Thelegacy of Jimmy Carter
By JIM TOBIN
As SRING MEAND RS into summer
arnd the primririest dwindle, it really
is beginning to look like Jimmy Carter
may be the next president of the United
states.
Frank Church won in Nebraska, Ierry
Brown won in M arvland, and Mo Udall
gave Carter a fright here in Michigan,
but the inside track on the Democratic
nomination still belongs to the shrewd
Georgian. Nobody can win 'em all, but
Carter has won p 1 e n t y, and unless
Brown's magic, whatever the elusive
quantity of his may be, can snare him
some states outside his native California,
Carter is still the best bet.
And time may have already run out on
Gerald Ford. As someone else has al-
ready said, you can't out-Reagan Rea-
gan, and after attempting and failing,
Ford looks like a fool. In many ways, he
SO ALL OF A sudden Jimmy Carter
moves into the White House. All of a
sudden a guy is president who says he
doesn't like Washington, isn't a politi-
cian, and will never tell a lie. Of course,
he doesn't really mind the thought of
living in Washington at all, he really is
a politician, and he probably has told
a lie or two lately.
But that doesn't change the fact that
in January we may watch the inugura-
tion of the first Old South president since
the Civil War, and much as Carter looks
a little silly proclaiming his non-Wash-
ington, non-politician status, that procla-
mation is by and large correct, and such
status is significant. Not for a long time
has there been a president unfamiliar
with the high-stakes maneuvering of
Congress or the federal executive branch.
ALL OF WHICH goes to show that if
Carter does indeed become president,
the nation may be led into a political
era which leaves behind much that is
very familiar. Jimmy Carter is the first
genuinely new face on the field of Ameri-
can presidential politics in many years,
and if he is genuinely new, his adminis-
tration will usher in something new as
well: only Carter's chief adviser, God,
knows for sure what that will be.
Consider the train of history Carter's
presidency would cut loose. To carry the
thought to the limit of validity, let's be-
gin with Franklin D. Roosevelt, who sud-
denly had the country looking backward
global prominence tinder FIR as com-
mander of the Allied forces in Europe
during the Second World War was Dwight
I). Eisenhower.
TRUMAN became p r e s i d e n t when
Roosevelt died. Eisenhower ran for pres-
You.
dent, then turned the job over to his
second. Gerald Ford's vice-president dis.
qualified himself months ago from either
continuing as VP or from running for
president, not that Nelson Rockefeller
wouldn't like the job.
The advent of Jimmy Carter would
abruptly end the caravan. Rockefeller
could continue it, as could Hubert Hum.
phrey, the only unindicted vice-president
in twenty-five years who hasn't gotten to
be president. He might do it yet but his
chances diminish with every Carter vie.
tory.
THERE IS NO reason to doubt that
Carter would start a train of his own
The prospect of a series of presidents as
complex and diverse-yet as intricately
connected - as the ones who followed
Roosevelt, is stunning.
The Roosevelt-Ford string can be seen
as a simple series of reactions. Eisen.
hower was a reaction to FDR/Trumar;
Kennedy/Johnson was a reaction to Eis.
enhower; and Nixon/Ford was a reactio
to Kennedy/Johnson, and a throwback oh
sorts to Eisenhower.
Carter might be a reaction to Ford
but he has no ties to the past. Suppose
he picked Walter Mondale for his running
mate, or perhaps Mo Udall, or some un
known who would be closer to Carter's
own Southern moralism. If the econorny
continued to rise with Carter presiding
the electorate would be more likely that
not to send his vice-president to the
White House, or some other star of hip
administration. Or perhaps, if Carter
involved the nation in an unpopular war
or provoked some other sort of chicanery,
the voters would react with an anti-Carte
candidate who would install an anti-Car.
ter administration. Four years later
everybody might remember the good old
days when Jimmy Carter was still pres-
ident and look around for his vice-presi
dent. Eight years after that .. .
Even after he turned around and head-
ed back to Plains, with head held high
or tail between his legs, in eight yearn
or only in four, Jimmy Carter would b
around for a long time.
Jim Tobin is co-director of the sin
Prer Daily's editorial page.
at the confused era of Hoover, Coolidge,
and Harding.
