Election system and the 1976 president ial campaign to international audiences. Governor carter, again, is talking in broad generalities. I think this is an instance of deliberate distortion. And if mr. Carter alleges that his holiness by signing that has done it, he is totally inaccurate. Im not criticizing his ho holiness of pope, i was talking about mr. Ford. Governor carter again contradicts himself. I think so he confused the issue. Let me correct one other comment. The panamanian question is one confused by mr. Ford. Again, governor carter is inaccurate. Election 1976, the candidates and the campaign. This is richard in washington. With me in our studios today are professor howard pennyman of Georgetown University and mr. Stephen hess of the brookings institution. We have talked of a of many different aspects of this 1976 american president ial bicentennial year, starting with the primaries back in the winter and going straight through the conventions and the rest. This afternoon we want to talk about the nature of the campaign, what the campaign is, what it tries to do, how the party organizes it. Let me turn first, if i may, to professor pennyman and ask him that simplest question, why . Well, why . The answer is a good many things. Among other things, i have to get out and get the Party Organizations at the state and local level activated. And get them working to bring out the vote, working to get voters registered, which is a special problem here. Working to get the candidates known, working to get the issues insofar as there are sharp issues dividing known. This takes on a special importance in the United States because we dont have elections simply because there are issues or when we have elections there may not be issues that are sharply dividing the country. We have president ial elections the first week of november every four years without regard to whether there are issues or arent issues. If there are sharp issues that divide the country halfway between, there still is an election. Because of the fixed election, it seems to me that the theres kind of a special problem of activating the local organizations, which are normally concerned only with local problems and state issues, not with national issues. And theres a special problem particularly of the issues are not sharp, of getting voters aware of what problems there are that separate and to get those voters ready to come out later on in the fall. You know, mr. Hess, we hear a great deal about the decline of the American Party machinery in the last generation. Im sure wed all agree theres a great deal of truth in it. How has this affected the campaign . Do we have a new style of campaigning or a new kind of Campaign Organizer or manager different from the sort of Party Campaign so well known, say, in western europe . Well, of course, we have now, among other reasons for the decline, television. It was at one time the only way that you learned about your candidates was through your Neighborhood Party official. Now you learn directly from seeing the candidate on television. So, with the rise of television has come the rise of the television expert. And with the decline of the party has come a substitute, that is the professional Campaign Consultant who sells his services. We have direct primaries for the nomination of candidates. You no longer have them chosen by party leaders. We have government giving so many of the services that once the partyings gave. Once in the United States if you were unemployed, you went to your local party. If you were hungry, you went to your party. Now, of course, as in most major democracies, you go to the government for the dispensing of these services. One time in the United States the social life in an urban center was gathered around the clubhouse of the political party. You went there in the evening to have a good time. Now there are so many forms of free entertainment. So, clearly, our parties are declining and some other institutions or persons, these experts, technicians, consultants who services for hire have replaced them. Would you agree that as you look at this general development, particularly in these last 30 years, say, since the end of the war, that the party role in the campaign has become little more than sort of a label, sort of a Holding Company and that the Actual Campaign itself depends almost entirely on the candidate and his resources and his purposes and his personnel . The party as a whole makes a much smaller contribution than our friends, say, in western europe or other democratic countries around the world might be used to at home. Yes. This has gone so far that candidate for president now sets up his own organization. And almost entirely runs his campaign with his own hired Campaign Manager and staff. The Carter Campaign this year is not even being run out of washington but run out of his home city of atlanta. The Republican National committee and the democratic National Committee really do the housekeeping chores of politics. It seems to me as one looks at this present campaign, this is almost in the primaries particularly, the triumph of individual organization. And after all, if youre a candidate and you began back last year to set up a Campaign Apparatus with Media Consultants and time buyers and speechwriters and its successful and it wins you the nomination, then, obviously, youre going to keep on these people. Theyve done something right. Theyve gotten you through the primaries and the convention and youre there. And if a Party Apparatus in washington were to come to you and say, well, now were going to provide you with all of these services, you would just brush them aside because you would say, look, i have people that i have confidence in. They have won for me. Why should i listen to you people down there in washington . Why should, as you suggest, mr. Hess, why should i even manage my campaign from washington . Ill manage it the way i did when i was successful. Since nothing succeeds like success in politics or anything else, i would say people are pretty much inclined to go that way and we may very well see, let me put this to you, if i may, professor penniman as a question, we may very well see a further atrophy of Campaign Management on the part of parties except in fairly specialized local conditions . I think this is almost certainly true. They dont even bother to name the head of their campaign as the chairman of the National Committee, which at least they used to do and work through the forms in the apparatus, the National Committee. So, at a level of Actual Campaigning, of presenting the candidate, talking about the issues, this is bound to go, i think, more and more into the hands of the people who are initially hired by the candidate, is he winning the primaries . Hes going to pick up some of the people from other opponents where hes trying to now build his fences with the other opponents and hell pick some of those up but theyre not going to lead the campaign. The campaign is going to be led and run basically