_ "Psst-want to see some dirty pictures?" Seventy-seven years of editorial freedom Edited and managed by students of the University of Michigan under authority of Board in Control of Student Publications 420 Maynard St., Ann Arbor, Mich. News Phone: 764-0552 Editorials printed in The Michigan Daily exp ress the individual opinions of staff writers or the editors. This must be noted in-oll reprints. TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 1968 NIGHT EDITOR: MARCIA ABRAMSON A crisis collage We awoke Sunday morning to read a cheery item in our Times. Of 538 electoral votes, with 270 needed for election, the Times predicts that Richard Nixon will re- ceive 346, George Wallace 77, and Hubert Humphrey 42. Not knowing quite what to think or say, much less how to advise those who share our political views, we have chosen three alternative reactions out of our welter of emotions. They are printed here without prejudice, without assurance that they represent the total range of alternatives, or even the certainty that any one of them will represent our final views or those of The Michigan Daily. -THE EDITORIAL DIRECTORS Repugnant two parties t ,. .,#., ow " it s "-,1 'N ' s I FOR MONTHS Democratic leaders have been lulling themselves into blissful sleep by incessantly repeating this almost mystical incantanion: "Nothing unifies the Democratic Party like Richard Milh- -ous Nixon." But now with the dimensions of a Nix- on landslide irrevocably clear, suddenly we are saved from the psychological nec- essity of voting reluctantly for Hubert the Hawk out of childhood fears of Re- publican ascendency. While the upcoming Nixon administra- tion m a y prove tragic for America, it' should be instantly recognized that the massive proportions of the Humphrey de- feat opens up new possibilities for the po- litical left. THE UNPREDICTABLE vitality of the Wallace candidacy has provided vivid evidence of the depths of national repug- nance for the two party system and the ease w i t h which Americans today can abandon their traditional voting pat- terns. Consequently, the left should immedi- ately undertake an anti-war political crusade designed to give voters in every state in the union the opportunity to ex- press their repugnance with the two party system. Where possible efforts should be made to get new parties on the ballot, in other states Peace. and Freedom candidate Eldridge Cleaver should serve as a rally- ing point, and in still other states highly organized write-in efforts should be un- dertaken immediately. THE GOAL should be first to bring the rally of the war and beastiality of the ghetto home to the American people at a time when they are offered a choice be- tween two intolerable political alterna- tives. Secondly the next seven weeks should be seen as a trial run for a far better or- ganized and more unified effort to de- velop a potent party of the left designed to confront the two-party system in 1972. We s h o u l d indeed consider ourselves fortunate in the midst of political des- pair. For now we are free from the psycho- logical fetters, of "lesser-evilism" and can begin to build a permanent political left in this country and at the same time rat- ify at the polls our permanent disgust with the bankrupt Democratic Party. WALTER LIEPMLNN- A cont est in liabilities FORTUNATELY, it seems to me, this is still September and so there is still some time left in which to make the choice which the two conventions have offered the country. There is good reason to think that neither candidate is very popular except among the regular members of his own party. As a result the ticket chosen in Miami was greeted with boredom and resignation. The ticket chosen in Chicago was met with bitter- ness and something very much like a wish not to win the election. This overriding unhappiness is due to the obvious contrast be-* tween the two uninspiring candi- dates and the magnitude and complexity of the problems the next President must deal with. It may well be that there was no one available, not Nelson Rockefeller, Eugene McCarthy nor George Mc- Govern, of whom one could say confidently that he was the man who could lead the country through the international con- fusion or could pacify the danger- ous discontents here at home. - BUT TO SAY there \vas no one else who was clearly adequate is cold comfort, for it is to say that one is not sure that those who were chosen are adequate. It leaves us with the fact that the choice is between Ricahrd Nixon and Hu- bert Humphrey, and that neither of them inspires confidence. Here in the middle of Septem- ber we see that the professional politicians in both parties pro- ceeded on the fundamental as- sumption, which is statistically correct, that the active dissenters -the young, the intellectuals, the clergymen, the blacks-do not amount to more than a quarter of the registered voters. The elec- tion will be decided by the undis- senting majority, by the "unpoor, the unyoung, the unback" who are opposed to disorder and to violent change. Some of the members of this majority could go over to George Wallace, but they will not go to the left, and the winner in No- vember will be the man who hs put together a conservative coai- tion. This may well be the correct diagnosis of the aray of forces in 1968. It is obvious that a great majority is furiously angry against the burning and the looting in the black ghettos. The white backlash is a reality. It is also plan that the ideology and the programs of the New Deal, which have dreated the welfare state, have become un- popular in their recent incarna- tion when they are called the Great, Society. There is no doubt that the preponderant majority is against the war iri Vietnam as President Johnson has waged it. The campaign begins with a contest in liabilities. Humphrey is carrying the unpopularity of Mr. Johnson and Nixonis carrying his own record and his party's ide- ological eccentricities. Will anti- Johnsonism or anti-Nixonism pre- vail? I do not iknow. But there is as yet no sign that there will be a clear choice in which one of the candidates stands out clearly as a man who can lead this coun- try out of its troubles. The " serious question the voters have to answer is which ticket has the best chance of being able to put together an administration that can govern in the turbulence of our time. it is easier to ask this question than to answer it, and as a matter of fact I think it is not possible to answer it to- day before the two parties con- front one another in the cam- paign. THE REPUBLICANS could put together a very competent and en- lightened administration, for they have a large pool of younger Re- publicans on which to draw. It is not certain, however, that Nixon knows enough of these Repub- licans outside of the party workers whom he knows so well. Nor is it certain that he will not impose or feel compelled to impose an ideological veto on some of the most promising new Republicans, The Nixon Republicans are a wider set than the Goldwater or Reagan Republicans. But they are not nearly so wide as the whole Republican constituency. There is also the question of whether in the course of cam- paigning Nixon will not commit himself to a military solution in Vietnam. If he does this, he will make it almost certain that his administration will fail just as Lyhdon Johnson's hasfailed.st, "There is also the question of whether he will appease Sen. Strom Thurmond and the Wallece people and thus will make the racial conflict in the cities in- soluble. We know from the past that Richard Nixon is not by na- ture a confident and prudent man, that h