European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - June 16, 1992, Darmstadt, Hesse Tuesday june 16, 1992 the stars and stripes a Page 13 . Apple thrusts self into Campaign spotlight for years he was All but invisible to the Public unless he made some foolish mistake. He was dismissed As a political nonentity. People laughed at him in the spiteful Way people laugh at the class Geek. But the wheel of electoral Fortune has turned and suddenly vice president Dan Quayle is at the Center of things. Like it or not Quayle has found ways to impress his views More sharply on the Public consciousness than any other candidate for top office this year a certainly far More vividly than the Man he works for George Bush whose som ambulant behaviour and Cloudy message have Given his vice president the Chance to grab the spotlight. What Quayle is trying to accomplish it is far from Clear whether he is making much headway is the repair of the fraying coalition that elected Richard m. Nixon and Ronald Reagan and in 1988, Bush and Quayle. The key to that coalition was the group of voters who have come to be known As a Reagan democrats Quot but who have in fact been voting Republican for president since they gave one last heave or their own party in 1964. They Are White often Eastern or Southern european in origin Blue Collar or newly White Collar clustered in suburbs like Parma Ohio and Warren mich., and in Urban quarters like South Boston and the Queens Section of new York City. They flocked to the republicans because economics mattered less to them than social issues such As busing sexual permissiveness drugs Long hair patriotism and Law and order. Those Archie bunkers and their families cheered George c. Wallace when he derided the a pointy headed intellectual who he said a could no to Park a bicycle straight Quot and applauded Spiro t. Agnew when he spoke about the nattering nabobs of negativism who he said dominated the press. In 1992, those voters have been slip away from Bush partly because they qui sues that Bush featured in 1988, largely through symbols a patriotism through feel he has betrayed them on taxes and has ish f idols Flag through the Willie Horton commercials a have been declining in Saliency. Jobs health care and education have come to the fore and those Are Traye on racial quotas but also because the is tured in 1988, Lar _. A it sgt his visits to Flag factories Law and order democratic issues in most elections. At the height of the dominance of social issues in 1968, with a generation in rebellion Hubert h. Humphrey almost snatched a Victory at the last minute by refocusing Many voters attention on Basic economic questions. Bush is highly vulnerable there this year. So Quayle is trying to shift the focus Back playing the populist card As fervently As Ross Perot who has caught the imagination of Many of the Reagan democrats in the last two months. Unlike Perot Quayle was born to privilege As the scion of a newspaper owning family but that has not stopped him from donning the Robes of the common Man determined to face Down a a cultural elite Quot that mocks religion family values and patriotism. The White House did not seem quite prepared when the vice president attacked the heroine of the Murphy Brown television show criticizing the character As if she were real for having borne a child out of Wedlock. Bush and his aides gulped and fumbled when asked for a response fearful perhaps that it was bad politics to tangle with so popular a show. But Quayle and his advisers notably William Kristol thought otherwise and dressed on. Speaking to the Southern Baptist convention in Indianapolis last week Quayle denounced sex education in primary schools free condoms and homosexual parents and spoke of warring american cultures. A a they la try to mock us in newsrooms sitcom studios and faculty lounges across America a he said. A i Wear their scorn As a badge of no wonder. Journalists rank almost As Low As politicians in opinion polls College professors have always been suspect to Many in this Frontier rooted nation and few people have Ever identified with Hollywood mores. But different families have different values. Some exalt Money others exalt service. Some arc religious some arc not and some Are opposed to abortion like the vice president but a larger number support it in some form. A new Survey for the readers digest suggests that one thing setting family units apart from one another is their Structure. Married people with children the National poll discovered Are Likely to be far More conservative More opposed to abortion less enthusiastic about hav a amp to amp segue pc rom amp vi6t Nam ing women work outside the Home and less tolerant of the idea of homosexual marriage than single people or childless couples. Abortion in Many ways typifies the complexity of the issues that Quayle seeks for political purposes to simplify. He himself told the Washington Post a year ago a i think people make a mistake trying to exploit it in the political but in Indianapolis and again at an anti abortion rally in Washington on