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This file contains:
From Colson to RN RE: bringing Pierre Rinfret back into the Republican campaign in 1972. 2 pgs. [Subject: Campaign] [Memo], 8/10/1972
From Colson to RN RE: an attachment sent by Lou Harris. 1 pg. [Subject: White House Staff] [Memo], 8/3/1972
Document authored by Harris describing McGovern's campaign strategies and laying out methods to counter them. 6 pgs. [Subject: Campaign] [Report], no date
From Colson to RN RE: figures on Wallace and busing. 2 pgs. [Subject: Campaign] [Memo], 5/19/1972
Transcript of a conversation between Dick Scammon and C, possibly Colson. 3 pgs. [Subject: Domestic Policy] [Other Document], 5/19/1972
Copy of a memo from Colson to RN RE: figures on Wallace and busing. 2 pgs. [Subject: Campaign] [Memo], 5/19/1972
From Colson to RN RE: polling data from Sindlinger for use in a meeting with Secretary Connally. 2 pgs. [Subject: Campaign] [Memo], 4/11/1972
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26144478
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WHSF: Contested, 3-1
description
This file contains:
From Colson to RN RE: bringing Pierre Rinfret back into the Republican campaign in 1972. 2 pgs. [Subject: Campaign] [Memo], 8/10/1972
From Colson to RN RE: an attachment sent by Lou Harris. 1 pg. [Subject: White House Staff] [Memo], 8/3/1972
Document authored by Harris describing McGovern's campaign strategies and laying out methods to counter them. 6 pgs. [Subject: Campaign] [Report], no date
From Colson to RN RE: figures on Wallace and busing. 2 pgs. [Subject: Campaign] [Memo], 5/19/1972
Transcript of a conversation between Dick Scammon and C, possibly Colson. 3 pgs. [Subject: Domestic Policy] [Other Document], 5/19/1972
Copy of a memo from Colson to RN RE: figures on Wallace and busing. 2 pgs. [Subject: Campaign] [Memo], 5/19/1972
From Colson to RN RE: polling data from Sindlinger for use in a meeting with Secretary Connally. 2 pgs. [Subject: Campaign] [Memo], 4/11/1972
citationUrl
collections
Richard M. Nixon's Returned Materials Collection
Contested Materials Files
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26144478
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Richard Nixon Presidential Library
Contested Materials Collection
Folder List
Box Number
Folder Number
Document Date
No Date
Subject
Document Type
Document Description
3
1
8/10/1972
Campaign
Memo
From Colson to RN RE: bringing Pierre
Rinfret back into the Republican campaign in
1972. 2 pgs.
3
1
8/3/1972
White House Staff
Memo
From Colson to RN RE: an attachment sent
by Lou Harris. 1 pg.
3
1
>
Campaign
Report
Document authored by Harris describing
McGovern's campaign strategies and laying
out methods to counter them. 6 pgs.
3
1
5/19/1972
Campaign
Memo
From Colson to RN RE: figures on Wallace
and busing. 2 pgs.
Monday, September 13, 2010
Page 1 of 2
Box Number
Folder Number
Document Date
No Date
Subject
Document Type
Document Description
3
1
5/19/1972
Domestic Policy
Other Document
Transcript of a conversation between Dick
Scammon and C, possibly Colson. 3 pgs.
3
1
5/19/1972
Campaign
Memo
Copy of a memo from Colson to RN RE:
figures on Wallace and busing. 2 pgs.
3
1
4/11/1972
Campaign
Memo
From Colson to RN RE: polling data from
Sindlinger for use in a meeting with
Secretary Connally. 2 pgs.
Monday, September 13, 2010
Page 2 of 2
August 10, 1972
MEMORANDUM FOR:
THE PRESIDENT
FROM:
CHARLES COLSON
SUBJECT:
Pierre Rinfret
In response to your memo of August 9 regarding Pierre Rinfret,
1 met with Rinfret yesterday to discuss not only the attitudes of
business and financial writers he has encountered, but also his
own involvement in our campaign.
