European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - June 13, 1980, Darmstadt, Hesse Page 12 the stars and stripes Friday june 13. 1980 Tom Wicker debates focus on visual Impact not vital issues the most important difference Between president Carter and Edward Ken Nedy says Carter is that he won t agree to the debate that has become such a strange obsession with the senator. This refusal might nevertheless be a mis calculation on the president s part since Kennedy has promised to release his delegates to Vole As they please if such a de Bate is held before the democratic Conven Tion. Besides Carter is beginning to look like a none too artful dodger having Al ready pulled out of a scheduled three Way debate with Kennedy and Jerry Brown in Iowa then announcing in Advance that he would not permit rep. John Anderson to take part in the presidential debates next fall. Kennedy already has Laid on Carter the warning Joe Louis once issued to Billy Conn he can run but he can t hide Al though the senator mis attributed it to Muhammad Ali. Unfortunately such debate news seems to be dominating this Campaign Al ready and it seems glumly predictable that televised debates whether two or three or More cornered will again be a perhaps the major Factor in the election. Here s one voice taking the negative on that Prospect. Not that it will do any Good. With Kennedy challenging the president to de Bate. Carter turning his Back on him and on Anderson Ronald Reagan saying hell take on All Comers Barry commoner pro son a 3t&5"withgoop Mhz Flor. $ go my Cong s William Safire Tirso lady rivals share love of Power the three women most Likely to compete for the title of first lady a term first applied by British correspondent Wil Liam Russell to Mary Todd Lincoln in 1863 Are in alike in Many ways but share a few traits that Tell us much about women and Power today. Rosalyn Carter. Nancy Reagan and Kike Anderson arc All Strong willed women who have been urging their husbands to run. Whichever Man wins the first lady will be assertive influential and closely involved with the conduct of the presidency. It was not always so. Betty Ford liked the limelight but was troubled by its intensity Pat Nixon went along loyally but never liked Public life which was True of Bess Truman too Mamie Eisenhower was accustomed to being left out of great Deci Sions and Jackie Kennedy was a moment s ornament but not a life Force. Eleanor Roosevelt went her own Way. The forerunner of the present Breed politically savvy Tough minded lovingly Loyal ambitious for herself through her husband was lady Bird Johnson. Rosalyn Carter who crimped and saved in her stump speech phrase to help her husband gel ahead was derogated at first As the steel Magnolia soft and Sweet in outward appearance Tough and purposeful in reality. This estimate has turned out to be True but the attitude now admiration her Side of the White House functions More effectively than the other. The office of first lady is now peopled by 19 full time highly paid staffers from press secretaries to to and Van Cemen. Moments after meeting mrs. Carter on a reception line i was buttonhole by a press aide sent by her to counter criticism of her swollen staff she sits in on Cabinet meetings and has a regular private business lunch on tuesdays with the president telling him what lie should be doing on a wide Range of issues. This bothers some people. Not me a president can choose his advisers and i am grateful that at least one of Carler is hawkish although the Royal nation of the first Ladyship invites a backlash. Nancy Reagan makes a Point of contrast ing her own idea of the role of a president s wife with that of mrs. Carter. Mrs. Reagan says she will not attend Cabinet meetings which is a Way of saying that she will not use her relationship with the chief executive to intrude into governmental matters. The key words in her lexicon Are supportive and disciplined her Public posture is less assertive and More wifely in the old fashioned sense of that term. She docs not want to replace the steel Magnolia with the Iron Orange. But Nancy Reagan is a woman who knows what she wants and she wants her husband to be president. During a recent interview with both reagans i leaned for Ward to catch an interestingly impolitic re Mark that Ronald Reagan seemed to be on the verge of making. She sensed trouble shot him a look and interjected a word and her husband and candidate found Safe Haven in some cliche. Nancy Reagan can cast an adoring gaze with the Best of them but she would be an activist first lady in a right Wing cast Wing. A Csc Anderson Mother of five. Boston bred daughter of greek immigrants has taken to Tricart what every candidate has always said piously but patronizing by about equal likable mrs. Anderson says what she thinks and then some. At