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From Buchanan to RN RE: learning from 1970 and 1971 poll data. Handwritten notes added by unknown. 6 pgs. [Subject: Campaign] [Memo], 1/13/1972
From Buchanan to RN RE: learning from 1970 and 1971 poll data. Handwritten notes added by unknown. 6 pgs. [Subject: Campaign] [Memo], 1/13/1972
From Buchanan to RN RE: learning from 1970 and 1971 poll data. 6 pgs. [Subject: Campaign] [Memo], 1/13/1972
From Hallett to Colson RE: "The Politicians and the People." 8 pgs. [Subject: Campaign] [Memo], 1/3/1972
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From Buchanan to RN RE: learning from 1970 and 1971 poll data. Handwritten notes added by unknown. 6 pgs. [Subject: Campaign] [Memo], 1/13/1972
From Buchanan to RN RE: learning from 1970 and 1971 poll data. Handwritten notes added by unknown. 6 pgs. [Subject: Campaign] [Memo], 1/13/1972
From Buchanan to RN RE: learning from 1970 and 1971 poll data. 6 pgs. [Subject: Campaign] [Memo], 1/13/1972
From Hallett to Colson RE: "The Politicians and the People." 8 pgs. [Subject: Campaign] [Memo], 1/3/1972
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7
87
1/13/1972
Campaign
Memo
From Buchanan to RN RE: learning from
1970 and 1971 poll data. Handwritten notes
added by unknown. 6 pgs.
7
87
1/13/1972
Campaign
Memo
From Buchanan to RN RE: learning from
1970 and 1971 poll data. Handwritten notes
added by unknown. 6 pgs.
7
87
1/13/1972
Campaign
Memo
From Buchanan to RN RE: learning from
1970 and 1971 poll data. 6 pgs.
7
87
1/3/1972
Campaign
Memo
From Hallett to Colson RE: "The Politicians
and the People." 8 pgs.
Friday, July 02, 2010
Page 1 of 1
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON
January 13, 1972
MEMORANDUM TO THE PRESIDENT
FROM:
PATRICK J. BUCHANAN
Observe (page 2) the month-by-month Gallup Poll figures for the
14-month time frame from October 1970 to December 1971. Some
interesting conclusions emerge; some grave political questions arise;
and some thoughts on What's To Be Done follow.
1.
First Conclusion: It was not the President's campaigning itself
in 1970 that cost him public support -- as the media has reported.
Rather, it was the media depiction of that campaign -- well after it
was over -- that, subsequently, convinced the American people we had
run an "un-presidential" campaign in 1970. The polls bring us proof
positive. One week after the 1970 election was already over, the
President still stood at 57 percent in the national poll. It was not until
December -- aiter the national press corp had been working us over
relentlessly for a month as "dirty campaigners" and "big losers" --
that the President's approval rating dipped.
Fair to conclude in my opinion that if the media had written that the
returns were a "wash," and that the President conducted a vigorous,
tough but fair effort on behalf of his party -- we would have taken no dip
at all in the national polls following the election. It was the media
construction of the President's campaign then, not the campaign itself,
which cost us support.
2.
Despite the tremendous pounding we took in the final months of
1970, for the campaign of that year, the President bounced back in
January to a fair high level of 56 percent support -- before the State
of the Union and the hoopla of the New American Revolution. Apparently
the NAR and the SOTU accomplished "zero" for us -- because in the
period following, we actually dropped five points, or ten percent of our
support. So much for the greatest document since the Constitution.
(Possible explanation of the "dramatic drop" in February is the Laotian
invasion by ARVN which received the worst media of any Administration-
supported exercise since taking office. This February 19-21 poll was
taken, as I recall, just about the time the ARVN was "coming out on the
skids. ")
NIXON'S POPULARITY SINCE
OCTOBER 1970
(1971)
Approve
Disapprove
No Opinion
December 10 - 13
49%
37%
14%
October 29 - November 1
49
37
14
October 8 - 11
54
35
11
August 27 - 30
49
38
13
August 20 - 23
51
37
12
June 25 - 28
48
39
13
June 4 7
48
37
15
May 14 16
50
35
15
April 23 - 25
50
38
12
April 3 - 5
49
38
13
March 12 - 14
50
37
13
February 19 - 21
51
36
13
January 9 - 10
56
33
11
(1970)
December 5 - 7
52
34
14
November 14 - 16
57
30
13
October 9 - 13
58
27
15
-3-
3.
Through the spring, there seems to be no change in our position
that could not be written off as simply statistical margin of error. We
hovered right around 50 percent for six months.
Further, the now famous "Nixon Shocks" of July (the China trip) and
August (the economic bombshell) hardly even registered on the Gallup
Seismograph. There are two polls on here, taken in August after the
second of the "shocks" and neither of them notes any tremor of public
opinion rolling in the President's direction. Between the end of August
and the first two weeks of October, the President I know not what the
reason -- suddenly shot up five points. However, this disappeared in
two weeks, and even after the President's Phase II announcement we did
not rise in the polls.
4.
A crucial point. At the close of a calendar year (1971) in which
the President dominated all the news, put on a virtuouso performance,
by most everyone's standards, and closed out the twelve months by
being Time's and everybody else's Man of the Year the President could
find himself between 6 and 9 points lower in public esteem than he was
at the end of a year that is considered his worst.
While in the media, and among press and TV types RN may had had a
banner year, in fact, during 1971 he suddenly dropped between seven and
nine points (10-18%) of his support among the American people -- and
had not regained it by December of 1971.
5.
All the Euphoria about the President's re-election chances within
the building, and all the press clippings about the President being almost
unbeatable in 1972 thus, in inspection, seems to me to have been made
out of thin air. Supposedly, we were frustrated at every turn in 1970,
and humiliated in that election -- but in three of the four polls at the end
of that year, we were seven to nine points above where we were at the
end of this year.