Rinfret is very much out of sorts with us at the moment 1 think,
justifiably so. A month ago MacGregor and I met with Rinfret
and agreed that he would be a "principal economic spokesman"
for the campaign. MacGregor and I had been very much impressed
with some of the brilliant and well publicised attacks that Rinfret
had made on McGovern. We agreed that he would be something of
& one-man truth equad. He in turn asked for involvement in the
Platform process and some recognition publicly that he was acting
as an adviser to the Administration and the campaign apparatus.
In accord with our agreement, we released a story that Rinfret
would be prominent for us in the campaign. Stein, Flanigan, and
Shults immediately raised very strenuous objections. As a result,
while Rinfret has been flitting around the country attacking McGovern,
MacGregor and I have been unable to keep our part of the agreement.
He is not involved in the Platform process. We have not scheduled
the photo with you which Rinfret requested and instead of his being
a one man truth squad, he has been asked to join a committee of 15
prominent economists.
Rinfret is well aware that our in-house economists have vetood his
role in the campaign. He has discussed it with Connally twice.
2.
Connally is very disturbed at the way in which Stein, Flanigan et al
have reacted to Rinfret and believes we are making a very serious
orror. Connally describes Rinfret as one of the mest "gifted and
articulate" spokesmen in the country. He believes that Rinfret
should be brought in, stroked often and kept out front as the
"principal economic spokesman" attacking McGovern. Connally,
as you may know, is very high on Rinfret and his ability.
Based on my discussion with Rinfet yesterday, I think we may be
able to satisfy him at least for a while by simply bringing him in
for a photo with you. We cannot use him in the Platform process
because of Stein's objections. 1 think perhaps if Rinfret has one
meeting with you and a photo, he is enough of a self-promoter to
carry it from that point by himself. He is perfectly agreeable to
going anywhere in the country, talking to editorial boards, speaking
to groups, attacking McGovern, going on TV, etc., but at the
moment his feelings are badly bruised and, hence Connally and 1
believe that a meeting with you at this time is quite important.
Beyond that, I will simply try to keep our own people calm while
Rinfret goes out front for us.
August 3, 1972
MEMORANDUM FOR:
THE PRESIDENT
FROM:
CHARLES COLSON
SUBJECT:
Attached from Lou Harris
Attached is the Lou Harris memo which he prepared after the
breakfast meeting with you, He did not have a chance to edit
it, so it's a little rough but the ideas are there.
This election is stranger than nearly any other in American history.
It is possible for President Nixon to win the popular vote and lose the
electoral vote assuming a minimum 60-40 Nixon victory in the South
and a McGovern lead of 54-46 in the East, 52-48 in the Mid-West and
54-46 in the West. Nixon can achieve 50.1 percent of the vote and lose
the election. This is a direct reversal of the prevalent situation in the
1930s in FDR's time.
McGovern can win in a five-prong campaign. He can use the theme
that it is a time of deep change in America, a time to end hypocrisy in
high places and a time to end the dominance of the rich and powerful in
this country -- especially the dominance of big business. (When we
recently asked which is more important, to crack down on big corporations
who might evade taxes and cause pollution or to crack down on student,
Vietnam:and militant black protesters, by 58 to 39 percent the public
answered back, crack down on big corporations.)
The five prongs of the McGovern campaign could be:
1. Tax reform with higher taxes for upper income people and
corporations, coupled with lower taxes for lower income people
(favored by an overwhelming 90-6 percent.).
2. Cut defense spending, favored by 59 to 30.
3. Legalize abortion, favored by 48-43. Significantly the following
groups favored legalized abortion up to 4 months of pregnancy:
$15, 000+, 62-33; college educated, 62-33; 18-29 year olds, 64-31;
Independents, 58-34; Jewish, 72-19; 30-49 year olds, 51-42; union
members, 47-43. However, catholics oppose abortion by 54-37 as do
Midwesterners by 48-42. The 54-37 catholic opposition is very close
to the current 54-36 lead of Nixon over McGovern on the vote.
McGovern can claim to be taking a politically courageous stand on
abortion and in the process firm up precisely the swing groups
which can make the difference. McGovern could go further to
show courage in taking an unpopular position by strongly advocating
amnesty for draft evaders who fled the country, opposed nationwide
by 58-33. However, such amnesty is favored by 18-29 voters 55-39;
by Jewish 62-27; and by the college educated 49-46. He could do
the same in an even more effective way by advocating and easing
the penalties for the use of marijuana, opposed nationally 54-40.