by his own people. One of the things it leaves undone, though s this kind of traditional thing, which is important in the United States. Thats getting people registered. Yes. And then getting them out to the polls on election day. Registration, since its a voluntary thing in the United States where each individual has to go register himself. Hes not registered by any state organization or local organization, he has to do it on his own, under those circumstances it takes some initiative on his part. And it used to be that the Party Organizations would get around and get him out to the registration places. As the local organizations atrophy, then it comes more and more to, a persuading job without anybody coming around really to knock on your door, to ring your telephone and get you out. Unless, of course, eventually we change and adopt a canadian and european system of automatic registration. But lets take a look now at some of the specific things involved in an american campaign. And see some of the visual presentation of the kind of thing that weve been talking about for this 1976 american bicentennial president ial year. The campaign this year has been marked, as always, by attempts to reach the greatest number of voters in the shortest amount of time. Both president ford and governor carter have used unusual methods to communicate with the american voter. The president traveled on the Mississippi River in an old steam paddle boat while governor carter traveled on a special Campaign Train making brief stops across the midwest. But for the most part, each candidate used more Traditional Campaign techniques. They rode in motorcades, ate at countless political dinners, spoke to housewives at supermarkets, workers in factory and appealed to economic and political interests across the nation. Highlighting this Years Campaign have been the appearances of the candidates in a series of televised president ial debates. The second debate concluded with these remarks. I remember the world with nato and a world of point four and a world of the marshall plan, and a world of the peace corps. Why cant we have that once again . We ought to be a beacon for nations who search for peace and who search for freedom, who search for individual liberty, who search for basic human rights. We havent been lately. We can be once again. Well never have that world leadership until we are strong at home. And we can have that strength if we return to the bafblg principles. It ought not to be a strength of bombast and threats. It ought to be a quiet strength based on the integrity of our people, the vision of the constitution and innate strong will and purpose that gods given us in the greatest nation on earth. As we have seen tonight, Foreign Policy and defense policy are difficult and complex issues. We can debate methods. We can debate one decision or another. But there are two things which cannot be debated experience and results. In the last two years, i have made policy decisions involving longrange difficulties and policies, and made daytoday judgments. Not only as president of the United States, but as the leader of the free world. What is the result of that leadership . America is strong, america is free, america is respected. Not a single Young American today is fighting or dying on any foreign battlefield. America is at peace with freedom. Weve talked about some of the aspects of campaigning, and youve seen some of the Campaign Activities in an american president ial campaign year. Lets consider now some of the things that the campaign is directed at. This year of 1976, specifically, what are the motivations of the voter which this Campaign Seeks to develop, seeks to convince the elector that he ought to support mr. Carter, for example, or president ford . Let me turn my first question, again, to professor penniman. What are the basic sources of voter motivation we ought to be considering today in terms of 1976 . The most important Single Source today, as it has been for perceivable pasts that weve been studying in this field is the identification of individuals with the party label. While it is true the parties themselves are not doing much as organizations, nonetheless, the voters of the country continue to identify either with the Democratic Party or their Republican Party or now a very sizeable group identify themselves as independent. Weve heard a good deal about in the last, what, 10 or 15 years, i think, stephen hess, great growth of independents and what we call in in country, ticketsplitters. That is people who vote for president on the republican side, senator on the democratic side, governor on the democratic side or republican side or independent side. Moving all over their ballot because they vote for many more than one position. Moving all over their ballot for various ideological or personal reasons. How has this affected the party label loyalty of which you were speaking . Well, party label loyalty is of extraordinary importance when one is dealing with the lower end of the ticket, so to speak. The less important offices. The less visible candidates. Its very important. Its more important than any single thing, even for the vote for the presidency. But it becomes a lot less true at the president ial level or the senate or gubernatorial. The kaercandidates are on television. Theres a visibility that there isnt for any other levels. Its at this point for which candidates hope they can draw the independents to them. In fact, republican candidate for the presidency has to not only get the independents or a majority of the independents to support him, but he also has to cut some into the democratic strongholds in order to win. And the fact is, hes been able to do that or the candidate republican candidates have been able to do that four out of the last six president ial elections. Thats part of whats going on right now, that ford is doing his best to appeal not only to republicans where hes got most of their support, but hes got to pick up the independents. I think the polls have now shown hes gone ahead in independents. But hes still got the big problem of picking up some out of the democratic who work on the democratic label. You know, four years ago in 1972, the great thrust of the nixon landslide was the fact that mr. Nixon, president nixon, republican nominee, could win onethird of the democratic voters, could get one out of three of the professing, identifying democrats. Mr. Hess, do you think theres any possibility this year that president ford can do that well amongst democrats . Well, we expect this to be a close election, unlike 1972, which was a landslide. But the plain arithmetic in the United States, as we know from gallup polls and so forth, is that theres two democrats for every one republican. You dont say too many, you just say two. No, two, two. The number two democrat, two democrats, one republican at arithmetic. It is not without significance that the poster for governor carters campaign, which is behind me, says vote democratic. The poster