One of Roosevelt's young courtiers in
Congress was Lyndon Johnson, who
would go on to become Senate Majority
Leader as well as other things. Roose-
velt's third and last vice-president was
Harry Truman. A general who rose to
ident in 1952 with a running mate named
Richard Nixon. They won,
John Kennedy took over in 1960 with
Lyndon Johnson, the heir of the New
Deal, as vice-president. Kennedy was
killed and Johnson became president, to
be followed by Nixon, Eisenhower's vice-
president. Nixon lost his first vice-presi-
The Michigan Daily
Edited and managed by Students at the
University of Michigan
Tuesday, May 25, 1976
News Phone: 764-0552
eiHE TIRED, LOW-DOWN issue of this year's presidential
primary campaign is busing, but whoever emerge as
nominees after the conventions will be unable to ignore
the matter for long. However deep\ the fatigue of the
American public with busing, it is just as deep a concern
to many voters,
Busing controversies cool down by this time of the
year; in the spring school is almost out and the bitter
confrontations of the autumn and winter ebb with the
approach of summer. But in September and October,
scant weeks before the election, the buses will roll again.
In places like Boston, the tense stand-off between blacks
and whites may finally erupt into something more ugly,1
and the candidates will be forced to take a stand on one
of the nation's most divisive issues.
President Ford is considering he establishment of a
national council to mediate busing problems and devise
solutions out of court. While we cannot endorse such a
plan without details, it may be a step In the right direc-
Ion. In any case, it is time to hear the views of the can-
didates on busing and on integration in general, and
without the superficiality of a Henry Jackson-type "I Am
Against Busing" scare strategy.
Mailbox: Public school villainy
To The Daily:
The University can be viewed
as a mechanized twentieth cen-
tury machine, which each year
produces several thousand mar-
ketable commodities. It has been
suggested (Mike Routh - May
S and "Mailbox" - May 13)
that University of Michigan
undergraduates are being led
through four years of a grade-
inflated, deficient learning pro-
cess, and that the University
has lowered its entrance and
performance standards, thereby
sacrificing the quality of edu-
cation by increasing the quan-
tity to be educated. Further-
more, The Daily asserts (Edi-
torial - May 13) that Michigan
undergraduates are being
"cheated" by professors who
are being pressured by the Uni-
versity to publish works.
I would like to suggest that
undergraduates are being cheat-
ed before they enter the Univer-
sity, by the public school sys-
tem. The underlying problem of
grade inflation and lowered
standards is found at the jun-
ior high and high school levels.
A recent study showed that SAT
scores have dropped, and that
incoming college freshmen have
a fundamental writing problem,
Traditional teaching methods in
the public school have been re-
placed by new, experimental
programs designed to alleviate
the arduous task of learning.
Each year, students are passed
from grade to grade (something
like skipping stones over open
waters), arriving at the end of
their twelfth grade year bewild-
ered, dazed, and without direc-
tion. Who are the teachers and
counselors responsible for stone-
skipping? They are the products
of our universities,
A vicious circle exists not only
systematically, but also econom-
ically. Teachers demand more
money to meet the rising cost
of living; public school boards
cut out certain academic pro-
grams and after-school activi-
ties; universities lower stand-
ards to accept a larger num-
ber of students.
The problem of grade inflation
is inevitably complex. Finding
the solution to such a problem
produces many more problems,
especially concerning the evalu-
ation of our academic systems.
The public school system should
be re-evaluated and recognized
as the initial perpetrator to the
problem of grade inflation and
declining standards in our uni-
versities.
Suzanne Sehakian
May 24
To The Daily: GE(
The University's stubborn atG
proach to bargaining with GE(
should be a lesson for all. Th
University's reluctance to im
plement as Affirmative Actio
Program for hiring Graduat
Student Assistants can only S
interpreted as another exampl
of institutionalized racism. As
,other facet of this evil is tt
proposed budget cut threaten
ing the School of Education
Office of Minority Affairs.
The administration has co
sistantly shown that it will psl
lip service to progressiV
change all the while entrenc
ing itself deeper in its old way
Polite requests, like GEO
'Memorandum of Understat
ing," will continue to be bras
ed aside. The only voice tht
are responsible to is pressu
and that pressure must cor
from a group as strong and
termined as the University
slow and racist.
I urge all unions on cam
students, faculty and staff
watch and study GEO's str
gle with this particular its
and to confront the Univers
on all levels with its discrint
atory practices. Let's not bs
GEO out on a limb alone.
Jerry Whidng
May 2
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