The opening of the New Year is thus not a time for self-congratulation
on our part, but a time for mild alarm and some serious soul-searching.
While these conclusions seem justified, they are surely frustrating as hell.
One wonders just what it is the President has to do to nudge himself back
up to, say, 60 percent approval with the American people.
It would appear "bold decisions" have no impact or at least no enduring
impact on how the American people view their President. However, one
cannot but wonder where we would have been in the national polls without
them. Did they make any difference? From these polls, one cannot
really say that they did.
-4-
A NOT UNPROBABLY SCENARIO
For some months now, PJB has been innundating the West Wing and
elsewhere with a blizzard of memoranda, warning about the possibility
of a Muskie sweep of the primaries and promenade to the nomination.
What was possible before seems probable to me now and only the
Florida Primary stands in the way of the unpleasant scenario outlined
below:
Today, according to Harris, Muskie runs head-to-head with the President.
Should Muskie roll up the primaries, defeat left, center and right
opposition, remove all doubt that he is the party choice, roll into a
Democratic convention, win on the first ballot, stick John Lindsay on the
ticket to excite young, poor and black he could march out of that
convention into a hailstorm of TV and press publicity that could give him
a five-point lead over the President by mid-July 1972. That to me is
not out of the question.
BUCHANAN'S THEORY OF POLLS
The Great Question is why -- after a year of dramatic activity on the
President's part, of unrivaled success as judged by friend and foe alike,
of bold new initiatives -- why the hell is RN at least half a dozen points
below where he was at the end of a year, where most observors said he
was frustrated and defeated at every turn.
One possibility is that the American people, like all people, get bored
with their Presidents, in this day of intense media, and every President
is going to suffer an inexorable decline in popularity and support year
by year, no matter what the hell he does. If this is valid and I don't
know that it is not, then a posture of fatalism about 1972 is justified.
But my own theory is this:
While announcements or pageantry, dramatic bold decisions, and
traveling Presidents may win the approval of the people, as registered
in the polls, they do not win the standing ovation; they do not win the
new converts that we quite evidently need.
Perhaps what the President needs to regain lost strength in the polls is
not drama (the China trip) not new initiatives (the New American
Revolution), not bold decisions (the economic program), and not even
"steady solid performance." Perhaps what is needed is an end to the
era of calm' presidential leadership and success, and the beginning of a
"new era of conflict and crisis" for the President of the United States.
-5-
One recalls that the President rated highest with the American people
when he was fighting for the survival of the Presidency in November of
1969, against media and demonstrators alike. The HEW veto, with the
stroke of the pen, did not lose the President's support; the people hailed
it. The Vice President was in deep trouble -- until he turned on his
critics, and started stomping on them, instead of trying to show them
he was not a bad fellow.
THE EMBATTLED PRESIDENT
What I am suggesting is that the President, with value added taxes and
revenue sharing and welfare reform and pay boards and price commissions,
may be possibly boring the American people.
While I understand that the "Professional President" is being sold to RN
as the posture for the campaign, perhaps we ought to consider instead
the "Embattled President."
The times when the American people truly sit up and take notice of a
President is when he is in a fight, when he is under fire. On such
occasions, with a President in full cry, taking after his adversaries, in
a great battle, there is the kind of drama and excitement which can stir
up the interest and imagination of an American people whose senses are
somewhat dulled. I am not talking about a "war against inflation" or a
"war against crime" or a "war against red tape or bureaucracy"
but rather a Presidential duel in the Kennedy versus Big Steel tradition
a political struggle against a despised enemy, who is flesh and blood
opposition.
They say of the poor miserable people of the subcontinent that the only
times they have been truly happy in the last decade was when they were at
war with one another, butchering each other by the tens of thousands.
This has provided them with the only exciting diversion from an otherwise
impoverished, indeed intolerable existence.
Maybe the American people, who have made pro football the greatest
spectator sport in history, are bored with revenue sharing and pay
boards and price commissions and welfare reform and environmental
"programs;" maybe they would like to see a good fight.
Looking back over the Presidents of the Twentieth Century, seems to
me they are remembered by the common man, for the great battles they
engaged in: Teddy Roosevelt, "The Trust Buster,' " Woodrow Wilson,
fighting for the League, FDR, the scourge of "Wall Street" and the
"Moneychangers in the Temple, " Harry "Give 'em Hell" Truman, and the
"no good, do-nothing Eightieth Congress."
-6-
This is not to suggest that the President move off the Presidential
pedestal, that he engage in partisan combat, or look around for a war
to start, political or otherwise.
What I am suggesting is that the avoidance of controversy, and conflict,
with our primary adversaries may be politically wrong -- not politically
advantageous. Had the High Court disallowed the Amchitka blast, and
had the President told them twelve hours later to go to hell and fired off
the bomb anyhow, that would have been the kind of dramatic institutional
challenge, that would have awakened the country and gotten them on
their feet cheering.
In short, while the President as President is the best posture for the
coming year; we may very well need to consider Great Issues, contested
questions, where the President can, as President, throw down the
gauntlet to Foreign Relations, to Congress, to the Court, to some
massive powerful institution, SO that RN will go into 1972 as a Fighting
President, not the Professional Managerial President. We might need
to cast the President in a role that not only merits respect and quiet
applause, but one that excites people to stand up and cheer, and excites
the partisans to go out and fight, bleed and die.
This is not so much an ideological thing, as it is something within the
spirit of the American people, who love a good fight. Perhaps we ought
to consider the issues, where we can give them that fight, where the
President can draw the line, and draw the sword, and charge into battle
on behalf of the best interests of the Republic. Better a howling press and
high polls, than a quiescent somnolent press and low polls.
Buchanan
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON
January 13, 1972
MEMORANDUM TO THE PRESIDENT
FROM:
PATRICK J. BUCHANAN
Observe (page 2) the month-by-month Gallup Poll figures for the
14-month time frame from October 1970 to December 1971. Some
interesting conclusions emerge; some grave political questions arise;
and some thoughts on What's To Be Done
follow. and/or the election eve
1.
