The Year of the Pragmatists

By Thomas Griffith

On the eve of the Democratic Convention, the press stands united--not only on its editorial pages but also among the clamorings of political columnists --in its lack of enthusiasm for any presidential candidate. The result is to give the 1980 campaign a remarkably honest coverage, free of that bias that critics of the press so often lament. The only difficulty is that no one is providing much advice but simply mirroring the nation's own reluctance to come to judgment.

A passel of columnists--among them such articulate fellows as William F. Buckley and George F. Will--espouse the same economic and social causes as Reagan does, but when they get to discussing Reagan's knowledge or reasoning powers, they sound somewhere between patronizing and apologetic. Carter, however, lacks even such a community of ideological backing in press or country; his yawing on issues has disaffected groups of supporters he could normally count upon. Liberal columnists, though they long ago gave up on Teddy Kennedy, like his brand of Democratic rhetoric. Carter's old buddy Andrew Young now writes a column. He also makes speeches for Carter but says, "I can't sell this Administration uncritically." When asked whether he was not more philosophically in tune with Kennedy than Carter, Young grinned: "Yeah, very much so." This is the year of the pragmatist.

Just how pragmatic Reagan and the Republican conservatives could be was of course the big suspenseful question at Detroit. The answer seems to be that the party is no longer on selfdestruct. A few hurried journalistic reassessments of Reagan came out of Detroit. Typical was a column from Meg Greenfield, the Washington Post's editorial-page editor. Having finally seen Reagan up close, Greenfield had some advice for Carter: forget trying to paint Reagan as a nuke-waving, overaged, stupid and dangerous man to an American public that had seen him aw-shucksing his way coolly out of difficult spots. Greenfield still has big doubts about Reagan, but added: "Wrong is different from Dumb. And so is Unfamiliar or Inexperienced."

But while the press corps was playing "getting used to Reagan" and Carter was falling to the lowest rating in Gallup's 40 years of measuring presidential popularity, FORTUNE published "Why Carter Will Probably Win," by Everett Carll Ladd of the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research. Ladd (who hasn't changed his mind since, even after Billy Carter) concludes from his samplings that 1980 is shaping up as a "competence election," a question on which he says "Reagan's weakness with the electorate matches Carter's." Having failed to persuade the great middle of the electorate of his competence by now, Ladd argues, it is unlikely Reagan "will be able to do so in the last hundred days. So he will probably give Carter a victory Carter could not win by himself."

The press's lack of enthusiasm for either Reagan or Carter is matched by a decline in its fascination with John Anderson. He no longer inspires such rhapsodies as James Reston's discovery last February of a new Adlai Stevenson, "burdened by some personal characteristics that are now out of style in American politics: moderation, intelligence, experience..."

Of course, having no heroes to extol does not prevent political columnists from assessing, evenhandedly or subjectively, the demerits of all the candidates. They've been manfully going about that part of their job.

Things used to be different and the emotional range of journalistic fervor wider in the days when press lords such as Hearst and Colonel McCormick helped create candidates, lauded them to the skies and unmercifully derided their opponents. But the American electorate got quite skilled at rejecting their advice. Poor press lords! They could thunder, and they could misinform, but they could not persuade. As one of Lord Beaverbrook's editors once remarked, "No cause is really lost until we support it." The relative lack of advocacy in the political journalism of 1980 makes the coverage sound remarkably homogeneous. That may deny readers some guidance in making up their minds. But it also leaves the press free to attend to its basic job of informing.

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