thursday Quayle did just that even though exit polls in California for example showed that even republicans arc overwhelmingly opposed to the absolutism of the Bush Quayle position. Is the vice president Bent on political suicide not necessarily Given the potential arithmetic of a hard fought three Way presidential race. Charles r. Black jr., the senior strategic adviser to the Bush Campaign put the matter As plainly As possible in a talk with reporters thursday Quot in any Campaign the first ask is to solidify the base. In a three Way race 38 to 40 percent May be enough. And in a three Way race with two pro Choice candidates Perot and Civ. Bill Clinton of Arkansas believe that the one pro life candidate has an Bush greeted the second round of Thunder from Quayle More warmly than the first. But some of his advisers think that the vice president Ever eager to Cement his conservative standing for 1996, May push the president into a Campaign that begins Ana ends with the conservative base and leaves most voters Happy to chose Between Perot and Clinton. Without his Bellicose advisors of 1988, Roger ails and the late Lee Atwater Bush has seemed willing to lot Quayle stir the controversy on social issues then follow up himself if the reaction seems favourable. Those tactics have not stood him in Good Stead he now traits Perot in most polls and his Overall Job approval has plunged from 90 percent or thereabouts in March 1991 to about 35 percent in june 1992. But Quayle for All his bristling combativeness Hasni to done much better a Washington Post Abc news poll showed him with a 39 percent favourable rating last february and a 26 percent figure following his comments on Murphy Brown. It Tho now York Timos Carl Rowan Bush making mockery of Liberty s message the Day will come a soon 1 Hope a when americans will be As ashamed of the Bush administration s treatment of haitian refugees As we now Are of the internment of japanese americans during world War ii. The policy of taking haitian boat people who risk their lives by fleeing through Stormy seas toward what they hoped would be political Asylum in the United states and piling them up in an internment Camp at the Guantanamo Bay naval base in Cuba was cruel enough. Now we get a mindless illegal . Policy of seizing haitians at sea and forcibly returning them to the grotesque tortures and abuses of a wretched haitian military regime. A this policy is cynical and racist. It is also inept says the Baltimore Sun. Yes and it makes George Bush stalk about a a new world order look like a dictators manifesto As the United states clearly violates International Laws and agreements to which it is a party. The Bush administration is closing americans doors to haitians because they Are poor sick and Black and thus not the kind of people his Republican constituents want to see entering the country. Bush a vanishing challenger Pat Buchanan did not speak just for himself when he said it was preferable to have a million britons come to Virginia than a million zulus. Unlike the hungarians cubans czechs poles Ami vietnamese the haitians Are not fleeing a communism a so that enables the Bush people to ignore facts and logic and say that the haitians Are not fleeing political oppression a just looking for americans a Good economic How much evidence of beatings and murders of people hauled Back to Haiti has to be collected by amnesty International the lawyers committee for human rights and other groups before the Bush administration admits to the cruelty and callousness of hauling fleeing haitians Back to cutthroat thugs the fundamental problem is that Reagan Bush policies have weakened the american Economy to the Point that our people Are engaged in dog eat dog behaviour grasping at each other s throats. Caucasians Are All Over the radio talk shows declaring that too Many foreigners of All colors Are coming in to Swallow up american goodies. 1 get mail and Telephone Calls urging me to Start bashing hispanics who a Are taking jobs that ought to go to Blacks Are being told that their poverty results from cubans taking their hotel and restaurant jobs in Florida and koreans vietnamese and other asians taking their jobs and their neighbourhoods in California new York and in other cities. Some people Are screaming that the United states should shoot illegal immigrants on sight and change the Laws to halt All Legal immigration. With its every cynical bumbling change of policy the Bush administration is encouraging racists and demagogues to make a mockery of Emma great inscription on the statue of Liberty give me your tired your poor. Your huddled masses yearning to breathe tree. The wretched refuse of your teeming Shore Send these the homeless tempest tossed to me i lift my lamp beside the Golden door. No lines could do serine better the haitians who Grope for the handle to our Golden door. But this heart Lessly political Bush administration not Only does not lift a lamp it has darkened All the lighthouses of the c Caribbean and left both the haitians and americans commitment to human rights in darkness. A