First Conclusion: It was not the President's campaigning itself
in 1970 that cost him public support as the media has reported.
Rather, it was the media depiction of that campaign well after it
was over that, subsequently, convinced the American people we had
run an "un-presidential" campaign in 1970. The polls bring us proof
positive. One week after the 1970 election was already over, the
President still stood at 57 percent in the national poll. It was not until
December after the national press corp had been working us over
relentlessly for a month as "dirty campaigners" and "big losers"
that the President's approval rating dipped.
Fair to conclude in my opinion that if the media had written that the
returns were a "wash," and that the President conducted a vigorous,
tough but fair effort on behalf of his party we would have taken no dip
at all in the national polls following the election. It was the media
construction of the President's campaign then, not the campaign itself,
which cost us support.
but are we gave telerast the media the opportunity
2.
Despite the tremendous pounding we took in the final months of
1970, for the campaign of that year, the President bounced back in
January to a fair high level of 56 percent support -- before the State
of the Union and the hoopla of the New American Revolution. Apparently
the NAR and the SOTU accomplished "zero" for us because in the
period following, we actually dropped five points, or ten percent of our
support. So much for the greatest document since the Constitution.
(Possible explanation of the "dramatic drop" in Februal ry is the Laotian
invasion by ARVN which received the worst media of any Administration-
supported exercise since taking office. This February 19-21 poll was
taken, as I recall, just about the time the ARVN was "coming out on the
skids.")
NIXON'S POPULARITY SINCE
OCTOBER 1970
(1971)
Approve
Disapprove
No Opinion
December 10 - 13
49%
37%
14%
October 29 - November 1
49
37
14
October 8 - 11
54
35
11
August 27 - 30
49
38
13
August 20 - 23
51
37
12
June 25 - 28
48
39
13
June 4 7
48
37
15
May 14 - 16
50
35
15
April 23 - 25
50
38
12
April 3 - 5
49
38
13
March 12 - 14
50
37
13
February 19 - 21
51
36
13
January 9 - 10
56
33
11
(1970)
December 5 - 7
52
34
14
November 14 - 16
57
30
13
October 9 - 13
58
27
15
-3-
3.
Through the spring, there seems to be no change in our position
that could not be written off as simply statistical margin of error. We
hovered right around 50 percent for six months.
Further, the now famous "Nixon Shocks" of July (the China trip) and
August (the economic bombshell) hardly even registered on the Gallup
Seismograph. There are two polls on here, taken in August after the
second of the "shocks" and neither of them notes any tremor of public
opinion rolling in the President's direction. Between the end of August
and the first two weeks of October, the President -- I know not what the
reason -- suddenly shot up five points. However, this disappeared in
two weeks, and even after the President's Phase II announcement we did
not rise in the polls.
4.
A crucial point. At the close of a calendar year (1971) in which
the President dominated all the news, put on a virtuouso performance,
by most everyone's standards, and closed out the twelve months by
being Time's and everybody else's Man of the Year the President could
find himself between 6 and 9 points lower in public esteem than he was
at the end of a year that is considered his worst.
While in the media, and among press and TV types RN may had had a
banner year, in fact, during 1971 he suddenly dropped between seven and
nine points (10-18%) of his support among the American people and
had not regained it by December of 1971.
5.
All the Euphoria about the President's re-election chances within
the building, and all the press clippings about the President being almost
unbeatable in 1972 thus, in inspection, seems to me to have been made
out of thin air. Supposedly, we were frustrated at every turn in 1970,
and humiliated in that election -- but in three of the four polls at the end
of that year, we were seven to nine points above where we were at the
end of this year.
The opening of the New Year is thus not a time for self-congratulation
on our part, but a time for mild alarm and some serious soul-searching.
While these conclusions seem justified, they are surely frustrating as hell.
One wonders just what it is the President has to do to nudge himself back
up to, say, 60 percent approval with the American people.
It would appear "bold decisions" have no impact or at least no enduring
impact on how the American people view their President. However, one
cannot but wonder where we would have been in the national polls without
them. Did they make any difference? From these polls, one cannot
really say that they did.
-4-
A NOT UNPROBABLY SCENARIO
For some months now, PJB has been innundating the West Wing and
elsewhere with a blizzard of memoranda, warning about the possibility
of a Muskie sweep of the primaries and promenade to the nomination.
What was possible before seems probable to me now and only the
Florida Primary stands in the way of the unpleasant scenario outlined
below:
Today, according to Harris, Muskie runs head-to-head with the President.
Should Muskie roll up the primaries, defeat left, center and right
opposition, remove all doubt that he is the party choice, roll into a
Democratic convention, win on the first ballot, stick John Lindsay on the
ticket to excite young, poor and black -- he could march out of that
convention into a hailstorm of TV and press publicity that could give him
a five-point lead over the President by mid-July 1972. That to me is
not out of the question.
BUCHANAN'S THEORY OF POLLS
The Great Question is why - after a year of dramatic activity on the
President's part, of unrivaled success as judged by friend and foe alike,
of bold new initiatives why the hell is RN at least half a dozen points
below where he was at the end of a year, where most observors said he
was frustrated and defeated at every turn.
One possibility is that the American people, like all people, get bored
with their Presidents, in this day of intense media, and every President
is going to suffer an inexorable decline in popularity and support year
by year, no matter what the hell he does. If this is valid and I don't
know that it is not, then a posture of fatalism about 1972 is justified.
But my own theory is this:
While announcements or pageantry, dramatic bold decisions, and
traveling Presidents may win the approval of the people, as registered
in the polls, they do not win the standing ovation; they do not win the
new converts that we quite evidently need.
