COMMENTS: Four More Years
Larner, Jeremy
(1) television is never in itself decisive. I learned this in 1972, when New York's most notorious TV operative confided to me how he would make John Lindsay president. In '84, the two debates...
...But since Watergate, a general cynicism has focused the press on the personal strategies of candidates winning votes...
...I said, "What kind of job...
...The voters preferred Reagan, not because his voice was more soothing, but because that soothing voice was telling them they didn't have to worry...
...The most depressing sight was the clusters of young males hanging out on streetcorners...
...Is there a way to say this so that Americans will accept it...
...I thought, perhaps at least he will make it out of here...
...A really skillful Democratic candidate would have to work out a way of saying—"Listen, folks, the human race might be on the way to destroying itself—and there 9 are no simple solutions"—and yet to get Americans to vote for him on the basis of his honesty, his commitment, and his grasp of the real difficulties...
...America, he said, is a land of God-given "destiny...
...I said, "What about your friends...
...Both parties play into this with endless variations of the "tough" stance, abroad and at home...
...You can't say Mondale...
...7) In short, the next great Democratic politician will be the man who develops the language to tell us —as citizens who are not isolated from the acts of other citizens, and as a nation that can no longer simply ignore or exploit other nations—how we can be at our best...
...Mondale, on the other hand, pulled himself together with grace, bite, and self-control once the nightmarish Democratic selection process was over...
...He said, "I got me a job...
...A group that recognizes that we must keep working in politics not merely to make things better—but to keep things from getting worse...
...One 18-year-old challenged me— "Who's stronger...
...4) The majority of American voters prefer, as of this moment, to go for what they can get and deny human and global interdependence...
...the pursuit of self-interest creates deserved prosperity...
...I said, "You'd be more likely to have a job...
...He, too, was voting for Reagan because of what he couldn't face...
...The alternatives are painful to contemplate because they do not lend themselves to unequivocal positions...
...2) On election day, I canvassed a rundown black neighborhood in Oakland—where Mondale workers were warmly greeted...
...10...
...Jesse Jackson used black votes as a means of promoting himself and intimidating Mondale—which made it easier for whites to vote for Reagan as a means of resentment and denial...
...The leader we are looking for would be a man who can convey the crucial importance of how we live and work in relation to others...
...The odds might be against him—but if he won, he might win enormous possibilities...
...The question Democrats can no longer answer is, What good does it do the average person to become a Democrat—and to what does he then belong...
...He said, "I'm in fast food"—with a grin that let me know he, too, knew he was stuck...
...5) The Democratic party itself doesn't want to face this—and in a presidential election turns itself into a shambles of backbiters and interest groups that command few troops...
...The answer must be, A world that has the maximum chance of decency...
...3) The Democrats will spend somewhat more money, but neither party is ready to deal with the problem of what has become a permanent black underclass—or even talk about what this does to our cities and our lives...
...In '84, the two debates showed Ronald Reagan as a man whose touch with reality is tenuous...
...Or we may not be at all...
...and by "standing tall" as John Wayne would do, we can keep the rest of the world in place...
...and therefore, survival...
...A group for whom the achievements of civilization involve tolerance and cooperation—and a well-documented suspicion of the workings of unchecked greed...
...And as for the ego-tripping aides who love to get themselves interviewed on what they are going to try next—they should be immediately fired...
...6) The politics of jingoism and superiority ought to be ruthlessly reported and derided...
...Reagan knew—and Mondale didn't— that a candidate only undermines himself discussing strategy...
...He said, "I got to look out for myself, man...
...Reagan won, not by the media, but by his message...
Vol. 32 • January 1985 • No. 1