a table during the Republican Tidewater conference a couple of years ago she denounced the conservatives who opposed her husband in a primary As a Bunch of Damn rednecks which was not taken As evidence of her interest in party Unity. More than anyone a Csc Anderson pushed her husband into running for the nomination and then into running As an Independent. As first lady she would not Only attend Cabinet meetings but would dominate them. The three women mrs. Carter. Mrs. Reagan mrs. Anderson share a taste for Power. Convention forces them All to deny that to murmur supportive sounds and to defer to their husbands because such an admission still strikes Many voters Asun seemly for a woman. But All three have been urging and helping their mates to reach for the brass ring. What docs this unprecedented common denominator in All leading candidates wives Tell about women and political Power it shows that individual women have heard the Call of liberation but have interpreted it differently choosing to help exercise Power indirectly. The time will come for genuine sex Equality in All Fields of management but some women have decided not to Wail for acceptance of change and arc satisfied now by a not so is Lenl partnership in leadership. Posing seven debates on seven issues with commoner the candidate of the citizens party participating of course53 per cent of the people saying in a National poll that they want Anderson included in the prospective Reagan Carter debates and the league of women voters already planning the combat debates obviously lie ahead. In fact debates and the debate Issue have become a Standard feature of the Media politics by which we now elect presidents. The reason is not hard to find. These splashy confrontations Are Ideal for television which so superbly depicts action and conflict. At least the first time around the viewing Public looks upon the de Bate As a shoot out from gun smoke and for at least one or two evenings Al most the entire National attention is focused on the confrontations. That creates the impression that the debates Are the Campaign. For the candidates that Means that these few hours eyeball to eyeball Are in sanely pressure packed an intense concentration of the whole Campaign into a relatively Brief moment of trying to face Down an opponent with millions of voters at ringside. The Winner emerges not from the substantive value of anything said but from irrelevant impressions Carter lost his first match with Gerald Ford by com Mon consent because Ford appeared More aggressive and less nervous but Carter took the second heat and Proba Bly the presidency because of Ford s single Blunder in staling that the soviet Union did not dominate Eastern Europe. Is this any Way to choose a Leader such obvious pressures guarantee that the debates Are concerned most of All with visual Impact his 5 o clock Shadow doomed Richard Nixon in 1960confident mannerisms he knew Nixon later said of his third debate with John Kennedy that he had to be sincere lick debating Points exaggerated positions and the facile use of dubious evidence. All that leads in turn to the most Seri Ous criticism of these extravaganzas that they do not As claimed focus Atten Tion on the issues. To the contrary at. Staged Between Carter and Ford i wrote at the time the televised debates afforded the two candidates Opportunity to make More misrepresentations false claims calculated appeals and empty promises than probably Ever were offered so directly to a Long suffering the Republican candidate forums Tele Vised earlier this year were not notably of greater intellectual distinction but the Multi candidate format at least eliminated the worst of the shoot out tensions. And there is More to be said for thus widely exposing the manners and talents if any of a group of relatively unknown candidates than for Matching up the survivors of 35 primaries like a pair Orwell drilled gunslingers. In 1976, moreover the debates became one More instrument Tike the ballot and Campaign finance Laws for shut Ting out of consideration a major Independent candidacy that of Eugene Mccar thy. If Carter has his Way that will happen again in the Case of Anderson thus helping to build in the republicans and democrats As official government financed parties precisely at the moment when television has made american Polit ical parties less relevant and useful than at any Lime since Thomas Jefferson in vented them. But if As appears inevitable the Campaign is to be entered again on televised debates publications and broadcasters ought at least to reconsider their report in participation As inquisitors particularly if As in 1976, the candidates Are allowed a degree of veto Power Over their selection. Even if not. Reporters should not be participants but observers As they would be at any other Campaign event