2.
However, such an easing of penalties is favored by $15, 000 and over
by 49-46 percent. Independent voters 51-43; 18-29 voters 61-36;
suburban voters 48-45; college educated 57-37; by Jewish 65-32%.
In other words, a grave danger is that by taking what seems to be
a stand designed to lose him votes, McGovern in fact can be firming
up precisely those swing votes which will put him within striking
distance of victory.
4. Draw out President Nixon and especially Vice President Agnew to
make savage frontal assaults on McGovern, on protesters, amnesty,
marijuana and permissiveness all of which would firm up the
high income, the educated, the suburban, the young and the indepen-
dent vote to go for McGovern. Then he could come in positively on
abortion and defense spending to achieve majority support to go
with these key group S.
5. He could make his bread and butter or pork chop appeal among the
union vote and Catholic voters on the tax reform issue.
The five-prong strategy can be thwarted in these ways:
1. For Nixon to say that he has dared to try drastic changes abroad
in the foreign policy and it has begun to work. He is not afraid of
change at home as the price-wage freeze last August indicated.
And now he wants to have the chance to do at home what he has
done abroad.
2. Put an immediate freeze or crackdown right away on food processers,
prices and profits. The public does not blame farmers for high food
prices, they do blame food processers and the middle man. In
addition, advocate four or five tough tax reform measures that are
patently anti-business. This will thwart McGovern's prong of making
business the whipping post.
3. Point up how defense spending has come down as a percent of the
federal budget. Yet at the same time, point up that this has been done
without decimating the U.S. defense shield and guard.
4. Lay off taking McGovern on the amnesty and marijuana issues.
5. Advocate desegregation in education and in other parts of our
national life but also say that busing is the wrong way to do it because
busing not only will harden the opposition to desegregation but will
also delay other effective steps which can increase the likelihood of
success for racial progress.
3.
6. Openly advocate aid to parochial schools, but leave to others to
use the abortion issue.
7. For union members take the line that in no way will we apologize
for the price-wage freeze. Emphasize that the purpose of that
freeze and the controls programmed to follow was to protect the
pocketbook of the working man by cracking down on excessive
prices so that wages and salaries would have some buying power.
(Consistently over 80% would rather have price and wage restraint
than to take their chances on unrestrained wages and prices.)
How Nixon Can Win
There are two key sets of groups that can overturn this election:
One, the swing vote made up of independents, the college educated,
suburbanites, the young and the $15, 000+ income group.
This group can be worked on by emphasizing that the President has
changed the outlook in the world in four years from war to peace.
(Note the President's rating on working for peace has gone from
38 to 74% positive among these groups since a year ago July.)
A second approach to this same group is to raise the hope that as
much can be doneinthe next 4 years at home as has been done to pro-
duce a beginning toward peace abroad. Fundamentally, this swing
group can be affected by an appeal that the quality of life can be
improved at home through environmental control, consumer protection,
racial and educational progress and welfare reform. Note: almost
all of the front and center rhetoric of the campaign should be directed
toward these groups.
Two, traditional Democrats make up the second key group. These are
to be found in the South which can be handled essentially quietly simply
by having the Vice President campaign continuously but in a low key.
He is enough of a symbol there to do the job. The second strand of
traditional Democrats are the union members. Here the President must
make a pledge to cut unemployment, but also not depart from the basic
theme that it is better to get prices down to protect the worth of wages
than to allow every man for himself on price and wage increases. A
third Democratic group are Catholics who can be directly but quietly
appealed to on the aid to parochial schools issue, but again not in a front
and center way.
4.
Basic Nixon Theme
The President should advocate over and over again that he stands four-
square for change but change that works. The theme of change that
works can be powerful for it opts the change mood of the country and at
the same time points up the difference between the practical, pragmatic
approach President Nixon makes as opposed to the pie-in-the-sky McGovern's
easy promises.
