"
Page 4--Tuesday, April 1, 1980-The Michigan Daily
hieh I-ibtigan faitg
\tte v Yea rs o 'Edlitoria I Freelo,,,
Vol. XC, No. 143 News Phone: 764-0552
Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan
GOP may forge new majority
Hash Bashe
AST YEAR'S Hash Bash turned
out to be just another step in the
event's saddening' deterioration. At
one time, the Bash provided an oppor-
tunity for University students to relax
with a pleasant pipe and the com-
panionship of similarly delinquent
scholars. The April Fools fiesta had a
political aspect too: Those who chose
to partake of the leafy drug were
passively signalling their disapproval
of archaic laws that threatened them.
The peaceful pot parties tacitly made
the pot prohibitionists' imagined
horrors look all the more ridiculous.
But the Hash Bash has lost all of its
amiable qualities in recent years. It is
no-longer a happening for students -
not for students on this campus, at any
1 , - __
rs, go nome
rate. It is no longer even peripherally a
forum for political opinion; what need
is there to complain about Ann Arbor's
lenient pot laws?
The Hash Bash no longer serves any
purpose but crowding the Diag with
high school students and other un-
savory characters, disrupting the
normal functioning of the University,
and severely inconveniencing bona
fide University students.
For several years, one lasting
reminder of the April festivities has
been the trash that seemed to cover the
entire campus. Some celebrants com-
plained that there ought to have been
more receptacles. We have a cheaper,
simpler solution; give the campus
back to those of us who work and live
on it.
Fishbowl on the Brink
W E DON'T know whether to praise
or blame University Vice-
President James Brinkerhoff for his
decision yesterday not to commit
$15,000 of University funds to a Fish-
bowl renovation project.
On the one hand, Brinkerhoff did a
sgrvice to the students of this Univer-
sity. By turning away several MSA
proponents of the improvements to the
Angell Hall Fishbowl area until they
Opve full Michigan Student Assembly
support, Brinkerhoff compelled the
dssembly to rethink the poorly con-
4oived plan.
,Originally, Fishbowl renovation ad-
(peates thought Brinkerhoff would
Iledge $15,000 for the project - which
Was to include benches, tables, and
dsplay cases - if the Assembly would
o the same. Last week, however, the
Ian hit a snag on the Assembly floor
various members questioned the
4kpense of the renovations and
%hether students should pay for im-
rovements to University buildings.
. On the other hand, however,
Brinkerhoff is hardly playing the role
of student advocate. Whatever the cost
of any revised plan MSA might present
to him, Brinkerhoff still intends to
require student funds to pay for half of
it. He has, apparently, no qualms
about using student funds to pay for
capital improvements to University
facilities.
Renovation of the Fishbowl certainly
should not be a high budget priority of
either the University or the Assembly
in a time requiring fiscal restraint. But
if MSA members do intend to pursue
the project further, they should
propose a smaller-scale plan. Under no
circumstances should student funds
(derived from the mandatory $2.92
student government fee assessment or
any other MSA sources) be used to im-
prove the Fishbowl.
If Brinkerhoff won't pay for it, and if
MSA can't muster enough of a lobby to
convince him to pay for it, then the
Fishbowl plan should be put aside.
Perhaps one of the more lasting legacies of
the 1980 presidential election season will be a
fundamental realignment of the national elec-
torate of the type this country hasn't seen sin-
ce the New Deal.
The voting patterns of the primary election
states so far indicate a breakdown of the
traditional coalitions that once formed the
base of the Democratic and Republican par-
ties. Once upon a time, elections were fairly
predictable-if you were black, liberal,
Catholic, blue collar, or of ethnic stock (or any
combination of the above) you voted for the
Democrat. If you were middle-to-upper class,
conservative, white collar, and business-
oriented, you belonged to the Grand Old Party
of Lincoln and Hoover.
BACK THEN, THE issues were simple
and clear. The Democratic party, as formed
by Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his New
Deal, stood for a strong, active national
government and an executive who would
wield the powers of the office to solve the
nation's ills. The federal government soon
replaced local and state authorities as the fir-
st refuge of the unemployed, the elderly, the
tired, and the poor.
The Republican party, meanwhile, clung to
its 1930s-Ijoover era laissez faire policies of
less government is good government.
Depressions, even great ones, were a part of
the natural economic cycle, and all would be
well if left to the good intentions of the private
sector free of federal government interferen-
ce.
The two parties competed on those two
divergent approaches to government in the
election of 1936, probably the last truly com-
petitive election of American presidential
history. The G O P was wiped out in a
Roosevelt landslide, and by the next election
in 1940, the pragmatic Republicans had adop-
ted most portions of the New Deal's ideas.
From then on, there was very little difference
between the New Deal Democrats and the
"me too" Republicans.