for president fords campaign, which is behind professor penniman doesnt mention the word republican. So, the job for president ford is to play down his Party Identification to win over those who may be of the Opposition Party or of no party. Clearly the job for mr. Carter is simply to hold, get out to vote, all of those who consider themselves democrats. If he does this, hell win. In the past, democrats lose when theyre divided and the party has a great ideological division, as it had in 1972, or when the republicans put up a charismatic leader, such as Dwight Eisenhower in 1952 and 1956, or the third factor might be when a democrat serving in the white house has done something that gives the people reason not to vote for him or for his party. So, these are the factors that, by and large, take away from the possibilities of a democratic victory, and we have to weigh these factors in terms of 1976 where the Democratic Party is not divided. Where president ford is not known as a charismatic leader in the mold of general eisenhower and where there hasnt been a democrat in the white house. So, given this, we see one party playing up the democratic not playing up his party label. You know, we hear a great deal about the personal factor in american politics cou coup de grace about a personal sexual appeal or the booboo when somebody makes a mistake. How much does this obviously it affects the party label orientation of the voter. How much does it really change this, other than for an obvious person like general eisenhower to whom the personality thing and the fact of people feeling comfortable with him must have been the major aspect of his triumph. Do you think in 1976 with this united Democratic Party, there is going to be an appeal that president ford can make personally, which would override the democratic majority of plurality in the same sense that president nixon in 1972 could attack the etiological position of senator mcgovern to override that plurality. Its kind of a Centric Campaign in which both, more or less, or in the center of the political spectrum. And at the same time there are no special issues that are sharply dividing the country like the vietnam war. Or roman catholicism . Or roman catholicism or civil rights, which have, in the past decade or so, really sharply divided the parties. Ly the polarization becomes slightly different, and that is to get the voters out. You dont see a great change or distance between them, so why come out . The democrats have a great advantage of the registration majorities, and they have the advantage that they are the people least likely to come out. They include many of the young who are least likely of all to vote in any country is less likely to come out than the oldtimers who have been used to it and see it as part of their duty. But then its also true that the people who are in the lower income groups and who are less welleducated are less likely to come out, and these people are, by and large, supporting the Democratic Party. So the democrats have both an advantage and a disadvantage of this kind of uneventful election, one that is without, at least, major sharp dividing issues. But without strong idealogy rearing its head, and with two centrist candidates, we again stress the degree the personality plays a part in american politics, far more so than in most other countries. So the task for president ford has to be to show that he has the character and the personality that is more acceptable to the American People than his opponent, especially when you consider that half of american elections are very close, and this one could very well be close. And in this case, any small booboo, as you called it, could very well make a difference. The thing about our campaign is that it goes on for so long, and it is so thoroughly covered and viewed through the press and the other media by the American People so that its a constant probing of the two personalities of the candidates, especially in the absence of sharp issues. We do agree, someone once said that they wouldnt quite go so far as mr. Churchill once said of his political opponent that he was a modest man with a lot to be modest about. But would you agree that in this effort to maintain the Center Position in the debates and in the general parts of the campaign, both candidates appear to have been very careful, little flamboyance, little broadsweeping promises, little in the way thats qualified, and that the tendency of this kind of campaign without excitement, without general public bitterness, without great surging emotions has perhaps been to cut down what we anticipate to be our voter turnout this year . I think this is undoubtedly true, although one should note that sometimes the response in even the bitter campaigns is for some democrats or some republicans to stay home. They cant bring themselves to vote for the opposition, so they stay home. They are torn voters. We had a rather light turnout in 1972, and i think basically the ones who did not turn out, aside from the young, new voters, were those who couldnt bring themselves to vote republican but at the same time couldnt bring themselves to vote for the democratic campaign. Look, weve talked about these candidates. Weve talked about their personalities. How are they doing . This is the last program well have before the election, and i dont want to put a gun to your head and ask who is going to win, but how are they doing . I dont think each candidate is doing particularly well, which is partly why we say this is a dull campaign. They havent interested us much in the issues. It fits their strategies to be in the center, and president ford has the advantage, which is an important advantage when hes of the minority party, of incumbency, of being the president. Which means that he plays up the fact that he is president ial. This seems almost stuffy, perhaps, but it keeps him certainly from being flamboyant. He is telling us he is the president , he has been president for two years, were doing pretty well under him, lets continue. Mr. Carter, on the other hand, with the advantage of being the democrat, that is, a member of the majority party, doesnt want to do anything very much that would rock the boat, so its in his interests not to be excessivily controversial, if you will. The end result to date has been a campaign in which maybe you might wish to call it traditional, certainly many commentators today call it dull. All right. With that very firm prediction as to the results, we want to point out that this is the last of these discussions before the actual voting on november 2nd in this bicentennial election year. In the next program that will follow the election, well try to discuss with you what happened and hopefully why it happened. This is Richard Scammon in washington with george penon from Georgetown University and steve from the bookings institution. Youre watching American History tv. Every weekend on cspan3, explore americas past. Cspan3 as a Public Service and brought to you today by your