Perhaps what the President needs to regain lost strength in the polls is
not drama (the China trip) not new initiatives (the New American
Revolution), not bold decisions (the economic program), and not even
"steady solid performance. " Perhaps what is needed is an end to the
era of calm presidential leadership and success, and the beginning of a
new era of conflict and crisis" for the President of the United States.
-5-
One recalls that the President rated highest with the American people
when he was fighting for the survival of the Presidency in November of
1969, against media and demonstrators alike. The HEW veto, with the
stroke of the pen, did not lose the President's support; the people hailed
it. The Vice President was in deep trouble -- until he turned on his
critics, and started stomping on them, instead of trying to show them
he was not a bad fellow.
THE EMBATTLED PRESIDENT
What I am suggesting is that the President, with value added taxes and
revenue sharing and welfare reform and pay boards and price commissions,
may be possibly boring the American people.
While I understand that the "Professional President" is being sold to RN
as the posture for the campaign, perhaps we ought to consider instead
the "Embattled President."
The times when the American people truly sit up and take notice of a
President is when he is in a fight, when he is under fire. On such
occasions, with a President in full cry, taking after his adversaries, in
a great battle, there is the kind of drama and excitement which can stir
up the interest and imagination of an American people whose senses are
somewhat dulled. I am not talking about a "war against inflation" or a
"war against crime" or a "war against red tape or bureaucracy"
but rather a Presidential duel in the Kennedy versus Big Steel tradition --
a political struggle against a despised enemy, who is flesh and blood
opposition.
They say of the poor miserable people of the subcontinent that the only
times they have been truly happy in the last decade was when they were at
war with one another, butchering each other by the tens of thousands.
This has provided them with the only exciting diversion from an otherwise
impoverished, indeed intolerable existence.
Maybe the American people, who have made pro football the greatest
spectator sport in history, are bored with revenue sharing and pay
boards and price commissions and welfare reform and environmental
"programs;" maybe they would like to see a good fight.
Looking back over the Presidents of the Twentieth Century, seems to
me they are remembered by the common man, for the great battles they
engaged in: Teddy Roosevelt, "The Trust Buster," Woodrow Wilson,
fighting for the League, FDR, the scourge of "Wall Street" and the
"Moneychangers in the Temple, " Harry "Give 'em Hell" Truman, and the
"no good, do-nothing Eightieth Congress.
-6-
This is not to suggest that the President move off the Presidential
pedestal, that he engage in partisan combat, or look around for a war
to start, political or otherwise.
What I am suggesting is that the avoidance of controversy, and conflict,
with our primary adversaries may be politically wrong -- not politically
advantageous. Had the High Court disallowed the Amchitka blast, and
had the President told them twelve hours later to go to hell and fired off
the bomb anyhow, that would have been the kind of dramatic institutional
challenge, that would have awakened the country and gotten them on
their feet cheering.
In short, while the President as President is the best posture for the
coming year; we may very well need to consider Great Issues, contested
questions, where the President can, as President, throw down the
gauntlet to Foreign Relations, to Congress, to the Court, to some
massive powerful institution, SO that RN will go into 1972 as a Fighting
President, not the Professional Managerial President. We might need
to cast the President in a role that not only merits respect and quiet
applause, but one that excites people to stand up and cheer, and excites
the partisans to go out and fight, bleed and die.
This is not so much an ideological thing, as it is something within the
spirit of the American people, who love a good fight. Perhaps we ought
to consider the issues, where we can give them that fight, where the
President can draw the line, and draw the sword, and charge into battle
on behalf of the best interests of the Republic. Better a howling press and
high polls, than a quiescent somnolent press and low polls.
Buchanan
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON
January 13, 1972
MEMORANDUM TO THE PRESIDENT
FROM:
PATRICK J. BUCHANAN
Observe (page 2) the month-by-month Gallup Poll figures for the
14-month time frame from October 1970 to December 1971. Some
interesting conclusions emerge; some grave political questions arise;
and some thoughts on What's To Be Done follow.
1.
First Conclusion: It was not the President's campaigning itself
in 1970 that cost him public support -- as the media has reported.
Rather, it was the media depiction of that campaign -- well after it
was over -- that, subsequently, convinced the American people we had
run an "un-presidential" campaign in 1970. The polls bring us proof
positive. One week after the 1970 election was already over, the
President still stood at 57 percent in the national poll. It was not until
December -- after the national press corp had been working us over
relentlessly for a month as "dirty campaigners" and "big losers" --
that the President's approval rating dipped.
Fair to conclude in my opinion that if the media had written that the
returns were a "wash," and that the President conducted a vigorous,
tough but fair effort on behalf of his party -- we would have taken no dip
at all in the national polls following the election. It was the media
construction of the President's campaign then, not the campaign itself,
which cost us support.
2.
Despite the tremendous pounding we took in the final months of
1970, for the campaign of that year, the President bounced back in
January to a fair high level of 56 percent support -- before the State
of the Union and the hoopla of the New American Revolution. Apparently
the NAR and the SOTU accomplished "zero" for us -- because in the
period following, we actually dropped five points, or ten percent of our
support. So much for the greatest document since the Constitution.
(Possible explanation of the "dramatic drop" in February is the Laotian
invasion by ARVN which received the worst media of any Administration-
supported exercise since taking office. This February 19-21 poll was
taken, as I recall, just about the time the ARVN was "coming out on the
skids.")
NIXON'S POPULARITY SINCE
OCTOBER 1970
(1971)
Approve
Disapprove
No Opinion
December 10 - 13
49%
37%
14%
October 29 - November 1
49
37
14
October 8 - 11
54
35
11
August 27 - 30
49
38
13
August 20 - 23
51
37
12
June 25 - 28
48
39
13
June 4 - 7
48
37
15
May 14 - 16
50
35
15
April 23 - 25
50
38
12
April 3 - 5
49
38
13
March 12 - 14
50
37
13
February 19 - 21
51
36
13
January 9 - 10
56
33
11
(1970)
December 5 - 7
52
34
14
November 14 - 16
57
30
13
October 9 - 13
58
27
15
-3-
3.