IN 1976, Jimmy Carter won the presidency
by holding together the traditional New Deal
constituency; he held on to the South, his
native region, while winning in the large, ur-
ban industrial states of the North-Pen-
nsylvania, Ohio, New York, New Jersey.
But since then, the Grand Old Party has
been making inroads into Democratic
bastions. In 1978, Mississippi elected its first
Republican U.S. senator since reconstruction.
And in 1980, Ronald Reagan, California's
former governor, has been making overtures
to and inroads into the blue collar and ethni
Catholic constituency that has traditionally
voted Democratic. Likewise, Republican
Congressman John Anderson has been
relying primarily on the votes of liberal and
young Democrats, ripping away at the base of
the Democratic party.
Despite their wide divergence on many
substantive issues, Reagan and Anderson are
very similar. Both see that their party is a
minority one, and doomed to stay that way
without the support of some traditional
Democrats. Both are pragmatists, and have
been running in primary states while building
a coalition for the Novermber general ple-
tion. Both Reagan and Anderson are playing on
the dissatisfaction of Democrats, although
that is where the similarity ends.
ANDERSON IS snatching votes away from
the Democratic left wing, which could cripple
any Democratic candidate who hopes to win
in a general election. Hubert Humphrey in
1968 learned the lesson of alienating the par-
ty's most vital subsection.
But liberals are feeling disaffected with the
Carter administration and its Republican
economists. Carter has placed fiscal pruden-
By Keith Richburg .
ce at the head of his national agenda, and the
social programs of the 1960s are being
threatened by the administration's budget-
cuts and economic conservatism. Sen. Ed-
ward Kennedy, the liberal Democratic alter-
native, has too many personal problems for
some liberals, who are now more attuned to
Anderson's flaming -oratory and apparent
social consciousness.
Reagan, meanwhile, is getting at the core of
the Democrats' traditional strength-the blue
collar voters, the Catholics, and white
ethnics. The workers are becoming in-
creasingly attentive to Reagan's calls for
fewer taxes. As high-wage union settlements
push workers into higher income tax
brackets, and inflation continues at World
nomination. With both Anderson and Reagan
doing well among Democrats and indepen-
dents in states that allow "crossover" voting,
there is evidencerof an eroding base of sup-
port in the party that has dominated
American politics since 1932.
IF THE DEMOCRATIC nomination' goes
down to the coivention - which is still
'unlikely but now a realistic possibility-the
party pols will have to decide whether it is
more important to have Carter, so he can hold
the $ outh against Reagan, or to have Ken-
nedy, sinlce he can hold the industrial, blue
collar unionists. Urban liberals may choose to
sit out the election rather than face the truly
sad choice of Jimmy Carter versus Ronald
Reagan. 4
Jimmy Carter barely won in the southern
states in 1976-in Mi5,sissippi, for instance, he
won with only 51 per cent of the vote-and it is
doubtful that he can hold that slim margin as
ja
APP hoto
JOHN ANDERSON'S CAMPAIGN recently brought him together with Rev. Jesse Jackson in
Chicago. Both Anderson and his Republican opponent Ronald Reagan have been seeking
,S
ERA gets a needed boost
MISSOURI COURT has ruled that
the National Organization for-
omen (NOW) may carry on its
joycott of states whose legislators
refuse to ratify the Equal Rights
Amendment (ERA). The ruling was
made on the basis of the First Amen-
dment's guarantee of freedom of
speech, and quite rightly extends the
amendment's freedom of speech
guarantee to include economic tactics
employed against political opponents.
In recent years, members of the
National Organization for. Women
(STOW) and other feminists have asked
professional organizations, unions,
municipalities, and political groups not
t6 hold conventions or conduct any
kind of business in unratified states.
Hundreds of groups and localities
have complied with the NOW request.
As the list of supporting groups has
grown, the states that have
traditionally been busy convention
OUT IN KAN6ASJ HE FARMERS
ASKED ME ABOUT PARIVY
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centers have begun to feel the pinch.
The courts were pulled into the con-
troversy when representatives of
Missouri's business community filed a
suit claiming that the ERA boycott
violated anti-trust laws because it con-
stituted a restraint of trade.
NOW's counsel argued that ERA
proponents were within their rights in
applying financial pressure to achieve
their goals. Freedom of speech would
indeed seem a shallow liberty if sup-
porters of a given cause were not
allowed to put their ideas into action
with such a basic tool as economics.
The Missouri court chose to look at
the controversy as strictly a First
Amendment issue. On the basis of that
amendment, the court ruled in favor of
NOW.
Who knows? Perhaps the way to the
ERA opponents' hearts is through their
wallets. We may yet have the chance to
find out.
I TOLD 'EM I PDN'T KNOW
ANYT4ING ABOUT IT-BUT I,
LOOK INTO IT
OK ,N(0' THEY EVEN GAVE ME
T915 CUTE LITTLE PUPPY A6 A
SOUVENIR OF MY VIGI .'
usually Democratic votes, such as those of
coalitions.
