grow smaller and organized factions will fight for share of it...
...When brother Jimmy loves you is the time to be on guard...
...He is now Ivy League timber...
...military capabilities around the world that danger spots are multiplying, wars are breaking out like hives, and the great climax Solzhenitsyn predicts draws nearer...
...Those who remember his gr~ttuitous pettiness toward Hubert Humphrey and Henry Jackson in 1976 came to understand for themselves the sleazy history of Carter's earlier Georgia campaigns...
...He could have gracefully retired this year since he had said many times that a president should have only one term, albeit a six-year one...
...It carries over into his foreign policy...
...Is the Russian influence in Africa less now than it was in 1976...
...That is surely the fundamental issue...
...What you see is what you get...
...Reagan under- stands the present danger, Carter is at sea...
...Since I think that would be a disaster of major proportions, and since I admire Reagan's two basic positions, his approach, and his good sense, I would forever feel cow- ardly if I did not say publicly what I privately think...
...That process must be halted, indeed reversed...
...Nor is this merely a matter of temperament or style...
...In 1972, accordingly, I took a year's leave of absence to help any Democrat get elected, working first for Muskie and then after the convention, for McGovern...
...I believe he understands the real Marxism as our own marxists do not...
...There is a final reason why I prefer Reagan...
...Senator Kennedy's irrelevance is illustrated by his fail- ure even to mention that issue at the Democratic convention...
...But he chose to run for reelection with the broad strategy of turning the issue to his opponents' perceived weaknesses rather than to his own record...
...Indeed, radicalization in those days meant, first of all, rebellion against the "corporate liberalism" of the new experts...
...In Gary and in Omaha, Bobby Kennedy had sounded the notes I thought important--crime, a coalition of working class whites and blacks, a strong international position...
...Shriver, at a high cost to my family, for which we are still paying, but by the end was disgusted with the left...
...The answers to these questions are obviously no...
Vol. 107 • October 1980 • No. 19
