Document:McGovern the Dangerous Decoy
McGovern the Dangerous Decoy
"I was planning to stay home on Election Day this year, to protest Nixon's breaking the promises he made in '68... but now that McGovern has captured the Democratic nomination, I guess I'm going to have to go vote for old Tricky Dick, after all. The thought of McGovern as President really scares me. By comparison, NiXon seems good."
No doubt you've heard this "consider the alternative" line from quite a few people, already. And you'll be hearing it again and again, and again between now and November 7th. Nixon's professional fear mongers will be shouting it from the rooftops, in an effort to raise additional funds for their already-bloated campaign chest. "Responsible conservative" publications will echo the cry, albeit a bit less fervently. And millions of good people, who are sick at heart over Nixon's actions in the last two years, will give in and reluctantly troop to the polls in November, hold their noses, grit their teeth, and pull the lever beside the name of Richard Milhous Nixon.
Now, no doubt, if the Democrats had nominated Hubert Humphrey or Edmund Muskie, the Nixon tubthumpers would be hawking much the same line. But it would have fallen, to a large extent, on deaf ears. For somehow, old Hot-Air Hubert and Crying Ed Muskie just don't make very convincing bogeymen.
After all, a lot of people who voted for Nixon four years ago, because they thought he'd at least be better than HHH, have by now figured out that they were seduced and abandoned. For there is little in the record of the Nixon Administration (save its reluctant anti-bussing stance) that one cannot envision as fitting equally well into that of a Humphrey Administration, and there is little that HHH could have done beyond what Nixon has done... especially given the fact that Republicans in Congress would have fought tooth and nail if a Humphrey or Muakie had tried moet of the things they have meekly allowed Nixon to do.
McGovern, on the other hand, somehow retains the ability to terrify. For, although he is not in fact more radical than Humphrey or Muskie (his ADA rating, for instance, is lower than theirs), his image is considerably more radical. Indeed, he is perceived, by many people, as being a cross between Norman Thomas and Neville Chamberlain... a veritable witch's brew of socialism and surrender.
It is difficult to say how this image came into being. If one examines McGovern's voting-record carefully, it certainly doesn't hold up. He's a liberal, no question, but no more so than many other public figures generally regarded as being fairly moderate.
To some extent, of course, McGovern himself has carefully cultivated hie radical reputation, as a means of gaining the support of the youthful shock-troops who were eo vital to his success in the primary campaigns... and is now back-pedaling furiously, in order to appeal to the moderate-liberal, whose votes he needs in the general election.
And to some extent, he is simply the beneficiary-if that is the right word-of a curious phenomenon that occurs once every 24 years, as precisely as clockwork.
McGovern's proposed Federal Budget of S350 Billion is viewed as fiscally calamitous ... and so it would be. Meanwhile, Nixon, who campaigned against Kennedy in 1960 on a pledge to hold the Budget under SI 00 Billion, inaugurated hie Ad · ministration only nine years later with a Budget exceeding $200 Billion . .• and is now beating his chest and emitting cries to the effect that he will hold the line at S250 Billion. Judging from this record, there is little doubt that Nixon will be cloee to the S350 Billion level himself within four yean , if re-elected.
Of course, domestic policy is only part of the package one must consider in .-inga President (or potential Presidentl; foreign policy must also be taken into accounL And here , as on the domestic scene, Nixon', performance offen little more hope than McGovern's promises.
For Nixon has done everything in his power to "build bridges" to the most op preuively totalitarian regimes in the world thegovernments of Soviet RU111ia and Red China. When he could have used the threat of cutting oU foreign aid fa good idea, in any instancel to hold our mppoeed "friends" in line at the UN, he sat on his hands and let these rented allies un-t theNationalist Chinese delegation, and seat in its place the murderous Pek!n¥. regime. And then, his UN ambassador didn t even have the good grace to follow the lead of the Nationalist Chinese, and walk out of that assemblage of pompous pipsqueaks forever. In Vietnam, he has punued a policy that combines the wont of two alternati neither getting us out as 8000 u he wu inaugurated, nor attempting a military victory. The remit: thousands of livee and billiOlll of dollan thrown away for nothing. No, wone than nothing-for the Nixon Vietnam policy hu relUlted on a destruction of the American peoples' wiU to fight in any future war which might hmlilte Vietnaml be nece?sary for our survival, and hu 1iphoned money out of our domestic defenae Ludget, leaving us sadly behind the Soviet? in miseile stre ngth. And then, to cap it off, he has now virtuaUy conceded the Soviet? pennanent military superiority, in the SALT Talb.
Nobody knows just why it happens, but every 24 years, a sort of populist radicalism seems to sweep the country . . . and those who are infected with its fever seek a champion. And for some reason, this champion inevitably turns out to be a man of the Upper Midwest-William Jennings Bryan in 1900, Robert LaFollette in 1924, Henry Wallace in 1948, and now McGovern.
These champions and their supporters invariably fail miserably in their attempts at capturing the White House, but this fact doesn't seem to deter them from having another go at it once each generation. And this time, McGovern is their man.
Thus, because McGovern is the candidate of the radical fringe, he becomes, in many peoples' minds, a radical himself . . . and with some justification, it must be conceded.
But McGovern cannot be considered in vacuo. What counts is not how radical McGovern is (or is not) relative to some mythical ideal, but How radical he is com pared to Richard Nixon. And the answer, unfortunately, is "not very." For despite their rhetorical difference-and the images they project-there is really very little difference between the two men.
Consider first their re?pective economic proposals. McGovern's proposal for a guaranteed annual income of Sl,000 per person is being decried by its opponents as socialism-which, indeed, it is. But Nixon's Family Assistance Plan is essentially the same thing. McGovern's economic proposals are also damned as being certain to cause massive inflation. But Nixon has run up a Budget deficit of nearly SIOO Billion in four years ... a record unmatched since the days of FDR. McGovern's promise to secure "jobs for all"-or, in lieu thereof, 100 percent unemployment compensation-are condemned as being certain to remove incentives for businesses to avoid bankruptcy, and for individuals to remain productive. But then, Nixon bailed out Lockheed. McGovern is blasted as being inimical to the free enterprise system-but Nixon has imposed wage-price controls, and nationalized a major industry (railroads).