Through the spring, there seems to be no change in our position
that could not be written off as simply statistical margin of error. We
hovered right around 50 percent for six months.
Further, the now famous "Nixon Shocks" of July (the China trip) and
August (the economic bombshell) hardly even registered on the Gallup
Seismograph. There are two polls on here, taken in August after the
second of the "shocks" and neither of them notes any tremor of public
opinion rolling in the President's direction. Between the end of August
and the first two weeks of October, the President I know not what the
reason -- suddenly shot up five points. However, this disappeared in
two weeks, and even after the President's Phase II announcement we did
not rise in the polls.
4.
A crucial point. At the close of a calendar year (1971) in which
the President dominated all the news, put on a virtuouso performance,
by most everyone's standards, and closed out the twelve months by
being Time's and everybody else's Man of the Year the President could
find himself between 6 and 9 points lower in public esteem than he was
at the end of a year that is considered his worst.
While in the media, and among press and TV types RN may had had a
banner year, in fact, during 1971 he suddenly dropped between seven and
nine points (10-18%) of his support among the American people -- and
had not regained it by December of 1971.
5.
All the Euphoria about the President's re-election chances within
the building, and all the press clippings about the President being almost
unbeatable in 1972 thus, in inspection, seems to me to have been made
out of thin air. Supposedly, we were frustrated at every turn in 1970,
and humiliated in that election -- but in three of the four polls at the end
of that year, we were seven to nine points above where we were at the
end of this year.
The opening of the New Year is thus not a time for self-congratulation
on our part, but a time for mild alarm and some serious soul-searching.
While these conclusions seem justified, they are surely frustrating as hell.
One wonders just what it is the President has to do to nudge himself back
up to, say, 60 percent approval with the American people.
It would appear "bold decisions" have no impact or at least no enduring
impact on how the American people view their President. However, one
cannot but wonder where we would have been in the national polls without
them. Did they make any difference? From these polls, one cannot
really say that they did.
-4-
A NOT UNPROBABLY SCENARIO
For some months now, PJB has been innundating the West Wing and
elsewhere with a blizzard of memoranda, warning about the possibility
of a Muskie sweep of the primaries and promenade to the nomination.
What was possible before seems probable to me now and only the
Florida Primary stands in the way of the unpleasant scenario outlined
below:
Today, according to Harris, Muskie runs head-to-head with the President.
Should Muskie roll up the primaries, defeat left, center and right
opposition, remove all doubt that he is the party choice, roll into a
Democratic convention, win on the first ballot, stick John Lindsay on the
ticket to excite young, poor and black he could march out of that
convention into a hailstorm of TV and press publicity that could give him
a five-point lead over the President by mid-July 1972. That to me is
not out of the question.
BUCHANAN'S THEORY OF POLLS
The Great Question is why -- after a year of dramatic activity on the
President's part, of unrivaled success as judged by friend and foe alike,
of bold new initiatives -- why the hell is RN at least half a dozen points
below where he was at the end of a year, where most observors said he
was frustrated and defeated at every turn.
One possibility is that the American people, like all people, get bored
with their Presidents, in this day of intense media, and every President
is going to suffer an inexorable decline in popularity and support year
by year, no matter what the hell he does. If this is valid and I don't
know that it is not, then a posture of fatalism about 1972 is justified.
But my own theory is this:
While announcements or pageantry, dramatic bold decisions, and
traveling Presidents may win the approval of the people, as registered
in the polls, they do not win the standing ovation; they do not win the
new converts that we quite evidently need.
Perhaps what the President needs to regain lost strength in the polls is
not drama (the China trip) not new initiatives (the New American
Revolution), not bold decisions (the economic program), and not even
"steady solid performance." Perhaps what is needed is an end to the
era of calm presidential leadership and success, and the beginning of a
"new era of conflict and crisis" for the President of the United States.
-5-
One recalls that the President rated highest with the American people
when he was fighting for the survival of the Presidency in November of
1969, against media and demonstrators alike. The HEW veto, with the
stroke of the pen, did not lose the President's support; the people hailed
it. The Vice President was in deep trouble until he turned on his
critics, and started stomping on them, instead of trying to show them
he was not a bad fellow.
THE EMBATTLED PRESIDENT
What I am suggesting is that the President, with value added taxes and
revenue sharing and welfare reform and pay boards and price commissions,
may be possibly boring the American people.
While I understand that the "Professional President" is being sold to RN
as the posture for the campaign, perhaps we ought to consider instead
the "Embattled President."
The times when the American people truly sit up and take notice of a
President is when he is in a fight, when he is under fire. On such
occasions, with a President in full cry, taking after his adversaries, in
a great battle, there is the kind of drama and excitement which can stir
up the interest and imagination of an American people whose senses are
somewhat dulled. I am not talking about a "war against inflation" or a
"war against crime" or a "war against red tape or bureaucracy"
but rather a Presidential duel in the Kennedy versus Big Steel tradition --
a political struggle against a despised enemy, who is flesh and blood
opposition.
They say of the poor miserable people of the subcontinent that the only
times they have been truly happy in the last decade was when they were at
war with one another, butchering each other by the tens of thousands.
This has provided them with the only exciting diversion from an otherwise
impoverished, indeed intolerable existence.
Maybe the American people, who have made pro football the greatest
spectator sport in history, are bored with revenue sharing and pay
boards and price commissions and welfare reform and environmental
"programs;" maybe they would like to see a good fight.
Looking back over the Presidents of the Twentieth Century, seems to
me they are remembered by the common man, for the great battles they
engaged in: Teddy Roosevelt, 'The Trust Buster," Woodrow Wilson,
fighting for the League, FDR, the scourge of "Wall Street" and the
"Moneychangers in the Temple, 11 Harry "Give 'em Hell" Truman, and the
"no good, do-nothing Eightieth Congress."
