The Crowd Pleasers

TWO DAYS AGO the Real Paper released a poll conducted by a University of New Hampshire political science class showing that less than two weeks ago more than 40 per cent of those eligible to vote in the primary today were still undecided about who to pick. The poll is just one of several showing an unusually large percentage of uncommitted voters, and it's indicative of a certain mood in the primary that may set the tone of the race right up until the national conventions this summer: the presidential contenders are just gushing with rhetoric, they move like reeds in the wind, swaying from week to week--and in some cases, from hour to hour--without any firm commitment or even lip service to issues or ideology.

This follows in the New Hampshire tradition of "political" primaries, of William Loeb, the kike-teaser, the publisher who turned steadfast Edmund Muskie into a tear-filled bundle of Ibogaine-scotted nerves on a flatbed truck in 1972. But this primary is greater than William Loeb, who incidentally has gone so far to remove his image of slander-mongerer as to publish Democratic candidates' press releases largely uncut and unedited. The 1976 primary's rhetoric is too thick, fast and furious for Loeb to pin any one candidate down--although it is to Birch Bayh's credit that he's received an editorial blast against his stands on gun control and abortion.

If it is politicking that is shaping this year's New Hampshire primary, then the kind of "political" image being presented by the two upstart candidates, Reagan and Carter, is worth looking into, if only to explain what might happen at today's polls. Inconsistencies crop up even more often, it seems, than the press has been reporting, especially at the "Citizens" Press Conferences" held by Reagan and the similar "Town Meetings" held by Democratic candidates.

Inconsistencies. A photographer for Gamma Photo Agency is on the trail for two weeks; he speaks with the kind of cynicism bred in the anti-war movement and demonstrations against war-engineer Walt Rostow, where Rostow says something like, "I've never seen the effects of napalm but it can't be all that bad," and he (photographer, then student) turns down house lights and starts up a film showing bombs falling on North Vietnam, while Rostow (unaware of screen behind) continues to defend the war. That cynicism creeps back when the Gamma man talks about Reagan who, according to the Village Voice, last week justified rejecting amnesty by saying that the war should have been made legal and the U.S. should have stayed in there and won.

The hero of the story: Allen Franken, young, just out of college, writes for NBC's new Saturday Night comedy show. The setting: Franken gets NBC press pass and follows Reagan around for a day in the backwaters of New Hampshire. The confrontation: the young turk gets Reagan's attention, violating a press hands-off policy during a "Citizens' Press Conference." The question, second-hand, is this: "Uh, Mr. Reagan, it seems today that you've said some contradictory things, and I'd like to inquire about it. At one point today, you told a group of people that you were against legislation of marijuana because you had read a study somewhere saying that it caused 'brain-damage.' At another point during the day you told another crowd that you were against laws requiring motor-cyclists to wear crash helmets because you thought it wasn't the government's job to legislate against actions by people that would harm only themselves. It's clear that anybody on a motorcycle going down the road at 60 mph is going to suffer brain damage if he crashes and hits his head, but there is no available evidence of any marijuana users ever suffering brain damage. Mr. Reagan, how can you explain this fraudulent civil libertarianism?"

The answer: several shades of green and red. The evasion: composed Reagan shoots back that he'd rather have a pilot flying his airplane drunk than high on grass because then he could tell that he was drunk and get him the hell out of there. Simple, sharp, insouciant, irrelevant, inconsistent.

Epilogue: as he gets back on the press bus, Matthew Russo, Reagan's assistant press secretary rips up kid Franken's press pass, telling him he's really not a reporter anyway.

REAGAN TWISTS and turns like a rattlesnake. When his invest-Social-Security-Trust-funds-in-the-stock-market concept didn't go over too well, he said he had only cited an expert's opinion. At a press conference on television two weeks ago Reagan was asked a specific question about a particular item on his list of $90 billion cuts in the federal budget. Again he said that these were expert economists who drew up this list and he had consulted with them and everything, but, uh, he wasn't quite aware of that particular item because, uh, these were trusted economists... he hadn't looked at the list yet is what he finally said, and he hadn't really approved it yet either.

However well Reagan is doing in the polls, he lost at least one supporter last weekend. Crimson photographer Tim Carlson spotted John Paul Laremy, an 8-year-old New Hampshireite at the Reagan rally in Manchester's huge smoke-filled armory. Paul was wearing three Reagan stickers on the back of his coat. The next night Carlson saw the same kid at the Carter rally in the East Ballroom of the Carpenter Motor Hotel, holding a "Jimmy Carter for President" sign. He investigated this sudden shift in allegiance and John Paul had this to say for his previous night's three stickers: "Why, isn't Mister Reagan still an actor?" Non-voting Laremy still hadn't explained why he supported the former governor from Georgia, until he said, "But, if Mister Carter is president I don't think he'll tell a lie."

A Boston journalist, cooped up in the Carpenter with a few drinks under his belt, smiled quietly when he heard the story about the Reagan-Carter switch: "The kid's right, they're both exactly the same."

IF RONALD REAGAN is a slithering reptile with rhetoric, Carter is a Snake Oil vendor. Last Saturday night at a Democratic Forum he sold himself like medicine that would cure a hundred diseases. And he would've named them if he could have--because Carter likes to fill time and his listeners' ears with long catalogues of problems, kinds of people, possible solutions, more kinds of people, another problem, another catalogue of the American character, etc. "We've got a good country," he says, mountains, fields, streams, valleys, you name it. "And we have a good system of government. Nixon, Watergate, Vietnam, Cambodia, ... haven't hurt it." There are problems, Carter says--unemployment, inflation--but he believes in the American character: "strength, wisdom, intelligence, courage..." The only specific solution he volunteered that was close to being specific was a new "sunshine law" to "open up the government" to public scrutiny.

Even during a questioning session, Carter doesn't get specific. When asked last Saturday about how he'd deal with management in the upcoming union contract negotiations this fall, Carter generalized. "There's no predictability about what's going to happen next," he says about the economy, then drifts into vague economic reforms before saying briefly that he could be a "center" for negotiations. And even when asked to "be precise" about a full employment program, Carter will only say Americans have to sell more products abroad, the government must "remove incentives for corporations to move overseas," and "channel R&D into areas that would have greater impact on our jobs." There are no hows or whys behind anything he says. Just teeth--Cheshire cat teeth with an elusive image behind him.

The Gamma photographer says a Peking news agency reporter covering the primary thinks Carter is "velly stlong" (or something to that effect).

Thomas L. Kelleher, a lawyer from Montana, isn't running in the New Hampshire primary. He's running in the Massachusetts Democratic primary next week, though, and he has some interesting thoughts to offer all the candidates for the rest of the presidential primary circuit: he supports a parliamentary form of government because with this system, he says, "Elections are based on issues, not personalities."

Reagan and Carter don't represent the entire spectrum of campaign images offered by candidates, but they seem to define right and center choices that, broadly speaking, make up the field. And if their basic approaches remain the same until the convention, Robert Kelleher's slogan sounds awfully appealing. The thick-eyebrowed attorney wants you to "Elect the Last President."