I

OPINION


Page 4.

Wednesday, October 6, 1982
Politics: Keeping it in the

family

The Michigan Daily

By David Spak
Parents are really wonderful
sometimes. They raise us, feed us, put a
roof over our heads; they're there when
we need help. Some of them even give
us jobs in the family business or at least
help us break into the world with a well-
placed phone call.
Politicians seem to have become par-
ticularly susceptible to this familial
spirit. This November's elections are
turning into a genuine family affair,
with some strange twists here and
there.
TAKE THE interesting favorite son
race for Tennessee's newly-created 4th
Congressional District. But this elec-
tion would be better labeled a "favorite
child race."
It pits Republican Cynthia ("Cissy")
Baker against Democrat James
Cooper. Cissy is, naturally, Senate
Majority Leader Howard Baker's little
girl. Cooper is the son of former Ten-
nessee governor Prentice Cooper.
The Baker-Cooper political feud goes
way back to 1938 when Prentice beat
Howard's father, Howard, Sr., for the
governor's mansion. This year's race is
Round II.
CISSY'S DAD is helping her in big
ways. He's making campaign ap-

pearances and helping out with fun-
draising both in and out of the state.
He's e4en sent out a letter to thousands
of people all over the nation. The letter
praised President Reagan's programs,
which both father and daughter sup-
port. It asked for contributions to
Cissy's campaign to defeat those who
would dare try to go against the
president.
In Illinois another family man is run-
ning for office. Adlai Stevenson III is
trying a political comeback by running
for governor.
Adlai III's dad, Adlai II, was the
Democratic presidential candidate of-
fered up to Ike for slaughter in the fif-
ties. And this is Adlai III's II career. He
was Illinois' Democratic senator for
two terms until he decided not to run for
re-election in 1978.
ADLAI III is just as intellectual as
Adlai II and Adlai I, and up until now
every bit as dull. Dull, that is, before his
first debate with incumbent Governor
James ' Thompson. After a heated
dispute of the facts they actually called
each other liars.
But Illinois has another, perhaps
more interesting family affair
developing. It's the race for mayor of
Chicago. And though the Democratic
primary isn't until February, it has

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also heir to a department store chain.
The one that owns Hudson's. Oh, that
Mark Dayton.
DAYTON IS spending a good deal of
his own fortune (estimated to be $40
million) to defeat Republican incum-
bent David Durenberger. But Duren-
berger has already gotten $2.2 million
for his campaign from at least eight of
Dayton's relatives. Why? Maybe Mark
was an unruly child. Or maybe the
family's upset because in "the
Democratic primary he beat Eugene
McCarthy.
The last big favorite child race is in
California for the U.S. Senate seat
being vacated by S.I. Hayakawa.
Now everyone knows that Califor-
nians are a little different from the rest
of us. They get a little carried away
sometimes. So when they saw all those
other families in other states getting in-
to the act, they said, "We'll show them
how it's done."
SO CALIFORNIA didn't have just one
family name running for the same of-
fice. They didn't have two. Nope, they
had three. Four, if you count
Republican Pete Wilson, who Democrat
Jerry Brown called Ronald Reagan's
clone. Most states don't have even one
family people would call "The
Family." California has at least three.

On the Republican side, Wilson, the
mayor of San Diego, beat the two big
names in the primary. There was
Barry Goldwater, Jr., son of thee
Arizona senator and one-time presiden-
tial candidate. And he also got to see
Maureen Reagan run. You probably
know her father. But the clone beat
them both.
On the Democratic side, Governor
Jerry Brown is the man. His dad was
governor before him and lost a r6,
election bid to Maureen's dad. Jerry's
problem is his image. People say he's
spaced-out. Some even go so far as to
suggest that Frank Zappa's daughterl
shouldn't be the only one named Moon
Unit. Or maybe that Moon Unit might
be a better candidate than Jerry.
So you see, it really isn't that tough
for kids to get ahead in politics these
days. All they need is the will to be in-
volved, a little money, and a certain
public appeal.
Anyone can have all three, just ask
Daddy for it.

November's elections: New twists in the family tree"

already turned into a mudslinger-
supreme involving the city's most
hallowed name: Daley.
Incumbent Mayor Jane Byrne, who
got her first big political job from hiz-
zoner the mayor, Richard J. Daley, is
up against hizzoner's son, Richard M.
Daley. This family spat promises to
keep Chicagoans warm through the

cold winter months after the November
election.
Moving further north to Minnesota,
we happen upon a race for the U.S.
Senate. In this one, Democratic can-
didate Mark Dayton is up against his"
own family.
Mark who? Mark Dayton. He
married into the Rockefeller clan. He's

Spak is a Daily staff writer.

I ~.----______________________________ -.-----~. _______________________ -..-~ ____________________________________________________________________ ~-.-..~--'- --

Edited and managed by students at The University of Michigan

Stewart

.. .

..

