In Sheep's Clothing

PICTURE A CONGRESSMAN who voted for the Kemp-Roth tax bill, which would have cut personal tax rates by a third, who voted against the Common Situs Picket bill, the most important piece of labor legislation in ten years, who supported the Vietnam war through the 1960s and who was elected by his GOP peers to the chairmanship of the House Republican Conference.

A New York Times editorial about this man appeared under the headline, "Why Not the Best?" and Times columnist Tom Wicker calls him the "Idea man from Illinois." Of late, he has not been so much covered as celebrated by the press. Phrases like "golden-tongued orator," and "impeccable liberal credentials" have been pinned to him like Olympic medals. The Massachusetts branch of Americans for Democratic Action last month welcomed him like one of their own.

His name is Rep. John B. Anderson (R-Ill.) and he's running for President.

Anderson is, by all accounts, a decent man, a distinguished and reasonable conservative, one of the few remaining. But the press has transformed him into something called a "liberal alternative," something he is not.

The district Anderson represents is American heartland, the northwest corner of Illinois, where the farming is good and the biggest city, Rockford, has a population of 272,000. Anderson has been the Congressman here since 1960, and he has served his constituents and party well.

Anderson moves by the same sensible and unchanging ideals by which the farmers in his district have lived for decades. Don't spend more than you have, don't have the government poking its nose in places where it shouldn't be, let the forces of supply and demand determine most of what goes on in our lives, and everything will settle just fine. The problem is the ideas that work on the farm do not necessarily make for the best government.

An examination of Anderson's record reveals a conservative with a conscience, but a conservative first and foremost. The Jeffersonian creed that "government that governs best governs least" remains the operative phrase in Anderson's political vision. Just put the money into the pockets of consumers and hence into the market system and the benefits will filter down to those in need. It is a traditional doctrine, Adam Smith filtered through 200 years, but what was liberal in 1776 is liberal no more.

The press confusion on Anderson's record is understandable, considering the oddities of the 1980 election year. The Republican party has assembled the most reactionary array of candidates in at least 16 years. The popularity of Howard Jarvis and the unpopularity of Leonid Brezhnev have propelled tax-cuts and Russian-baiting into consensus positions of the Right. Further, the Jarvis epigones have labelled Great Society programs failures, and argue that their elimination or reduction would prove a convenient way to lower taxes. And President Carter, Democrat, has acted more like a Republican than a member of the party that nominated him, leaving little room for an attack form a moderate Republican and forcing those who wish to be different to the far Right. That is where you will find Baker, Bush, Crane, Dole and Reagan. John Connally you will soon find sulking at his big Texas ranch.

All of which leaves Anderson to inhabit the abandoned tundra of the Republican center. And there he would have remained had not the press prematurely announced the death of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy's candidacy, leaving many to search for a "liberal alternative."

In Anderson they found a man who supports the Panama Canal and SALT II treaties, gun control, the Equal Rights Amendment and some forms of school-busing, and who opposes the MX missile, B-1 bomber and selective service registration. His record on civil rights has been particularly distinguished; it was his vote in April, 1968 that allowed President Johnson's open housing bill to get through the Rules Committee. But on the economy, the domestic policy area over which a president has most direct control, Anderson remains a conservative, a man who believes a balanced budget is the primary goal of an economic policy. He has withdrawn his support of Kemp-Roth; even his original support of such an irresponsible and dangerous a proposal, though, reveals the heart of a conservative. Anderson's much touted trade-off of a 50-cent-per gallon tax for a 50-per-cent cut in Social Security taxes is an admirable gesture, but it remains gas rationing by price instead of need.

ANDERSON STANDS out as the class of the Republican field but he still belongs in it. In his first six years in the House, the reactionary Americans for Constitutional Action gave him an average approval rating of 88 per cent. His views have moderated since then, but even in the past three years, the AFL-CIO's committee on political education gave him an average rating of only 32 per cent, in part for his vote against the Common Situs bill, a measure that would have allowed unions with a greivance against one contractor to picket all the contractors on the same construction site. There aren't many unions in northwestern Illinois.

The death-wish of American progressives cannot be underestimated; liberals love an honest loser. And by the same token, liberals all too often see reformers where none exist--witness Jimmy Carter, who teased with promises of reform, only to cast them off somewhere along his celebrated Inauguration Day walk to the White House. Anderson lacks the cynicism to distort his record; the press has done it for him. If the triumphant political product of 1980 turns out to be John Anderson, the package should be clearly marked.