The Long Party Is Over

By Hugh Sidey

THE PRESIDENCY

In those days before the election, Gerald Ford danced across the great American political stage like Fred Astaire out on the back lot of MGM. Sometimes in tux and shiny slippers, other times in button-down and plaid, always with a smile, a beefy victory clasp and a quip, he shuffled along to the chants of the airport crowds, the brassy tunes of high school bands and occasionally a dance combo.

Around the White House Press Room, they are still talking about the Friday with a dozen different and distinct campaign activities, not counting sleeping, eating and breathing. He was unquenchable, inexhaustible, irrepressible, each new act kindling more adrenaline. He was almost Lyndon B. Johnson. There were rallies, conferences, television appearances. He foxtrotted at the Urban League dance, he went to a basketball game. He sold his cuff links for charity, hiked a football through the presidential legs and ended that 18-hour day at a party for his official photographer in Portland, Ore.

It was for the most part a beautiful failure.

Maybe he milked a few extra votes for Jake Garn in Utah, pulling him into the Senate. It could be that the big black woman he swung round the dance floor in Portland translated the warm glow into some kind of G.O.P. vote. He might have picked up a jock or two in Portland's Coliseum. Then again he might have lost a million times that many ballots for the Grand Old Party by reminding people that he gave the pardon to Richard Nixon, by airlifting the presidential extravaganza all over the country while sugar hit 54-c- a lb. (up from 17-c- in January), farmers shot calves in their fields, unemployment jumped ahead and more trouble in the Middle East was confidently predicted by Jews and Arabs.

The old political style is dead. It should be buried, particularly by Presidents. Everybody except the politicians seems to sense that. Hoopla, frantic flying, blarney about peace and prosperity are worthless. Worse, they are laughable.

Since the 1960s, presidential politicking has been largely for the enjoyment of the Presidents. They get to use their airplanes and helicopters more than ever. They love those machines and the sense of authority they bring. They escape the office. At 37,000 ft. or out in the unruffled spaces of Winner, S. Dak., the world is blissfully manageable. Adulation from masses of people actually changes their psyche. President-watchers have seen the cheeks of Johnson and Nixon tone from gray to pink as the strains of Hail to the Chief and the cheers of the crowds washed over them.

That kind of campaigning is basically a mindless operation --thus an escape from real work. No decisions are required, no memos need be digested, no concentration is necessary. A President can roll effortlessly from place to place, mouthing the same old baloney. There is sometimes a kind of sensual gratification from handshaking, being pressed by the crowds, waving arms and slapping backs.

One of the characteristics of the Nixon political disaster was that it relied almost totally on spectacle. No thought and very little effort were given to domestic policy matters and their discussion. In contrast, Nixon's foreign program succeeded because it was based on the work and imagination of Henry Kissinger. In the end, it was almost the only political plus that Nixon could claim, and it was not enough.

We need harder, more visionary effort in the Oval Office, and then a public rhetoric that matches in level the intelligence and awareness of the American people. The amount of time and energy required for such study and analysis of the array of problems now before the President precludes the old minstrel style of politics.

In the history of this nation, there have been times when events moved more swiftly than the people perceived. It was that way in the 1920s and the 1930s. Before many understood what had happened, the world moved grimly on and the rites of the jazz age became a mockery. There is a lot of that feeling right now. Jerry Ford is still doing the Charleston, and the music has stopped.

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