Specifically the President should say that he has promised to work for
peace and that he has moved toward a formidable means to achieve peace,
but this has not been done through easy promises, but rather by dint of
hard, tough negotiation. What is more, this is only the beginning; there
is much more ahead. For example, there is a long road to go still on
arms control. And we have only begun to take the long positive road to
economic growth and the use of American resources in the world through
expanded trade for peaceful approach and unbounded good for all of the
people of the earth. These beginnings for peace have not been produced
by America giving in nor by America begging, but rather through firm
negotiations always from strength. We have sought out common areas of
agreement with mutual benefit for both ourselves and the communists. But
above all else, underlying all of the moves for peace has been the element
of mutual respect.
Now, the beginnings made abroad are precisely what must be done in
the next four years here at home. First and foremost, the state of the
economy. The President got tough last August with the price-wage freeze
and is being tough again this August with the food processer crack-down.
We have made a start toward recovery of the economy; that is not yet
good enough. There could be unbounded hope for economic growth at
home in the next four years.
The President should advocate tough tax reform, not of the pie-in-the-
sky variety, but change that works. There must be 4 or 5 concrete measures
advocating. Warning should be served on business that it will be rewarded
as an incentive to produce and grow and to expand, but there will be no
incentive for business to fail to share the wealth with all segments of the
American people.
The President should also pledge in the next four years to improve the
quality of life, that we should stop attacking each other and should start
attacking our common problems. These include air and water pollution,
5.
adequate health care within the means of each family, expanded educa-
tional opportunity and progress toward achieving racial equality. A
pledge can be made to dedicate the resources which formerly were used
for war to improve the quality of life, These would be peace dividends
for the American people.
Others may promise the sun and the stars, I'll pledge only to move us
forward. Others may talk of sweeping change, I will pledge only to produce
change that works Others may talk of radical income distribution, I will
pledge only an economy that works for better living standards for all and
keeps open the doors of opportunity for initiative, competence and unstinting
effort toward excellence to be rewarded. Others may talk of easy cuts in
defense spending, I will only pledge arms reduction that also keeps the
peace. Others may talk of telling America to go back home, but I say let us
go out America to help ourselves and all the world find peace and a better
life.
There is a basic morality at stake in this Presidential campaign. I
say the next President must make a moral compact with the American
people to achieve peace in the world and a chance to fight for a better
quality of life at home. There is a call of greatness in that moral compact.
It is not born of ringing words, but of hard won achievements step by step,
picce by piece. But, greatness can never be yours to describe the easy
promise, only the hard won results. The only change that counts is the
change that works.
This election is basic and historic because the American people have
a clear choice: between promise of forward progress that works or those
who would come in with social and political experimentation, founded on
protest, but in fact a retreat from America's role inthe world and founded
on catering to the fashionable fads of the moment at home. I pledge change,
but change rooted in reality, not fantasy, change that changes people's lives
for good, not change that ends up pitting one group against another.
I ask a simple compact: give me your trust, your help and a limitless
world of hope lies ahead. Mistakes have been made and others will be made
in the future. Change that works is not achieved without its failures, but
I will not hositate to try change that works, but always on a sound base. I
know what it is to hew out progress for peace. I know it is not easy. I ask
for a mandate of change that works. Give me your message. Give me your
trust for another moral compact for four more years.
6.
Caveats:
1.
Do not go after McGovern directly or personally.
2.
Defuse the tax reform and defense issues.
3.
Do not make blatant appeals on what has been done or can be done
for various groups.
4.
Above all, do not defend the status quo.
5.
Do not engage in savage attacks that can be accused of going for the
jugular.
6.
Always indicate an urgent sense that there is so much yet to do and so
little time to do it.
7. Richard Nixon can win with the cleanest campaign in history.
May 19, 1972
MEMORANDUM FOR:
THE PRESIDENT
FROM:
CHARLES COLSON
Dick Scammon called me last evening to give me a very detailed
analysis of the Michigan election. As he put it on the Today Show
Vednesday Morning, it will be "ironic If the Federal Courts against
whom President Nixon has so often campaigned turn out to be the
vehicle through which he is re-elected". Seammon believes beyond
any question that you will carry Michigan in November provided
Wallace is not on the ballot and maybe even If he is. Scammon
spent yesterday studying the poll data on Michigan and drew some
interesting conclusions.
