John Who?
Allen, Lafe F.
The campaign JOHN WHO? DARK HORSE OF A DIFFERENT COLOR JOHN B. ANDERSON may have a higher recognition rating than Earl Vern Blackjack Stevens, Prophet Elijah or Lord Robert Benedict—who are...
...He was elected state's attorney, and then successfully ran for Congress in 1960...
...This larger goal—at least for him—included protesting the war in Vietnam...
...But his idea for a 50-cents-a-gallon gas tax is one which is getting wide attention—especially on the editorial pages...
...against school prayers...
...served two-and-one-half years in the U.S...
...He doesn't conclusively rule out that possibility but considers it "highly improbable" that he would be a candidate for the vicepresidency...
...There was nothing in this early congressional career to presage what Anderson's more conservative Republican brethren were later to consider party apostasy in the first degree...
...Anderson projects himself as a Republican Democrats could happily vote for—assuming the unlikely fact that his party will give them a chance to do so...
...Foreign Service, as a staff advisor to the United States High Commissioner for Germany in West Berlin, returned home to Rockford in 1955 to practice law...
...has a choice: "We can tax ourselves in the form of a higher gasoline tax, or we can allow OPEC to tax us in the form of higher and higher crude oil prices...
...he adds that it is not the "sort of challenge that led me to give up my career in the House and seek the nomination for president...
...Although he denies undergoing the road-to-Damascus conversion of Saint Paul, Anderson did have a change of political heart in the mid to late '60s...
...In January 1969, after a vigorous campaign, Anderson was elected by his House Republican colleagues to succeed Melvin R. Laird as Chairman of the House Republican Conference— the third highest job in the House Republican hierarchy...
...He thinks people ought to be able to exclude from taxable income money they intend to use as the down payment on a home...
...For example, only 22 percent of 1,555 adults questioned in a Gallup Poll last September had ever heard of the liberal Republican Congressman from Rockford, Illinois...
...He concedes that the need to bring federal receipts and outlays into balance is critical, but he adds: "In itself a balanced budget will not reverse this country's long-term decline in productivity growth, or the resulting decline in the growth of real income...
...Reducing consumption would also reduce our dependence on foreign supplies...
...Tax policies, and especially tax cuts, can play a very essential role in reinvigorating the private sector, but tax cuts do not balance budgets...
...While he favors a balanced budget, Anderson declares he's not going to do his balancing act "on the backs of the poor...
...I don't care whether you call me a conservative or a liberal," he says, "so long as you give me credit for having ideas...
...DARK HORSE OF A DIFFERENT COLOR JOHN B. ANDERSON may have a higher recognition rating than Earl Vern Blackjack Stevens, Prophet Elijah or Lord Robert Benedict—who are also candidates for the presidency—but his name is scarcely a household word...
...Those not in the Social Security system would get offsetting tax relief in other ways...
...Anderson is entering primaries where he has hopes of winning moderate-to-liberal Republican votes while his conservaCommonweal: 6 tive rivals are carving each other up trying to garner the right-wing vote...
...Then, with these respectable showings in New England under his belt, he would head into his native midwest for the important Illinois primary March 18, followed by the Wisconsin primary April 1. Anderson reminds whoever will listen that he's not a' 'political neophyte...
...Anderson recently spoke and voted against the proposed Constitutional amendment to ban busing for purposes of school desegregation, winning editorial praise from the New York Times for "his willingness to rise above partisanship on an incendiary issue...
...Not only does John Anderson's name fail to ring a bell with most Americans, but some who do know him don't take his candidacy seriously—they think he's too serious...
...I' m not going to cut back on food stamps, unemployment compensation and other programs that are basic in achieving at least a minimum level of decency for the American people...
...I make this proposal because it is critically important that we reduce our dependence on foreign oil not in 1990, or 1985, or next year—but now...
...He attributed his turn leftward to a "process of maturation...
...Is the Cbureb an Idol...
...Anderson's campaign manager, Ambassador William Bradford, who recently left the U.S...
...No wonder so many political writers say he isn't a 'serious candidate.' " The son of a Swedish immigrant who ran a grocery store in Rockford, Illinois, John Anderson is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of Illinois, where he earned both his undergraduate and law degrees...
...That's the kind of very carefully structured tax relief needed rather than the old-style, across the board reduction that is designed to generate more consumption...
...Anderson has frequently been mentioned as an ideal vicepresidential candidate on the Republican ticket...
...Anderson believes the U.S...
...Even perennial presidential hopeful Harold Stassen was recognized by 42 percent of those polled...
...opposing the death penalty...
...favoring extension of the Equal Rights Amendment...
...He voted 18 January 1980: 5 against additional appropriations for the B-l bomber and he's opposed to building the MX missile...
