TIME: Almanac 1990/1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso/time/caps/80/80capcam.4

Text File | 1990-12-01 | 12KB | 218 lines

                ú                                                          ó««Finally Caught by Catch--22

With no chance of winning, Anderson vows to fight on

October 13, 1980

The independent candidacy of John Anderson has always faced a kind of
Catch-22 dilemma:  millions of Americans were not prepared to vote
for him unless they were convinced that he had a chance to win.  But
he had no chance to win unless enough Americans backed him in the
polls so that the voters thought he could win.  Complicating his
problem, the experienced professionals in both parties predicted
repeatedly that as the election approached, Anderson's support would
fade.  Last week those predictions, party self-fulling, looked
accurate.

The most devastating blow to Anderson's prospects was a New York
Times/CBS news survey showing that his long-awaited clear shot at
achieving new public stature, the debate with Ronald Reagan, had
fizzled.  The poll had figured Anderson's national support a weak 9%
before the debate--and rated him at exactly the same level afterward.
The only consolation for Anderson was that other polls still placed
him much higher (Harris at 19%, Gallup at 14%).  Anderson had
skillfully presented his issues and shown that his debating skills
were at least comparable to those of the Republican candidate, but
his campaign got none of the lift that it so sorely needed.  SOme of
his most ardent supporters conceded last week that Anderson had no
chance of victory in November.  It seemed increasingly unlikely that
the Independent Anderson would win even a single state.

Thus Anderson appears to have become just what he has always vowed he
would not be--a "spoiler" who would siphon off enough votes to alter
what would have been the outcome if Carter and Reagan had squared off
alone.  The Congressman briskly rejects this analysis.  Last week he
told TIME that if he does fail, he expects Reagan to win--but not
because of any result of his own candidacy.  Said he:  "I just will
not accept the idea that I am going to be responsible for Reagan's
winning.  Carter is losing votes because of Carter, because of his
performance, because so many people are just turned off by his utter
ineptitude.  It isn't really that they are all for Reagan, either.
But at least Reagan is the unknown evil; Carter is the known evil."

While not giving up, Anderson could offer only one vague reason for
thinking he might yet win.  "The tides of public opinion," he noted,
"are capable of shifting very dramatically for reasons that sometimes
are not easily discerned."

Looking back on his campaign, the snowy-thatched Independent admitted
he now realized that "to start a whole movement, a third force in
politics, in under six months is too short a period."  He also
claimed that Carter had benefited from two lucky breaks, just at a
time when many Democrats had seemed ready to abandon the President:
1) the economy had picked up slightly "for reasons that had nothing
to do with what the Administration did" and 2) Reagan had stumbled
badly at first and "made Carter look more viable than he is."

Quite rightly, Anderson takes pride in the fact that he began the
Republican primary campaign as a relatively obscure Congressman from
Illinois who barely rated an asterisk in national opinion ratings.
He wound up collecting some 2 million signatures on petitions that
should put him on every state ballot as an independent candidate on
Nov. 4--an achievement many experts had considered impossible.

Throughout much of his campaign, Anderson has boldly staked out
positions on issues that offer a clear third choice.  The fact that
they may not be popular did not deter him.  His 50 cents-per-gal. gas
tax, which would be used to cut Social Security taxes, did not endear
him to the nation's automobile owners, but would force the U.S. to
restrict its driving and hence its dependence on Middle Eastern oil--
a goal that seemed especially worthy last week as the war in the gulf
continued.  Anderson's opposition to the mobile MX missile and to
income tax cuts ran against election-year sentiment, as did his
backing of Carter's embargo on sales of grain to the Soviet Union--a
stand the Congressman took in Iowa.

If Anderson peppered his campaign with a buckshot array of
intelligent, unorthodox attacks on specific problems, he nevertheless
failed to project the vision that would give wings to a political
movement capable of upsetting the two-party system.  He might well
complain that his 317-page platform was barely read, much less
reported.  Still the longtime political conservative, who had
moderated his views enough to be endorsed by New York's Liberal Party
and the New Republic, gambled mainly on riding a wave of anti-Carter
and anti-Reagan sentiment.  That, clearly, was not enough.

The Independent's campaign has been flawed from the beginning by its
own failure to give a large cross section of Americans hard and
positive reasons to vote for him.  What is more, in a campaign once
again dominated by personality and TV imagery, Anderson was
handicapped.  To his credit, he has shunned much of his image-
shapers' advice to win votes by artificially changing his platform
behavior.  Instead, Anderson has remained true to himself:
erratically ebullient, enthused, inspiring, as well as dour, bored,
cranky and preachy. In a post-debate memo to Anderson, Stewart Mott,
a millionaire backer, wrote sympathetically as well as critically:
"That fateful evening, you needed to come across as sensational,
exciting, lively, endearing.  Instead you were stiff, statistical,
stubborn, unsmiling--terrible body language.  We know you can be 100%
better than that in likability."