-6-
This is not to suggest that the President move off the Presidential
pedestal, that he engage in partisan combat, or look around for a war
to start, political or otherwise.
What I am suggesting is that the avoidance of controversy, and conflict,
with our primary adversaries may be politically wrong -- not politically
advantageous. Had the High Court disallowed the Amchitka blast, and
had the President told them twelve hours later to go to hell and fired off
the bomb anyhow, that would have been the kind of dramatic institutional
challenge, that would have awakened the country and gotten them on
their feet cheering.
In short, while the President as President is the best posture for the
coming year; we may very well need to consider Great Issues, contested
questions, where the President can, as President, throw down the
gauntlet to Foreign Relations, to Congress, to the Court, to some
massive powerful institution, so that RN will go into 1972 as a Fighting
President, not the Professional Managerial President. We might need
to cast the President in a role that not only merits respect and quiet
applause, but one that excites people to stand up and cheer, and excites
the partisans to go out and fight, bleed and die.
This is not so much an ideological thing, as it is something within the
spirit of the American people, who love a good fight. Perhaps we ought
to consider the issues, where we can give them that fight, where the
President can draw the line, and draw the sword, and charge into battle
on behalf of the best interests of the Republic. Better a howling press and
high polls, than a quiescent somnolent press and low polls.
Buchanan
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON
January 3, 1972
MEMORANDUM FOR: CHARLES W. COLSON
FROM: DOUG HALLETT
Broder's and Johnson's basic points in their series "The Politicians
and the People" are the following:
(1) People are less angry, less passionate, less pessimistic about the
future than they were a year ago. What was analyzed last year as fear about
the future has now turned to apprehension. While two-thirds of the people
surveyed still feel the country is no better off than it was in 1968, there is
less immediate concern about short-run disintegration and collapse.
(2) The President's strength has increased considerably as a by-product of
the China trip, the new economic policy, etc. On the other hand, the Pres-
ident's initiatives have also made him seem more unpredictable more mys-
terious, more inconsistent than he did before to many Americans, He is the
first choice of a minority of the electorate. At a time when people are look-
ing for direction and purpose in their leaders, the President remains a remote
and uncertain figure.
(3) There is considerable confusion and indecision about 1972. Never have
political loyalties and allegiances been weaker. Party structures are almost
meaningless in most areas of the country. People want to vote for the man,
not the party. With the possible exception of the economy, no clear-cut issues
are likely to stand out this election year.
(4) The real issue is the psychological issue of trust and confidence. People
are alienated from their government; they feel powerless; they question
whether their leaders can respond to their fundamental concerns. 60 percent
do not believe their leaders tell them the truth.
(5) The youth vote is likely to be smaller than the vote of the electorate -at-
large and young people are not likely to participate in large. numbers in the
political process. While young people are hostile to the President, they will
not have a significant effect on the election.
page 2
(6) Muskie is the only Democratic (contender both known to a majority of
the electorate and known positively. Kennedy and Humphrey are better
known, but less liked. While he has potential, however, Muskie has not
yet developed the broad base of support and respect he would need to defeat
the President.
(7) Wallace and Agnew are too controversial to be accepted as leaders.
While many people agree with their statements, they sense they are not
tolerant enough to be President. Wallace and Agnew are too sure of them-
selves.
It is important to note that Broder's and Johnson's conclusions are
based on a distorted sampling of the electorate. They interviewed only 300
people. All pollsters agree that in-depth interviews with only a small samp-
ling permits the interviewers to reinforce their own preconceived notions.
Broder's and Johnson's sample does break down parallel to the 1968 election
results, but it is far from representative. Only one Southern state was in-
cluded in the survey. 26 percent of the sample were new voters -- and half
of these were college students. These and other distortions have led to con-
clusions at variance with more scientific polls. Whereas polls indicate that
blacks have gained confidence in the system in recent years, for example,
Broder and Johnson assert they are more alienated.
On the other hand, I think the basic theme of the articles ==== the aliena-
tion issue is accurately portrayed. Nothing else could account for the wide
variation between popular support for the President's basic stands and sup-
port for his leadership. Nothing else could account for the President's dom
inance of the issues and his relatively weak showing, both in the trial heats
and in the confidence polls.
The following is my point-by-point analysis:
(1) People are less pessimistic about the future
This is true. The cam-
puses have calmed, The doomsday rhetoric has quieted. People are begin-
ning to believe, for the first time, that the war is ending and that the economy
will not fall apart. Such events as the Moscow and Peking trips even show
promise of leading the way to a better future.
Unfortunately, however, the President's success in the areas listed above
is not necessarily translateable into votes at the polls. The President's sup-
port is based on professionalism, not on any personal or psychic or intel-
lectual loyalty. People expect the President to be an effective tactician. In-
versely, if he is not if his professionalism shows any weakness his base
of support is likely to decline. While it will be hard for the Democrats to
page 3
counter if everything is going alright next fall, it one or more of the above
issues have gone bad the President may not receive credit for anything he
has done. One weakness in the chain will cast into doubt the long-run via-
bility of every link, leading the way to such questions as: "Why couldn't
we have gotten out of Vietnam faster Why didn't the President impose wage-
price controls earlier'
Indeed, the President's successes may even work against him in a curious
sense. In 1968, the President was acceptable to many people to whom he
would not normally be acceptable. People such as Walter Lippman were
for him because they thought we needed a tough, flexible operator to deal with
the kind of problems we had then. Now that the immediate technical prob-
lems have been solved, now that the wounds have been healed to some degree,
we can afford we may need other kinds of leadership. The same peo-
ple who wanted an operational President in 1968 may be looking for a philisophical
one in 1972. They are no longer scared about the present; they are concerned
about the future -- and they want someone who can help define it for them.