...He dutifully opposed, for example, President John F. Kennedy's plan to create a new department for Housing and Urban Development and fought all Democratic proposals to expand federal welfare programs and increase assistance to the cities...
...To emphasize his devotion to the conservative cause, Anderson, a superb public speaker, was a member of the so-called "Paul Revere Team" which criss-crossed the country in 1964 drumming up votes for the Republican's ultraconservative presidential candidate, Barry Goldwater...
...If he accomplishes nothing else in his campaign, he hopes he can educate his fellow Republicans that they simply have to reach out to blacks, women, social activists, the blue-collar worker, the under-privileged—to show them that the GOP can be progressive and innovative and interested in their problems...
...He later received a Masters of Law degree at Harvard...
...Anderson," the Chicago Tribune observed,' 'is candidly facing up to a serious unpleasant reality with an eminently workable if admittedly painful solution, just as he'd have to do as president...
...The emphasis in this country has to be on investment and not simply consumption...
...In the economic area, Anderson notes there are those today who- would offer up balanced budgets and large tax cuts as "magical panaceas" for the country's economic ills...
...I do not intend to lose now...
...LAFE F. ALLEN 18 January 1980: 7...
...Having ideas, however, doesn't do much good if they go unreported—which is what happens too often to many of Anderson's thoughts...
...He's as pleased as punch with all those Republican opponents to his right—nine at last count, and Jerry Ford ready to accept the mantle if his party becomes stalemated in Detroit next July...
...I have, in fact, never lost a political contest...
...He says we need to deregulate the pricing and allocation of gasoline, just as we are now deregulating the price of domestic crude oil...
...Army during World War II...
...Anderson readily concedes that a 50-cents-a-gallon levy would be a heavy tax indeed, one we ought not even consider unless its proceeds—estimated at $50 billion to $60 billion a year—can be recycled immediately to the taxpayer...
...Moreover, to the extent that they merely encourage taxpayers to spend more and go deeper into debt, they are clearly inflationary in today's economic environment...
...I have won ten elections to Congress...
...today is a Republican, Anderson argues that the GOP has to become' 'coalition minded'' if it hopes to win the White House again...
...On six occasions I was elected as the third ranking Republican in the House of Representatives...
...Such a levy—he calls it an "emergency conservation tax"—could reduce our gasoline consumption by 5 to 10 percent, he argues, and save 365,000 to 730,000 barrels of fuel per day for more critical uses like heating homes...
...supporting freedom of choice on abortion...
...He's the only one of the Republican presidential hopefuls who actively supports SALT II, and he was a strong supporter of the Panama Canal treaties...
...He would achieve this return by funneling the new tax collections into the Social Security trust funds, thereby financing substantial cutbacks in existing payroll taxes...
...He favors establishing a new International Energy Development Agency to provide low-interest loans and technical assistance to nonOPEC countries for the exploration and commercial development of their oil, natural gas, and coal reserves._________ NEXT: Special Issue on Theology "The Responsibility of Theologians" by Bernard J. Coble looks behind and beyond the turmoil over Hans Kung and Eduard Schillebeeckx...
...He's for gun control...
...and after a stint in the U.S...
...He favors increased federal aid to education, an expanded food stamp program, consumer protection...
...Anderson was fittingly rewarded for his true-blue conservatism when the right-wing Americans for Constitutional Ac^ tion gave him a whopping 88 percent approval rating over his first six years in office..(In 1978, the same organization dropped Anderson to a 44 percent rating—21 points lower than the 65 percent approval rating the liberal Americans for Democratic Action gave him...
...The longer you serve, the more you realize what you try to do is reconcile the view of yoqr district with the larger goal of trying to be aware of issues of a national scale...
...A statement by Charles Davis—with comments by Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza, Richard'John Neuhaus, John L. McKenzie, Dolores Leckey, Philip J. Murnion, and Martin E. Anderson believes we need to develop in cooperation with Japan and Western Europe an appropriate response to OPEC, including accelerated conservation measures, an expansion of our strategic petroleum reserves, a policy of energy proliferation in the non-OPEC nations of the third world, joint research into alternative energy technologies, and finally a joint counter-cartel strategy that would give non-OPEC oil preferred access to our markets by imposing tariffs or some other mutually agreeable restrictions on OPEC oil...
...Anderson's also for a windfall profits tax to finance energy conservation and to expedite technological and commercial development of alternative energy sources...
...They point, for example, to his advocacy of a 50-cents-a-gallon tax on gasoline to substantiate their belief...
...Noting that only about one out of four registered voters in the U.S...
...The kinds of tax cuts Anderson favors are specifically tailored—they would exclude from adjusted gross income a certain amount of interest income...
...Foreign Service after twenty-seven years as a diplomat, says Anderson hopes to "win, place or show" in the New Hampshire primary February 26, and do the same thing a week later in neighboring Massachusetts...
Vol. 107 • January 1980 • No. 1