Vol. XCIII, No. 24

420 Maynaro St.
Ann Arbor, M'48109

Editorials represent a majority opinion of the Daily's Editorial Board

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A garbled message

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HE GOVERNMENT has won a
small battle in its war to force all
young men to register for the draft.
The massive legal apparatus of the
federal government succeeded Mon-
day in obtaining a two-and-a-half year
prison sentence for a 21-year-old who
refused to fill out one of their cards.
It will undoubtedly send a very
strong message to the Russians.
For the first time since the Vietnam
War, an American citizen, Benjamin
Sasway, was sentenced to prison for
refusing to cooperate with the gover-
nment's plans for his conscription. But
while the government may well suc-
ceed in placing Sasway in prison, they
have not destroyed his cause or that of
the other half-million men who have
not registered.
Sasway's crime is not rape, armed
robbery, or assault. His crime is
daring to suggest that his gover-
nment'smilitary policy is unsound.,
President Reagan, who was elected
to office on a pledge to end draft
registration, decided a few months ago
that he would prolong the.fiasco after

all. He used the same hare-brained
justification Jimmy Carter had before
him: Draft registration is needed to
send the Soviets a message.
We are sending a message to the
Soviets, but it's different than what
Reagan had in mind. We are sending
the message that America is being
governed by a man whose concept of
military responsibility was shaped by
B-movie patriotism. A man who is
trying to make real again a fading
film-clip vision of American military
might ruling the world.
The government says that 500,000
persons still have not registered. Even
using those figures-which are almost
certainly low-the government would
stand no chance of successfully
prosecuting and incarcerating all the
law-breakers. It apparently has no in-
tention of doing so. It has instead
decided to use a tactic that would
warm the heart of a czar: The gover-
nment will prosecute the ringleaders of
the draft registration resistance
movement.

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WASHINGTON, D.C.- While
civil rights leaders blasted away
at President Reagan's social
program budget cuts and
depression-level black unem-
ployment rates, two other impor-
tant black groups-black
businessmen and college
presidents-were willing to give
Reagan a chance.
With more than one million
blacks in college and with black
businesses-many owned by
Republicans-controlling some
$26 billion collectively, the ad-
ministration has a potentially
friendly source of lucrative,
political capital.
These groups could have done
much to win voters to a party
which has so alienated blacks
that today only 8 percent identify
themselves as Republicans,
compared to as many as 15 per-
cent under President Nixon.
NOW, DESPITE recent
soothing assurances by both the
president and GOP party chair-
man Richard Richards, it is clear
the administration not only is
failing to befriend the black
college presidents and business
leaders, it is adding them to the
already growing, angry litany
against the administration.
"I am a Republican, but you
would never know it by the way
I've been treated," said Ted
Adams, president of Unified In-
dustry, a $10 million, minority-
owned engineering company in
Springfield, Va. Adam's com-

How Reagan
alienates
wealthy black
support
By Barbara Reynolds

IN RECENT months, SBA
changed the rules of the 8-A
minority set-aside program,
planning to eliminate 23 of the
larger contracts. About 400
already had been dropped. The
loss of the 23 contracts means
that many firms face the
possibility of bankruptcy, more
than 7,700 jobs may be lost, and
over $250 million in contract sup-
port may be diverted from the
small business community and
added to the coffers of larger,
white business concerns.
Ironically, the 8-A program,
like so many other moves to in-
clude blacks in the supply-size
economic rhetoric, was initiated
by former President Richard
Nixon. Under Nixon, black
business underwent an un-

preaches from the bible of self-
help and free enterprise.
"We hear rumbles that the
president is going to do
something for minority
businessmen, but so far it has
been talk," said James Lowry, a
Chicago consultant who recently
completed a report predicting
that thousands of minority
businesses could close their doors
by the end of this decade unless
emergency measures are taken
by the federal government and
the private sector.
"This is not like under
President Carter, who in 1973 told
the (federal) agencies to triple
their purchases from minorities
to $3 billion," said Lowry. "There
is just no longer the feeling
among the federal agencies that

Wilberforce, Ohio.
IN JANUARY, the president
issued an executive ordefr
promising that the ad-
ministration would assist black
colleges in participating in
programs of 31 federal depar-4
tments and agencies.
This meant that black colleges
might have gotten a larger share
of the $4 billion spent annually by
the federal government on
research. Only aboutr2 percent of
those funds now go to black
colleges. Furthermore, Leonard
Spearman, president of Texas
Southern University, had hopes
of the State Department spon-i
soring programs at his institution
for training of black diplomats.
Instead, cutbacks in student
financial aid and Social Security
benefits have taken their toll on
black colleges, which produce 50
percent of : all black business
executives, 80 percent of all black
military officers and 89 percent
of black physicians and lawyers.
CURRENT estimates show
that by 1983, half of the nation's
450,000 black students in in-
stitutions of higher education
(four years or more) may be tur-
ned away because of budget cuts.
Of the 771,000 students whose
Social Security payments were
stopped, 20 percent were black,
according to Walter Leonard,
president of Fisk University.
White House senior official Mel
Bradley, who handles issues con-
cernina cks. nrnmises morel