As it stands, the President does not fill the bill.
(2) The President's strength has increased as a result of dramatic new in-
itiatives, but these same initiatives have made him a more remote figure
to many Americans. I don't think there is any question but that the President
has gained as a result of his initiatives and is much better positioned for the
campaign than he was six months ago. What is remarkable is that he has
gained so little, standing now only 2 or 3 points above where he was six
months ago.
In my view, this is our fault. Given the President's public personality
when he entered office, given the over-inflated rhetoric of the sixties, it
is not surprising that people were suspicious of promise and waiting for
performance when the President took office. We recognized this in the first
six months to a year of the administration. In the last two years, however,
we have done virtually everything imaginable to undermine our own credi-
bility and consistency.
In 1969, we were going "forward together. " In 1970, we had a "New Fed-
eralism. 11 By 1971, we had hypoed it up to a "New American Revolution.
Who knows what it will be this year? The Second Coming, perhaps?
We show no consistency of effort and commitment. The welfare program
is pronounced the greatest domestic program since the New Deal, but we
expend far more effort trying to place G. Harrold Carswell on the Supreme
Court. We start off with a very exciting and challenging commitment to
page 4
the first five years of life, but denounce day-care (no, middle-class day-
care) as commiting the government to communal living.
Even our major efforts have a tinsely glow to them. The China trip and
the economic policy may be admirable in themselves -- they are certainly
incredible as they were ballyhooed by us. And all the time we are doing
this, we tell the American people it was the previous administration which
is responsible for overheated rhetoric and expectations -- and that we are
the ones who are calming things down.
In the short run, of course, there have been benefits from our dodges and
turns and from our Junior Chamber of Commerce boosterism. Maybe Agnew
has even scored once or twice. But in the long run, I think, we have under-
mined the seriousness of the President and his Presidency. It is no wonder
that today we find the public doubting anything we do, seeing in us instability,
when their greatest want greater than any special-interest need is for
just the opposite.
(3) 1972 is uncertain. With the possible exception of the economy, no issue
concern, no political allegiance, no party-loyalty seems likely to dom-
inate. There is opportunity in the disintegration of the nation's institutions
church, family, town, university, union. There is opportunity to reach
and win over large numbers of newly-independent voters. It is not oppor-
tunity of which we have taken the fullest advantage. We have not allowed
ourselves to restructure public dialogue, provide new direction and new
loyalties. While we have solved short-term problems and may benefit from
having done so, we have not added new certainty or direction to the public
mood.
Just the reverse, in fact. We have remained committed to all the folderol
of the past superficial "Presidentialism, 11 Billy Graham home-town re-
ligion, We're no. 1, partisam excess at the same time we do everything
possible to undermine the past's core. Substantively, we have been by-and
large on track (although we are not dealing seriously with the economy, a
problem which is structural not cosmetic). P.
R.
wise, we have behaved
as village burghers, testing the wind, dragged into every reform, declining
to identify ourselves with our own concerns, failing to recognize the coher-
ency and broader meaning of our own programs.
Take our non-fiscal justification for vetoing day-care, for instance, In the
days of farms and small villages, having mothers bring children up at home
made sense. Women were intimately involved in the production process of
the farm. Children were able to roam and learn in a broadly educational
environment. But now? Homes are isolated from places of work; staying
page 5
home means staying uninvolved. As for children, staying home means
remaining in a sterile, homogenous suburban heighborhood or an even
more confining urban apartment. Of course we need day-care massive
day-care. Far from committing government to communal living, day-
care means, instead, committing government to preserving some sem-
blance of the community bringing-up process which we have enjoyed for
most of our national history and giving women the same opportunity to feel
productive and useful that their grandmothers had.
On many other issues, we exhibit the same kind of narrow provincialism
even when we are on the right side of the issue. I don't believe people buy
it anymore. Even when it is the best they can articulate, I think they ex-
pect more from their leaders. We have failed to give it to them -- and are,
I think, paying the price.
(4) The real issue is the psychological issue of trust and confidence. I
don't think it is quite as dominant as Broder and Johnson do, but I think it
is much more important that we generally acknowledge. People don't "feel"
the President's leadership except for a few brief moments such as the
China announcements. The strongest, most memorable statements the
President has made while in office have been statements of anger or know-
nothingism or blatant politics; i.e. Carswell defeat, Calley conviction,
Cambodia, vetoing day-care, pornography, abortion. They have not been
devoted to explaining what the President is and what he is trying to do.
This is more than charisma -- at least charisma in the John Lindsay sense.
It involves finding words and mediums which express the core of the Pres-
ident's character. Lyndon Johnson is not a superficially charismatic man,
yet in his early years, before the war wore him down, his speech and his
actions reflected a personal force that we never get from the President.
Eisenhower could garble every other sentence, but, when you watched him
on television, you knew he was a leader. Even Truman, haberdasher that
he is, was able to express to his constituency a raw cussedness which was
central to his leadership.
Richard Nixon? Man on the make; ashamed of and constantly running away
from his past; manipulator; unsure of his convictions; tactician instead of
strategist; Grand Vizier of all Rotarians, substituting pomposity for elo-
quence. That is the public impression. And that is why he is weak today.
By 50 percent to 40 percent, the American people do not think he has any
broad conceptual framework, any sense of direction or purpose.
In a sense, the nature of leadership is not nearly SO important as its fact.
That has been our mistake. We have adopted a pacification strategy, this
page 6
for that group, that for this, with deliberable avoidance of controversial
intellectual and social stands, trying to reassure the left, which cares
everything about words, with substance, trying to reassure the right, which
cares everything about substance, with words. We have ended up alienating
everyone -- and we will not be able to correct that until we start realizing
that tommorrow's headline is not nearly so important as next fall's "impres-
sion"; that next week's tactical advantage may come at the expense of next
November's strategic victory.
