What Kind of Madness?

With the publication of the absorbing, fact-filled Warren Commission report, the U.S. this week harked back to the still vivid day last November when John F. Kennedy was assassinated. In a campaign year, the mood also stirred memories of the hard-fought 1960 election that sent Jack Kennedy to the White House. It was a vigorous, meaningful campaign that year; not merely for the famous television debates, but for hard questions asked and swiftly answered, issues clearly staked out and hotly debated, position papers, policy speeches, and an intellectual challenge in almost every accusation.

In other words, the campaign of 1960 was a good deal different from that of 1964. At first, several significant issues seemed likely to emerge in this year's campaign. There was civil rights, for example, but its real importance was quickly lost in an emotionally charged fog about "law and order" and "white backlash." There was the nuclear-control issue, but Lyndon Johnson has let it die by refusing to answer Goldwater's questions about it. There is Viet Nam, but it takes two to debate, and Lyndon just hasn't been in a debating mood.

Schoolyard Tactics. The fact is that the campaign, though it originally gave promise of developing into an exciting confrontation between two sharply differing philosophies, has since degenerated instead into little more than a contest between two sharply differing personalities. There is almost none of the usual election-year exchange of thrust and counterthrust, charge and countercharge over really substantial issues. Instead, there is invective and counter-invective.

The campaign has become so vituperative, in fact, that South Dakota's Republican Karl Mundt, himself a notable rough-and-tumble campaigner and a strong Barry Goldwater partisan, rose in the Senate last week to decry its "low-level, schoolyard" tactics. Complained Mundt: "What kind of madness is upon us? Ignoramus, crook, warmonger, demagogue, trigger-happy, vote-thief -- these are some of the terms we hear booted about by candidates for President of the greatest country in the world." But there is still time, he said, "to restore some degree of dignity and decency." The Essentials. So far neither candidate has shown much inclination to ward that end, and there are other facts working against it. Each man by now has attracted a considerable following that desperately wants him to win and doesn't much care how or for what reasons. These voters run the gamut from those who think Johnson will usher in Communism to those who feel just as strongly that Goldwater will provoke war. The other fact is that Johnson is so far ahead in all the polls that very few people feel a serious debate would make any difference any way. Even Goldwater's top aides agree with national polls that show their man running about 30% to Johnson's 60%."We have only one direction to move in," said Barry, "and that's up. We can't go any lower."

As it is, countless votes will likely be cast not so much for Lyndon Johnson as against Barry Goldwater. It is possible that the landslide will be enormous, but it is also probable that the presidency will be somewhat soiled and diminished for having been won in an indifferent and disappointing campaign.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.