Mr Carter and Mr Reagan

Press, 23 October 1980, Page 16

Mr Carter and Mr Reagan

A fortnight before Americans go to th& polls to elect their President, no obvious winner has emerged. The interest in the Independent candidate, Mr John Anderson, appears to be waning, but he might still pick up between 5 per cent and 10 per cent of the vote. In a number of states, including the crucial New York State, Mr Anderson’s candidacy may attract sufficient Democrat votes away from President Carter to allow Mr Ronald Reagan to be returned to the White House. So Mr Anderson is important, even if he is not going to be the next President.

President Carter has refused to debate issues publicly with Mr Anderson and in the television debate, which has just been agreed to for next week, Mr Anderson will not appear with Mr Reagan and President Carter. The reasoning of the Carter camp is, presumably, that taking part in such a debate might elevate Mr Anderson’s, bid for the Presidency to a more serious level than it has attained so far. That may be the case. On the other hand, the public reaction might be to consider that excluding Mr Anderson was a mean action, and he will get some sympathy votes.

The Carter campaign has not gone smoothly. Mr Carter has appeared, shrill and mean about Mr Reagan on a number of occasions, and has attempted to paint Mr Reagan as irresponsible. Mr Reagan, not one to take up an issue when a facial expression will do, has looked hurt. Mr Carter has had to change his style. In any case the style did not suit him and his aides, who admitted that the virulent attacks on Mr Reagan were not in the script as they had prepared it, breathed a sigh of relief when he gave up the attacks.

Mr Carter rose to be President on a reputation of wholesomeness and honesty. The kindest interpretation to be put on his attacks on Mr Reagan is that he was exasperated because people could not see what a vast difference of outlook there was between his views and those of Mr Reagan, The television debate next week might reveal interesting aspects of the two men. They appear to be evenly matched as television performers: Mr Carter’s grasp of detail is much the greater and if he keeps his cool and does not say wild things—his campaign organisers appar-

ently fear he will say a number of things which he will have to spend the next few days clarifying—the television debate should work in his favour.

Mr Reagan is a more conservative man than is Mr Carter, but it is not accurate to see him as belonging to the far Right. The United States has had strongly conservative Presidents before and Mr Reagan could be expected to conform to the behaviour of other conservative Republican Presidents. He is not a man with any experience in foreign affairs and may well leave the conducting of the foreign relations of the United States, should he win the Presidency, to advisers.

Under Mr Reagan, the United States might be an awkward ally to have. Much more than President Carter, Mr Reagan would, want to see the United States act unilaterally. President Carter has himself earned considerable criticism because he has acted without sufficient consultation with allies. Allies would find Mr Reagan harder still to understand and to live with.

But if the world would find Mr Reagan difficult to know, Mr Reagan may find the world difficult to adjust to. He is, after all, 70 years old, and many of the things he says about the power of the United States and the American role in the world have a curiously archaic ring. In the 1950 s the United States was the strongest Power in the world. It may still be, but the world is a more complicated place and the United States cannot act as if it were the unchallengeable Power. Although Mi* Reagan as President might delegate a great: deal of authority, basic assumptions about what sort of a place the world is must be important.

Some argue that President Carter had to learn, too. He is a younger man and some of the dilemmas in which he found himself were not those of a politician who did not know the world outside his own country, but of someone who. thought that there must be some over-all solution to the problems. His approach has been something like that of an engineering analyst with humane principles. The world is going to have to live with either Mr Carter or Mr Reagan as the leader of the West; it can only be hoped that the learning process is not confined to the world.