(5) The youth vote is likely to be relatively unimportant in 1972. Broder
and Johnson confirm two of our own opinions: young people are going to vote
less frequently than the rest of the population and they are not going to work
in significant numbers for political candidates. Broder and Johnson are
victims of their own distorted sample on their third point. Their analysis
that young people are far more hostile to the President than the population-
at-large is not born out by the polls. Kennedy has a substantial lead over
the President in the trial heats, but he is the only Democrat who has any
lead among the youth vote.
On the other hand, once the Democrats nominate one man and he has achiev-
ed a visible, stylish identity, he could take the same kind of lead among
youth Kennedy now has. The President's support in this group is thin be-
cause of Vietnam, unemployment, etc.
(6) Muskie is the only Democrat both known to a majority of the electorate
and known positively to it, but does not yet have the strategic advantage over
the President. One of the most disturbing factors in our approach as we
enter the campaign year is our gross underestimation of Muskie. He has
been brilliant, as good as the President was in 1968, and he shows promise
of being far more effective than the President has ever been in the public
phase of his campaign. If he has not yet emerged as the President's equal, he
also does not yet approximate the President's stature as he will as a nom-
inated candidate for President.
People around here counting on a significant fourth party are, I think, crazy,
Muskie is going to do so well in the primaries that no one will join McCarthy
even if he does do it. Without irreparably damaging his right flank, Muskie
has moved far enough left to have the tacit support of somebody like A1 Low-
enstein. Establishment reformers like Gilligan are already in his corner
publicly. The Democrats want to win this year -- I don't think they' re
going to allow themselves to destroy their chances with suicidal splintering.
page 7
Most important of all, Muskie's public image is everything the Pres-
ident's is not: strong, reflective, prudent, even wise. The President
could not maintain early leads against Pat Brown and Hubert Humphrey.
How in the hell
we think he's going to do better against an Ed Muskie
with his usual plastic statesman, say-nothing strategy is beyond me.
(7) Wallace and Agnew are too controversial to be accepted as leaders.
More evidence for the alienation theory. It is not just that Wallace and
Agnew are too strident -- it is also that they are somehow too facile, too
quick, too simplistic. People know that what they have traditionally be-
lieved -- and what Agnew and Wallace preach -- is not right anymore;
that it needs replacement; that the society has changed and that their
public leaders must deal with those changes even if they can't.
The lesson of Wallace and Agnew is that people want to be led -- they don't
want to see their leaders mouth the same idiocies they do over a Saturday
night beer. Yet that is exactly what we try to do -- elevating the idiocies
into wordy, billowy speeches, to be sure -- practically every time the Pres-
ident makes a prepared, public statement.
I would caution, however, that Agnew's unsuitability for the Presidency
does not mean he should be replaced as Vice-President, This should be
decided on the basis of comprehensive polling this spring. There are too
many people who say they would vote for the President, but "not that Agnew. "
On the other hand, I would regret very much having Governor Connally on
the ticket, not just because I would hate to seem him close to the White
House, but, more importantly, because he would overshadow and thus
undermine the President. The President was right in his original intent
with Agnew he runs better with nobody.
Conclusion: The same as usual: Not all the foreign trips to all the foreign
capitals in the world are going to help the President unless they are coupled
with a far more serious effort to deal with his very weak relationship with
the American people.
The following steps should be taken:
(1) Get new speechwriters this is the most important. This President
has the least experienced, least able group of speechwriters in recent
history. We need guys with clout, who are involved and know a lot about
substance, and who can put stuff together which is coherent, purposeful,
and comprehensive which will have the same effect as the President's
masterful desegregation statement.
page 8
Ideally, we would have guys like Daniel Boorstin, Irving Kristol, Edward
Banfield, and Nathan Glazer. We probably can't get them, but the Pres-
ident ought to speak to Moynihan about it. We need and want people from
that Public Interest - Commentary School and Moynihan would know where
to locate good people whom we could get.
(2) Calm the P.R., stop getting overexcited about each new issue, and in-
still some consistency and follow-through in our P. R. -- political opera-
tion. We should not be aiming at taking advantage of each new issue by it-
self, but at taking advantage of each new issue as it relates to the President's
over-all approach. Above all, avoid the cheap-shot, the head-line hunt, the
simple slogan.
(3) Realize that what is important about the President is that he is the first
President to realize that the hyper-individualistic - - "We're No. 1"
frontier American philosophy is bankrupt and outdated. The President is
the first President to comprehend that internallyand externally this country
and its people are part of a community structure as such, the President
is the first real conservative President the country has ever had. He has
readjusted both foreign and domestic policy away from twentieth century
liberalism, realizing that an unbriddled committment to individualism in
the modern world is enslaving and destructive; that both Vietnam and the war
on poverty are symbols of its bankruptcy; that real freedom and real indivi-
dualism cannot be conferred from above, but must be worked out organically
within a community structure by community norms hence an incomes-de-
centralization strategy instead of a services strategy in domestic policy,
hence the Nixon Doctrine instead of Wilsonian zealotry in foreign affairs.
This should be the basic theme in every utterance made by this Administra-
tion.
(4) Stop displaying the President as if he had a stick up his ass. Put him in
gutsy, colorful, photographic situations with people. Take him out of air-
planes, hotels, and military reservations and put him in hospitals, police
cars, outdoors, in urban areas, at local union meetings, on tough university
campuses, at Indian reservations, etc. Use the White House more imaginatively.
(5) A more imaginative use of media we shouldn't be afraid to put the
President in conflict situations -- the Rather thing was good insofar as it
went (by far the best of conversations), but we can go farther. Show that
the President can handle both his enemies and the people by putting him in
situations with them. We should also be hitting much more the prestige mags
with prestige pieces. Personally, I thought the President's 1967 Foreign Af-
fairs article was more a travelog than an analysis, but even it has had im-
pact far beyond its immediate readership.