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 .. y..