In recent weeks Anderson has, however, shown that he can take
criticism with good humor and heed some advice.  After the Washington
Post reported that a TV correspondent had to search through hours of
videotape to find any film showing him waving and smiling, the
candidate walked out on a stage at the University of Maine with a big
grin and a wave.  Then he told the responsive crowd that he had just
read the Post article.  When a reporter asked in a Boston press
conference why he could take days off when his campaign was lagging,
Anderson bristled, asking:  "Would you begrudge me one day off out of
seven?"  After other reporters mockingly beat the questioner with
their notebooks, shouting their demands for a day off as well,
Anderson took the cue.  When leaving the room, he whacked the
reporter on the head with his own note pad--to the laughter of the
press corps.

There have been tactical mistakes in the Anderson campaign.  He
admits that he switched top campaign staff positions too often at
first.   His aides are still not convinced that his chief adviser,
David Garth, made the right decision in mid-August when he asked some
75,000 campaign workers to work solely on fund-raising.  Many
declined because they found cadging money odious, and thus were lost
to field work such as organizing rallies and getting pro-Anderson
voters registered.

Still, the lack of money has been a major Anderson problem.  While
his campaign has netted nearly $8 million since April 24, is now
needs at least another $1 million for a final TV ad drive.  Anderson
was buoyed last week by a favorable ruling from the Federal Election
Commission that his campaign could borrow from banks against the
federal funds he will receive if he gets 5% or more of the November
vote.  The Democratic national Committee had been warning that such
loans were illegal, and banks has been holding up Anderson's
application.  Now his aides expect to announce a successful loan deal
this week.

If Anderson does get the loan, he will have to finish the race so
that he can pay it back.  Despite a concerted drive last week by the
Carter campaign, led by Vice President Walter Mondale, to pressure
Anderson into pulling out, he vowed to cross the November finish
line, irrespective of which candidate he hurts or helps.

A sampling of current Anderson supporters taken by TIME
correspondents showed that he has a loyal following that seems
determined to ride out the race with him.  These Anderson backers
reject the notion that their votes should be influenced by whether or
not Anderson can win.  "It is everyone's obligation to vote their
conscience," argued George Ward, a consulting engineer in Washington,
Conn.  Insisted Margaret Gilvar, a housewife in Oakham, Mass.:  "It
is more important that citizens who are concerned make a protest than
be swayed by the impact an Anderson vote could have on the other
candidacies."  Contended Chicago Attorney Andrew Williams:  "The fact
that Anderson's chances are reduced doesn't make Carter or Reagan
look any better."  Asked Ann Lewis, a nursery school teacher in
Ferndale, Mich."  "Why can't a vote for Anderson be a vote for
Anderson?"

Summed up Laurie Ruskin, a student at Oakland Community College in
Bloomfield Hills, Mich."  "If everyone who said they weren't going to
vote for Anderson because they were afraid they'd be wasting their
vote did vote for him, he'd have an excellent chance of winning."
Back to Catch-22.

By Ed Magnuson.
Reported by Eileen Shields with Anderson

"Secure in My Own Mind"

Flying from Denver to Los Angeles last week in his chartered Boeing
727, John Anderson talked with TIME Correspondent Eileen Shields and
looked back at his distinctive quest for the presidency.

Q. Couldn't you avoid accusations of being the spoiler by getting out
of the race now?

A. I am willing to live with the accusations.  The political
theologians will be engaging in disputations about the meaning of the
election--that's how they make their living.  I feel secure in my own
mind that what I am doing is right.

Q. What have you accomplished?

A. I have fought a good, clean, hard battle to get on the ballot,
persevering over odds that people originally thought were impossible.
I have rekindled the enthusiasm of young people with the process that
was dormant, if not dead.  I raised terribly important issues that
otherwise would simply have been left on the shelf.  The issues will
live after me.  This country has to wake up and face its problems in
a new and a different way.  Maybe it will take a year, maybe it will
take longer, but others will think back on what I said and whit I did
and be heartened and encouraged to do the same thing.

Q. But if you can't win, why fight on?

A. I am not writing my political obituary on the first of October
with five weeks to go.  But all of us have pride and self-esteem.  We
have to be good at what we are doing.  One of the things that mean a
great deal to me is that all those people come up to me and say,
"Thank you, John, for giving me a choice."  That touches me.  I am
sufficiently emotional that I carry away a feeling of commitment to
those people.  It is not one that I would lightly abandon.

Q. Is this a matter of personal ego?

A. No, I am a maverick with a cause:  the whole philosophy of a new
realism.  The cause is more important than the individual.  If it
were just a matter of satisfying some personal ambition, I would
surely have given up the fight a long time ago.

Q. You really still think that you can win?

A. Don't ask me how. Don't ask me why.  I am not that wise.  But the
potential is there.  I will try.  I will try.

Q. Why not start now to think about the '84 election?

Anderson paused.  He began to smile.  He turned to Correspondent
Shields and said:  "And she noted that there was a smile.  Give me at
least until the fifth of November."