Busing was clearly the most important issue as everyone has observed;
Scammon believes It was, however, virtually the only issue. Even
with voters in the 18 to 24 year old group (Wallace carried the 18 - 24
year olds) one-third listed busing as their reason for voting for
Wallace. Busing was regarded as the more important issue to the
Democratic primary voter than either inflation or unemployment by
margins of better than 3 to 1 depending on the category of voter.
For example, of all the Democratic vesters only 6% named inflation
as the most important issue in determining their vote. To Wallace
voters the ratio is much higher. One in three Wallace voters voted
for him solely because of the busing issue.
Scammon aggues, as he has consistently, that we should step up our
efforts to exploit the busing issue in 15 to 20 critical cities across the
country. The areas need not be only those in which there has been a
busing problem but also where there is a potential busing problem.
Busing is only a code word for the real issue, which is black/white
relations. Wherever large numbers of lower middle class whites live
in close proximity to blacks, the existence of busing or the threat of
busing is, as Scammon puts it, an absolutely decisive issue with any-
where from 20 to 30% of the electorate. Scammon said he could not
understand what appears to be a somewhat restrained posture on our
part on the busing issue; we do not appear to be exploiting it the way
The President
-2-
May 19, 1972
we did law and order, for example, and yet this issue is demonstrably
voter motivational. He volunteered that perhaps those of us in the
Administration are "embarassed" to be strongly pushing this issue
because it "rune against the mainstream of Georgetown thought".
Dick said half-facetiously that if we should prohibit any members of
the Administration from attending any Washington dinner parties until
after the election, that like all of our predecessors our people get so
enmeshed in the Washington social circuit that then we then become
more sensitive to the reaction in Georgetown than the reaction in the
country. He feels that on this issue we may have lost touch with the
folks.
In conclusion, Scammon feels that the issue is stronger than ever, that
we need to do better, that we can exploit this issue in key areas in a
way that will be positively decisive in November and that, If we handle
It properly, the Democrate will be stuck. On the latter point, he feels
that Humphrey and McGovern will try to waffle. If we too seem to be
waffling, the issue will be totally lost. If we are clear and hard their
waffling will only compound their problem. He still argues that a
Constitutional Amendment is the way to put the issue in clearest focus.
Fib memo with
Converstion with Dick Scammon, May 19, 1972
S:
you know, meet with people instead of just the kind of Princeton
types, not MA or Ph. D. types, but BA types you're talking to here. But you
know you can't break through this because the sort of social
C Yes you can break through it.
S: Well, let me put it this way
a Katze nback man can't because this is his
basic assumption anyway.
C: Well, he couldn't but a guy like, well, let's bring it close to home, a guy
like John Ehrlichman can break away from that. He's really from a small
town environment, but and he gets kind of impressed with all that goes on
and his wife does, but he can still be back in touch withthe folks. A guy like
Peterson maybe can't because
that's the problem, he's so inamored of all
this that he's lost sight of what's happening out inthe country.
S: Let me tell you what it is, it's like one of those old cartoons where the
cat smells the cooking pie, as it waffs out through the air and you can just sort
of see him going limp and then his body follows that smell of the pie.
C: Well, you know an interesting thing happened to me about a year ago.
no
about 8 months ago. Bill Safire, who has
who does nothing but have dinner
parties for the Washington establishment
you know he mixes them up, Mary
McGrory and has been inviting me to about 4 because he said I want to prove,
Chuck, to these people that you're really not a black cat. So he said, let me
put a little group together. So he had Liz Drew, Pete Lisagore and Ben Bradlee
and Chuck Percy, the Washington avante garde and we sat around the dinner table
at Bill's house , which is a lovely, beautiful place out in Kenwood, and all of us
properly seated and the catered dinner and duck under glass and half way through
the dinner, up comes the subject of the Pentagon Papers and Bradlee's wife, I
think it was, offered the fact that
or suggested that it was great journalism
there wasn't anything wrong with getting classified documents and printing them
and wasn't the Administration silly to make some a big deal about it and I listened
to this a while and listened to Percy sort of agreeing and Safire nodding
aggreeably and I thought I've had enough of this and I said, "I don't see anything
wrong with it either except it's grand larceny and I've never been brought up to
believe in grand larceny. " And of course Bradlee dropped his fork on his plate,
there was a stunned silence around the table and then everybody said this was
journalism and I said it isn't journalism it's theft and theresno particular skill
to print in the newspaper something that you steal. Let's call it what it is. It's
larceny and it ain't anything else by any other name. Of course, I've never been
2.
