A Look Toward 1980

WASHINGTON--The impression is growing in this town that Jimmy Carter may well be a one-term President. Carter was recently quoted on the radio here as saying that when he is finished being President, he'd like to become a foreign missionary for the Baptist Church. It would be his goal in such a role, said the President, "to turn some country back to God and back to us." The President may get his chance to convert all those pagans out there before he thinks.

The feeling that Carter will not be reelected in 1980 is not based upon a belief that the Republican nominee, most likely Ronald Reagan at this point, will snatch the reins of power away from the President in the general election. This is not considered conceivable today. It is, rather, based upon the threat within the President's own Democratic Party. The scenario has as its main cast of characters Carter and his possible Democratic challengers, California Gov. Edmund G. (Jerry) Brown, Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Gary Hart (D-Colo.). One or more of these men, many observers are beginning to believe, will serve to deny Carter renomination at the 1980 Democratic National Convention.

The disaffection within the Democratic Party toward Carter arises from the increasingly obvious nature of his political conservatism. The Washington Post columnist Clayton Fritchey recently wrote that Carter is the most conservative Democratic president since Grover Cleveland, who was first elected in 1884. That this is apparently so is illustrated in Fritchey's article, quoting Carter's summation of his January 19 State of the Union address: "Government cannot solve our problems. It cannot set our goals. It cannot define our vision. Government cannot eliminate poverty, or provide a bountiful economy, or reduce inflation, or save our cities, or cure illiteracy, or provide energy..."

It is astounding, even distressing, to hear a Democratic president, elected by a coalition which included as major partners blacks and labor unions, talk that way. Though this observer voted for Jimmy Carter over Jerry Brown in the 1976 California Democratic primary, this sort of language compels one who regards oneself as a liberal to think about trying to find a new man. To be sure, Carter's appointments have been sound from the liberal perspective. The names of Joseph Califano at HEW, Michael Pertschuk at FTC, and Andrew Young at the U.N. immediately come to mind. But it is policy, not appointments, which shapes the course of nations. The Democratic Party has not traditionally accepted a defeatist philosophy of government, a philosophy that Carter seems to be adopting. The year 1980, therefore, may turn out to be the year for a fight for the heart and soul of the Democratic Party.

Great importance is being attached in the press of late to the perspective challenge which Carter may face in 1980 from Jerry Brown. In view of his strong showing against Carter during the late primaries in 1976 and the massive reelection landslide which Brown is expected to achieve this fall. Brown's threat must be taken most seriously. Brown's personal austerity and his enunciation of an "era of limits" have clearly struck a chord of response with the American people. Noted political scientist Richard Reeves, in an article for the February Esquire magazine, foresees an epic battle between "Jerry Brown's celestial rhythms" and "Jimmy Carter's puritan ethie." There is little doubt here that there will be such a battle during the 1980 Democratic primaries.

But whether or not the battle that Reeves anticipates will also be one over the philosophical heart and soul of the Democratic Party alluded to earlier is open to serious question. When Jerry Brown speaks of Spaceship Earth and the "era of limits" is he exuding the same basic philosophy as Carter's "Government cannot...Government cannot...?" When Brown talks about the failure of the Great Society social programs of the '60s, does he believe, as does Carter, that "Government cannot eliminate poverty...or save the cities...or cure illiteracy?" Does the man who once marched with Cesar Chavez and worked diligently for Eugene McCarthy in 1968 accept our modern-day Grover Cleveland's negativist beliefs on these issues?

The answer is a difficult one, as is drawing a distinction between Brown's "era of limits" and the basic philosophy of limitation put forth by Carter in his State of the Union speech. Equally perplexing is a consideration of whether Carter's campaign slogan "Why Not the Best?" applies to all of us in this society or just to him--just his best? Perhaps some of this would be clarified in a 1980 Carter-Brown slugfest.

But doubts about Jerry Brown go beyond just the issue of the true meaning of his philosophy. They extend to the issue of his substance. What would a man who talks about limits and who refuses to live in the gubernatorial mansion or ride in the gubernatorial limousine do as President? His government of limited action in California may provide some clue. Also subject to concern among liberals is his foreign policy--or whether Jerry Brown even has a foreign policy. Asked during the 1976 campaign what a President Brown's foreign policy would be, Brown replied, "Clarity of thought." At least we know what in damnation Carter means by "human rights." Jerry Brown remains, as this observed first characterized him after trying to speak with him at a 1973 Pacific Palisades fund-raising party, "strange."

If a Brown candidacy may not satisfy traditional liberal Democrats, who else is there? It is difficult to take Pat Moynihan, who periodically sounds like a candidate, seriously as a Carter challenger. Moynihan's flamboyant style is simply too many provincial and potentially too offending to too many voters for him to fare well outside the industrial Northeast. Moreover, his belligerence against the Soviets and Third World countries during his stint as United States U.N. ambassador under Gerald Ford and his recommendation of "benign neglect" toward blacks while serving as a White House adviser to Richard Nixon, make him the antithesis of what many liberals would seek as a suitable alternative to Jimmy Carter and/or Jerry Brown in 1980.

This leaves us with Gary Hart, who deserves to be taken seriously in any informed speculation about 1980. For those who are unfamiliar with the background of the 40-year-old man from Colorado, Hart was a regional coordinator for Robert Kennedy '48 in 1968 and in 1972 managed the successful bid of Sen George McGovern (D-S.D.) for the Democratic presidential nomination. In 1974 Hart upset incumbent conservative Sen. Peter Dominick (R-Colo.) to become a United States Senator. Since coming to the Senate, Hart has demonstrated both his liberalism and his belief that being a U.S. Senator ought not be one's life-long occupation.

Hart is a relative unknown, to be sure, but Carter himself proved that this is not at all a disqualifying attribute in the media age. The intense, bright (Hart graduated from the Yale Law School) and photogenic Hart might well become the leading liberal alternative to "Government cannot..." Carter and "Era of limits" Brown in 1980. Though Hart's background would almost certainly lead to his being labeled a "McGovernite" or a "radical liberal" by his Democratic opponents in the primaries or by the Republicans in the fall should he be nominated, Hart demonstrated in his 1974 campaign that he is not unyieldingly wedded to outworn liberal doctrine. But he still believes in what "Government can" and that is important.

The Boston Globe syndicated columnist Ellen Goodman recently wrote in an article about the late Hubert Humphrey that "It's ultimately as difficult to be a totally content person in an unjust society as it is to enjoy a banquet surrounded by starving people." It is difficult to believe that Jimmy Carter is not content in his way or that Jerry Brown isn't content in his world of Zen Buddhism and E.F. ("Small is Beautiful") Schumacher quotations, but it may well be true that Gary Hart is the only one among the prospective 1980 Democratic hopefuls who is discontented in the way in which was Hubert Humphrey. Isn't Humphrey's way the true way for the Democratic Party?

Steven R. Valentine is currently on leave from Earlham College in Richmond, Ind., serving as a national director of the Coalition of Independent College and University Students in Washington.