To shake a Republican's hand
By JIM TOBIN
A" WHAT CONSERVATIVES we are at the
Daily. Reactionaries we are. There is no or-
ganized group on campus with a more formal
code of conser-ing the old, of cursing the new. But
sve get confused. We call the new the old and main-
tain that we, the old, are the new.
Our ancestors started the whole program ten
years ago, and they really were the new. They
were angry about civil rights and American inter-
vention in other continents - things that we are
still angry aboot. By 1968 they hated Richard Nixon
and the Reouhlican party as all groups in an in-
tense political struggle hate their opponents. Lyn-
don Johnson and most of the Democratic Party.
were hated too, but they had lost power.
The hate pissed from one class to another, from
one group of Daily editors to the next. There was
reason for it, of course; Johnson and Nixon and the
rest did abominable things in Vietnam and back
here. At a y rate, every conservative around was
tied to the hated, and were hated in kind.
No one marches in the streets now; would-be
activists wince as they come to realize that there
are few followers now. But among activists and edi-
tors the enmity for "conservatives" lasts, and even
though the protests have moistly gone away, there
is a certain legacy that taints the attitudes of us,
the heirs of the Great Anti-Conservative Tradition.
Deane BHker is a Regent of the University, and
a lot of people around here don't like him much.
tHe ran for the Senate as a Republican, and last
week he lost. His chief opponent was Marvin Esch,
Ann Arbor's congressman, and some people around
campus don't like him much either, but they like
him better than Baker because he is more liberal
than Baker.
IF TIIEY KNEW the other Republican candidates
-Robert Iluber and Thomas Brennan-they
would like them even less than Baker. Both, par-
ticularly Buber, are extremely conservative on the
ssues upon woich such things are judged, by the
sta-dards of those who do the judging.
And so a reporter going about the business of
telling something abost these evil people goes into
the frav like a Crusader on the heels of the infidel;
The Great Anti-Conservative Tradition is like the
Jesuit missionary's Bible. The Truth rests with
activist heirs, and the Republican Party-the forces
of darkness-cowers in the glare.
Which is what makes it so difficult when the
Crusader finds that the infidel is human. It hap-
pened to me in the past month while I covered the
Republicans in the race for the Senate. These God-
awful betrayers of the people were not so horrible.
I didn't agree with them very often, but they didn't
breathe fire.
A reporter is supposed to be cynical, to be be-
yond the emotions that sway the public he or she
writes about. The rule above all others is that every
politician is a crook, an opportunist seeking fame,
power and money by the easiest method at hand;
to be Republican is the kiss of death, of course, be-
cause the Democratic opportunists at least have the
right ideas in their corruption.
But one wants to believe so much. That is. why
newspapers report politics at all, I suppose - be-
catse the people want inspiration, they want to be
led. And so to my radical forbears I apologize. A
couple of those guys said what they thought, and
I believed they meant it. If I did not agree with
them, I respected them. They were not the ogres
we all supposed.
TWO WEEKS AGO I sat on a bench in Kennedy
Square in Detroit and Thomas Brennan talked
about his, campaign. He was chief justice of the
Michigan Supreme Court, and after those years on
the bench he felt he wanted a shot at Congress.
He ran for the House twenty years ago, and so it
is clear that the run for the Senate was just anoth-
er past of an old ambition to hold office. His goals
seemed no more noble than those of any others. I
had no reason to believe his rhetoric other than the
fact that I simply did believe him; it was the act of
faith anyone makes when the eyes meet and the
listener says, "He means it."
He was criticizing Esch for being a fence-strad-
djcr, for getting both liberals and conservatives to
say they supported him. "Whether or not everyone
is fifty-one per cent with me on all the issues, I
don't know, and candidly, I don't care," he said.
Brennan spoke quickly, his voice pitched high with
the frustration of being behind and trying to ex-
plain why. "I really don't care. I'm makin' more
money than a U. S. Senator. I'm not trying to get
a job. I'm a lawyer, I do that very successfully,
very well. I think of political life as an interupM-
tion. It's like military service; you go in for
awhile, you do the best you can and you get out,
hopefully with your shirt, and. with some honor.
You've made a sacrifice."
Many people actively fear Robert Huber for his
rightist views, for saying the Equal'Rights Amend-
ment is "degrading to womanhood," for defend-
ing Richard xNixon until August of 1974, for won-
dering if people still have the "moral courage" to
fight socialism.
_ But the man is not the devil. He is sort of chub-
by, wears rumpled, long-sleeved shirts in ninety-
degree weather; he looks like the guy who owns
the hardware store. And he has to be admired for
the courage it takes to say the things he believes;
it kills him politically, because the state party
leadership watches him like the Russians watched
Ghenghis Khan. As Deane Baker said, "You know,
Bob is a good guy. He's an honest guy, He'll tell
you like it is." And with a thoughtful raise of the
eyebrows, he adds, "Of course, it isn't always a
useful political characteristic."
AND THE CAMPAIGNING they do - one has to
respect them for it. This is not Jimmy Carter
approaching a love-struck Democratic convention.
It is' grinding self-presentation to people who don't
know you and don't really care to know you.
"You have the handshaking and interrupting peo-
ple while they're eating their lunch," said Bren-
nan. "There is a hurt to one's ego when a person
refuses to shake your hand or refuses to meet your
gaze. One gal in that restaurant just a moment
ago-I stuck out my hand-and you just leave it
there until you're sure that they've seen it-I'm
standing with my hand out waiting for her to take
it and she said 'You a Republican?' I said 'Yes' and
she says 'I thought so.' I said, 'Oh, you don't shake
hands with Republicans?' 'Nope."'
Abbie Hoffman snd Angela Davis would im-
dottbtedly dislike Tom Brennan - for what he
believes. "What a fascist," we at the Daily say
about the politician who holds his sort of views. But
the legacy of the activists wears thin after awhile.
We are like the woman who wouldn't shake Bren-
nan's hand. We blind ourselves by doing so.
Jim Tobin is co-diricfor of the Daily's s mtier
The Michigan Daily
Edited and managed by Students at the
University of Michigan
Tuesday, August 10, 1976
News Phone: 764-0552
On presidential debates
SIXTEEN YEARS AGO, John Kennedy and Richard
Nixon took to opposite tables and engaged in a far-
ranging televised debate on the issues't facing the 1960
presidential election. As it turned out, the youthful and
calm Kennedy prevailed in the debate and went on to
a hairline victory over Nixon later that year.
Presidential elections since then, have not featured
debates between the candidates, and for more than a
decade voters have been unable to reap the benefits of
listening to the contenders espouse on the issues.
This year, however, we may see Jimmy Carter and
the Republican nominiee take to the airwaves and wrestle
on this issues. President Ford announced over the week-
end that he "had not ruled out" the possibility of de-
bating Carter, who has already indicated a desire to
participate in one. Ronald Reagan, accustomed to speak-
ing before a camera. has also voiced a desire to flaunt
his smooth rhetorical style befote millions of Americans.
We hope Carter and the Republican nominee plan
to collaborate in a televised debate later this year. There
is no better. forum than a televised encounter to help
crystallize the issues the voters must ponder when
choosing candidates.
Carter and Reagan seem willing to debate. We
hope Ford feels the same way if and when he wins the
nomination
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