The Campaign and the Money Game
GLASS, ANDREW J.
Washington-USA THE CAMPAIGN AND THE MONEY GAME By Andrew J.Glass Washington Considering what a sour affair the Presidential campaign is turning out to be-given the general unhappiness with the...
...William Casey, the wolf in the hen house whom Richard Nixon once put in charge of regulating Wall Street, heads the latter group, which seems to be moving into the ascendancy...
...Others drily suggest it will simply mean that Ronald Reagan, like Thomas Dewey in 1948, ran a lousy campaign...
...The projections are that Reagan will have $ 15 to $20 million more than Carter in his war chest for the final lap of the contest...
...Some editors, contemplating the possibility of a Reagan triumph, have begun to think about reshuffling their Washington staffs to shoot for the Pulitzer Prize that would almost certainly go to any reporter catching the second-tier Reaganites with their hands in the cookie jar...
...Once more, Carter's closest friends were not doing him a great service...
...Yet should the Anderson phenomenon in fan turn out to be an empty balloon, and should Carter surmount the financial crunch, the victory would not be a testament to the President's political skills...
...The problem they insisted, was with the public relations types who had failed to properly market the results...
...In 1976, state party organizations were not a factor because they were barred from devoting more than $1,000 to the Presidential campaigns...
...Apparently no one is in charge there...
...Both the Carter and Reagan camps think that Anderson will fade by the end of this month because, as Casey observes, "People don't want to waste their votes...
...In contrast, the extra Democratic funds are not expected to lop $9 million...
...In the meantime, however, Reagan is doing all he can to build up Anderson, notably by refusing to debate Carter unless the self-propelled candidate from Illinois gets equal billing...
...Only reluctantly did he accept his more astute political handlers' analysis that the record of his first term was not a salable item and the election would be won or lost on his ability to make Reagan the issue...
...If Reagan loses, Casey says, it will mean that "America has lost control over its destiny...
...Anderson milked this tactic so assiduously in his Baltimore television encounter with Reagan that it appeared at times they were talking past each other and reaching out to different audiences...
...One consequence of the Democratic shortfall will be to oblige the President to use some $8 million from his basic 1040 fund for such essential campaign chores as voter registration drives...
...Washington-USA THE CAMPAIGN AND THE MONEY GAME By Andrew J.Glass Washington Considering what a sour affair the Presidential campaign is turning out to be-given the general unhappiness with the candidates and the absence of any serious public dialogue-It is not surprising that one-fifth of the electorate has yet to decide how it will vote...
...The real business of government would be conducted by such heavies as Casey, Al Haig, Big John Connally, Donald Rumsfeld, George Schultz and the like, all of whom once worked for the Fallen One...
...In theory, of course, both top contenders are restricted to spending the same amount for the fall campaign-29.4 million in public funds specifically earmarked for each of the major parties...
...For what it's worth, the smart money in this town is on Carter...
...The gap exists in significant part because Carter has done a poor political job of building a firm national constituency...
...More to the point, since this undecided fifth holds the balance of power, no one is really in a position to predict whether Jimmy Carter or Ronald Reagan will be inaugurated come January...
...He talks freely about his concern, hoping the resulting publicity will serve as a brake on the President's anticipated malevolent move...
...Carter regards Anderson as a conservative phony made up in liberal dress by his impressario, David Garth (who at the Presidential level, it is instructive to recall, most recently failed in his efforts to sell the nation John V. Lindsay...
...Persistent suspicions in the Jewish community over the Administration's Mideast policies have kept wallets there largely closed to Carter...
...These include campaign literature, buttons, bumper stickers, and some polling expenses...
...The GOP strategists also may be persuaded that, as is frequently the case in politics, this year's Presidential contest ultimately will hinge on money-or the lack of it...
...In any event, the Reagan planners view their man as largely a front-office President who would push a few themes each time the TV minicams swung his way...
...As James Reston has commented, the strategy of running against the Reagan menace rather than on his own record, happens to be comfortable for Carta...
...Those who believe the President will be re-elected note that the recession he triggered to fight inflation (by adopting orthodox Republican economic principles) seems to be dissipating...
...Recognizing the realities, Anderson has set his sights on the disaffected Democratic constituency that views Ted Kennedy as its champion...
...The hope at Democratic headquarters is that the final blitz, portraying Reagan as a dangerous right-winger, will coincide with the collapse of the Anderson campaign in such critical states as New York and Illinois...
...The Carter camp has been dealing with the fiscal crisis by conserving its limited resources (as well as the President's time...
...During the last two weeks of October, an all-out drive against Reagan, will be mounted, using the bulk of Carter's $17 million ad budget...
...The people who won't leave this capital no matter who wins also tend to discount Reagan because of the evident disarray in his camp...
...They are expected to outspend the Democrats by as much as $10 million in television ads...
...It would simply show that the American electorate, when faced with a choice between a known humbler and an ignorant sloganeer, will stick with what it knows...
...The steering group for the Republican contender consists of a sulphurous bunch split down the middle between laid-back and loyal California retainers, with their Disneyland style, and Nixonites, who prefer flow charts and cost-efficiency studies...
...Casey worries about Carter pulling something funny in October that will cost his man the election...
...Complicating the situation for the odds-makers, to be sure, is the lively TV-network presence of John Anderson, the wild card in the deck...
...With Reagan peddling the politics of nostalgia, it might indeed be a tricky maneuver to suddenly redraw his image to match the complexities of the 1980s...
...Curiously, there has been little effort by the Reaganites to dispel the notion that their candidate is a simpleton...
...Such relatively solid Democratic blocs as the blacks and hispanics are not sufficiently enthused to spend heavily for him...
...Even then, at a key strategy meeting in Vice President Mondale's home on the same day in July that the Billy Carter case broke, several of the President's worshippers were still arguing that the President had compiled a great record in his first four years...
...As Harry Truman proved to an earlier generation of sceptics, they say, Americans are not in the habit of turning out an elected incumbent—unless, like Herbert Hoover, he happens to have the ill luck to be President during a depression...
...Under the new regulations, it is estimated that the Reagan kitty will be supplemented by as much as another $38 million provided by the Republican National Committee, various state and local party units and the so-called independent pro-Reagan committees...
...And the long, nasty primary battle with Kennedy-alienating important sectors of the party-has not helped swell his coffers either...
...Reagan intends to finance these activities through his state and local organizations, leaving him with a huge reserve for television ads...
...He genuinely regards the Republican challenger as an amiable, lazy old fool who doesn't know the first thing about the world economy or the international power structure, and who, therefore, would unwittingly get the country into a lot of trouble...
...Most of Anderson's votes would come out of Carter's hide, although probably not by the 7-1 margin the Carter pollsters claim...
...Carter has none of Nixon's propensity toward self-doubt...
...Anyone with an understanding of the Carter psyche knows that as the President watched the debate from the living quarters of the White House, he was barely able to contain his disdain...
...Andrew J. Glass a frequent New Leader contributor, is head of the Cox Newspapers bureau in Washington...
...But in reality the 1980 financial equation was changed last year when Congress, in a little noticed move, amended the campaign laws to allow state and local party units to spend unlimited sums on most Presidential-related activities...
...For example, travel aboard Air Force One has been curtailed, since it costs $31,000 per day in political funds to operate the plane...
...Only dire fears of a Reagan Presidency will loosen labor's purse strings on behalf of such an uncongenial incumbent...
...Perhaps they see the benefits of leaving him in the mold of a 1950's Norman Rockwell Saturday Evening Post cover...
Vol. 63 • October 1980 • No. 18