invited back to Safire's, everybody left the dinner table feeling very
S:
a point is of course why doesn't the Washington Post hire Ellsberg
to steal the papers up there in Massachusetts with the truth about the Kennedy
case. It will only cost a few bucks
C: Yea, if you're going to steal, you might as well go Well, that is what
happens to us. You know our guys sit there and nod agreeably and then they
don't really feel that they want to be out of phase with
S: That's very true and they don't really have the ideological resources to
combat this. It's like the young priest who hasn't had a proper training in the
seminary, he gets out there and faces the forces of evil, and he's ill-equipped
to win and sometimes he looses.
C: Well I've always enjoyed my favorite expression, "throwing the turd into
the punch bowl I don't ever mind saying hey wait a minute, you're all wet!
But, then taking export people on when I thought I should, but it's interesting.
The President said something else to me last night, he said gee Ithoug ht
I imagine Scammon kn thinks we've really hurt ourselves with Vietnam and
I said, my God, he's a hawk and he said a hawk? And Is aid, Hell, Dick Scammon
was involved in one of the election monitoring efforts in South Vietnam and has
been very very close to the Vietnam thing and was prepared to go for us last
Fall. He said at that point, my God I want to spend an evening with that fellow.
He's got his head screwed on right and
S: That is most flattering.
C: We'll set something up when you get back on your feet.
S: He's going to Moscow and I'm going to bed
C: It would be so helpful Dick because he KM himself has all the right instincts.
He really does. He understands it, he has a great touch with the folks I think
than any President's had since perhaps Truman and maybe better than Truman
had really in terms of the evisceral understanding of the motivations and feeling
and hopes and fears of the public. I think this guy has it better than anybody,
but his biggest problem is being able to diagnose how the hell he makes the
government and the Administration do what he himself knows it ought to do.
S: How do you bring them into step with the people It's not easy, particularly
when you get all the pressures the other way towards what I would call the
establishment left.
C: Which lives in the very town in which the government lives and it's that comm-
u nity that maybe we get terribly jaundiced by. I think you've made a hell of a telling
point and I thought I would tell you that I passed it on to the boss. It registed with
him in such a way that I thought to myself, I better alert Dick because knowing
I
3.
incorporating the suggestion that nobody will attend any more Washington
dinners
it will probably make me the most unpopular man in the staff. Well,
Dick nice to talk to you.
S: Thanks for calling.
I
May 19, 1972
MEMORANDUM FOR:
THE PRESIDENT
FROM:
CHARLES COLSON
Dick Scammon called me last evening to give me a very detailed
analysis of the Michigan election. As he put it on the Today Show
Wednesday Morning, it will be "ironic if the Federal Courts against
whom President Nixon has so often campaigned turn out to be the
vehicle through which he is re-elected". Scammon believes beyond
any question that you will carry Michigan in November provided
Wallace is not on the ballot and maybe even if he is. Scammon
spent yesterday studying the poll data on Michigan and drew some
interesting conclusions.
Busing was clearly the most important issue as everyone has observed;
Scammon believes it was, however, virtually the only issue. Even
with voters in the 18 to 24 year old group (Wallace carried the 18 - 24
year olds) one-third listed busing as their reason for voting for
Wallace. Busing was regarded as the more important issue to the
Democratic primary voter than either inflation or unemployment by
margins of better than 3 to 1 depending on the category of voter.
For example, of all the Democratic vecters only 6% named inflation
as the most important issue in determining their vote. To Wallace
voters the ratio is much higher. One in three Wallace voters voted
for him solely because of the busing issue.
Scammon aggues, as he has consistently, that we should step up our
efforts to exploit the busing Issu in 15 to 20 critical cities across the
country. The areas need not b only those in which there has been a
busing problem but also where there is a potential busing problem.