War ;II levels, these voters are finding
Reagan's "less government" pitch more ac-
ceptable now even more than four years ago,
CATHOLICS, MEANWHILE, have trouble
with the Democratic party's liberal
stand on abortion. Kennedy is unac-
ceptable-he favors Medicaid money for
abortions. Carter is lightly less obnoxious-he
is personally opposed to abortions, but would
tolerate them as a matter of free choice. But
Reagan is in. line with strict Catholicism
straight down the line. "I believe that when
you have any abortion you are taking a human
life," he says, and he would support a con-
stitutional amendment to prohibit abortions.
This all spells enormous difficulty for the
Democratic party no matter whether Ted
Kennedy or Jimmy Carter emerges from the
upcoming, bruising primaries with the
minoritiies, in their attempts to build winning
an incumbent marked by economic and
foreign policy ineptitude. But Carter lost New
York and Connecticut in the last round of
primaries, and has a good chance of>Iosing
Pennsylvania and Michigan if his support
really is finally sliding away.
The Republican party may emerge as the
new majority party after 1980, if it can hold its
new coalition together in this volatile election
year. From liberals to blue collar workers to
conservative Catholics, voters have shown
they are increasingly dissatisfied with the
Democratic party, and that puts the
Republicans in fine position to capture the
Senate and perhaps even the House in 1982.
Keith Richburg is a former Daily editor
who has been following the candidates
on the primary trail.
LETTERS TO THE DAILY:
IS will change name to avoid confusion
To the Daily:
We would like to commend the
recent Daily editorial (March 28)
"Let's Call a Party a Party" for
bringing to our attention the
possible misunderstanding that
could have developed in the up-
coming election. We agree that
Mr. Brumberg's complaint is a
"minor problem" that should not
"prove to be ominous." However,
we believe a number of important
points were not addressed.
Our main reasonrfor banding
independent candidates together
was to break the party hold on.
MSA (Michigan Student Assem-
bly) and thereby create a gover-
nment which viewed the studen-
ts' needs, not those of the Assem-
bly members' parties. We feel
that this party control precludes
MSA from being open and
responsive to the students.
However, the preferential voting
system makes it practically im-
possible for independents to be
elected. The results of last year's
election bear this out. Of 37 open
seats, only two were filled by in-
dependent candidates. It seems
ironic that an independent can-
didate has taken exception to an
organization formed out of
necessity to increase the chances
of independent candidates being
elected.
The trivial issue at hand is
whether the name "Independent
Students" is deceptive. The
question in our minds is, who is
being deceived? The literature
we have put out in the last week
has said, "Vote IS: Independent'
Students." On the ballot there
will be a clear distinction bet-
ween IS candidates and Indepen-
dent candidates. Independents
will be listed on the ballot first
with IND next to their names,
followed by candidates within
slates. We have not intended our
name to be deceptive, and 'we
hope' that it is not. If it has been,
we apologize.
To put this issue and incon-
venience to rest, we will accept
being called the "Independent
Students Party." We would like
to point out that adding the word
"Party" to our name is poten-
tially deceptive. We are not a
party in the way the word is
traditionally used. We do not in-
tend to perpetuate ourselves. We
are an ad hoc group of indepen-
dent students who are tired of
party interests dictating MSA's
focus. It would seem appropriate,
fair, and just that if IS must add
the word "Party" to its name,
then PAC and SABRE should also
have to do the same since they
are parties in the traditional sen-
se.
We would like to emphasize
that if our name was deceptive,
we would like to apologize and
put all doubts to rest. We will ac-
cept the acronym ISp on the
ballot next to our names, con-
tingent upon the Election Board's
approval.
-Tom Stephens
Peggy O'Dell
Bob Redko
Independent
Students (Party)
March 29
Standard evaluations hit
Hubbard's bid supported
To the Daily:
Last term, the Law School Stu-
dent Senate began using the
course evaluation run by the Cen-
ter for Research on Learning and
Teaching. We chose questions
specifically appropriate for law
school courses, and used the
same ones for all professors.
Wewere very happytwith the
system and will use it in the
future.
I am opposed to the use of any
tandiard Universit nastion-
of the unique nature of law school
education, questions used for
LSA or Engineering courses
would often be meaningless in a
law school survey. Since the law
school's educational methods are:
so different (i.e. Socratic
method), it is essential that we
use a questionnaire geared to our
own needs.
--Al Knauf
President, Law
School Student
Senate
...
GOOD GRIEF ! WERE
To the Daily:
As a concerned citizen of Ann
Arbor, I feel that a change of
leadership is soly neededin the
First Ward. The incumbent coun-
cilperson, Susan Greenberg, has
Hubbard is a doer-not just an
observer.
His plan to shift some police
personnel from writing tickets to
patroling the streets is the best
idea I've heard from any council
candidate. During one week in
I