Busing is only a code word for the real issue, which is black/white
relations. Wherever large numbers of lower middle class whites live
in close proximity to blacks, the existence of busing or the threat of
busing is, as Scammon puts it, an absolutely decisive issue with any -
where from 20 to 30% of the electorate. Scammon said he could not
understand what appears to be a somewhat restrained posture on our
part on the busing issue; we do not appear to be exploiting it the way
The President
-2-
May 19, 1972
we did law and order, for example, and yet this Issue is demonstrably
voter motivational. He volunteered that perhaps those of us in the
Administration are "embarassed" to be strongly pushing this issue
because it "rune against the mainstream of Georgetown thought".
Dick said half-facetiously that if we should prohibit any members of
the Administration from attending any Washington dinner parties until
after the election, that like all of our predecessors our people get so
enmeshed in the Washington social circuit that then we then become
more sensitive to the reaction in Georgetown than the reaction in the
country. He feels that on this issue we may have lost touch with the
folks.
In conclusion, Scammon feels that the issue is stronger than ever, that
we need to do better, that we can exploit this issue in key areas in a
way that will be positively decisive in November and that, if we handle
It properly, the Democrate will be stuck. On the latter point, he feels
that Humphrey and McGovern will try to waffle. If we too seem to be
waffling, the issue will be totally lost. If we are clear and hard their
waffling will only compound their problem. He still argues that a
Constitutional Amendment is the way to put the issue in clearest focus.
April 11, 1972
MFMORANDUM FOR:
THE PRESIDENT
FROM:
CHARLES COLSON
SUBJECT:
Your Meeting with Secretary
Connally This Afternoon
In connection with your meeting this afternoon with Secretary
Connally, you might find of interest some very significant data
which Sindlinger passed on to me last night. In two polls prior
to Connally's meeting with the retailers, (March 16-March 22;
March 23-March 30), we declined precipitously in political
standing. In response to the question, "If next year's Presi-
dential election were being held today, would you vote for the
reelection of President Nixon?", we dropped to 39.8% yes
and 29.2% no in the first poll and in the second we continued
to decline to 37.7% yes and 30.8% no, our poorest showing
since early August of 1971. Following Connally's meeting with
the retailers, for which there was a high public awareness,
there was a dramatic turn around. In the poll of March 31-
April 4, the yes replies rose to 44.6% and the no replies
declined to 25.2%. In a poll completed this past Sunday, the
yes replies rose to 49.6% and the no replies declined to 21. 6%.
Throughout this period, when respondents were asked for the
number one reason that they would not vote for the President's
reelection, approximately half cited, "not stopping inflation",
four times as large as the next most frequent response and many
times larger than the typical replies Sindlinger gets, "I am a
Democrat", "not doing a good job", etc.
2.
Sindlinger's polls always show a greater sensitivity to economic
issues than anything else because generally the interviewer con-
centrates on economic questions before asking political questions.
Hence the respondent is generally conditioned to thinking about
the economy before expressing a political view. On the other hand,
Sindlinger has an enormous statistical base and even if his informa-
tion is distorted, the trend line would have to be regarded as a
fairly significant barometer.
Sindlinger points out that this was the most volatile swing in
public opinion since the two months preceding your August 15
statement last year. It is very unusual in his poll to show such
sharp movement in the political questions. The fact that we have
bounced back to a very strong position today, actually as high as
we have ever been, indicates that the damage was temporary
but it also indicates how explosive the food price issue is.
Sindlinger attributes the bounce-back to the Connally meeting
with retailers and the fact that food prices have indeed tapered
off in recent weeks.
To summarize Sindlinger's advice and data: (1) we have to be
very sensitive to this issue and alert to price rises, food in
particular, (2) public attitudes are very volatile today especially
on a pocketbook issue like this, and (3) political support for anyone
in today's environment is fragile.
Over the coming months we have to watch carefully for any movement
of this kind so that we can step in early, take hard, forceful action
and prevent a re-occurance of this kind of political erosion. In this
instance, we almost waited too long. It is a little unnerving to
think of the consequences had this particular cycle occurred next
October.
Also, we are not yet out of the woods on this issue. Male yes
responses continue to run significantly higher than female; there
is still a spread, although not as big as it was a month ago. The
spread between male and female support suggests that the food price
issue is still alive. In short, we have to keep jawboning and/or take
whatever other steps are necessary to at least demonstrate to the
public that we are not going to let food prices rise.