A Right-wing Teddy for every family
A hundred thousand voters in Massachusetts have received, a vicious 38-page comic-book, which at one point featured a bedraggled Senator Ted Kennedy rising from the water beside Chappaquiddick bridge, demanding: “Get me a towel, get me a lawyer, get me the police — but wait till tomorrow.” This was a reference to the . damaging incident in 1969, when his car plunged into Chappaquiddick Creek, a young woman passenger drowned, and Kennedy failed to' report- the mishap until the next day. Kennedy stars on several “hit-lists” of conservative groups campaiging for the November congressional elections., . ■ The ■ Mid-American Conservative Political' Action Committee (Mapac) is sending voters a pamphlet called “Why Christians should not vote for Kennedy.” The National Conservative Political Action Committee (Nicpac) has produced a television commercial using a Kennedy look-alike, with the message: “He has been too liberal too long.”
The anti-abortion Life Amendment Political Action Committee (Lapac), which calls Ted the rich, black sheep of the Kennedy clan, titles its comic, “Every Family Has One.” “These groups come in from other parts of the coun-
try. try to dirty up the
candidate, and then pull out again,” says one angry Ken-
nedy aide. Kennedy is not alone. At least 11 other senators
feature on the hit-lists of
groups from the Right and Left, who plan to influence election results while re-
maining independent of both parties. It is a ludicrously onesided battle, for while conservative groups will spend more than $4 million on this type of campaign, the Left will be hard-put to spend more than $200,000. The campaigns concentrate on denigrating the incumbents, and the qualities of their opponents are seldom considered. In 1980, the conservatives produced a hitlist of six senators, and helped defeat four of them — George McGovern was probably their biggest scalp. “I don’t know exactly what our value was,” says Terry Dolan, organiser of the big-gest-spending group, Nicpac. “But I know we were effective in turning the debate towards issues the candidate didn't want to discuss.” For .instance, Frank Church, another defeated senator, found himself labelled a “baby killer,” despite the fact that he favoured abortion only on the narrowest of grounds. It was only after the 1980 campaign that the Left
grasped, belatedly, that changes in campaigning laws after Watergate had opened new holes, which the conservatives, using computerised direct-mail techniques, were exploiting- to the full. To satisfy election law, all these groups have to do is keep a theoretical distance away from the candidate they support, . .Dolan . has ■ been honest' enough’ to admit: “A group' like ours could lie through its teeth, and the candidate it helps stays clean.” The Left’s counter-attack remains feeble — partly because the Left is unsure whether it should use the same tactics. Victor Kamber, treasurer of the Progressive Political Action Committee (Propac), says: “It’s still nickels and dimes. We’re five years behind the opposition.” He admits that such campaigns distort the system. “You are not accountable to anyone, so you can play fast and fancy-free with the figures. I don’t like joining in the mud-slinging and wallowing in the gutter,” he says.
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So why did he do it? "It's the only way to get the law changed. There won’t be any change until the independent groups of the Left and Right equal each other. Then the politicians will say ‘a plague on both your houses.’ At the moment, politicians on the Right welcome the support , they get,”- . ( .. One Propac advertisement-, aimed. at' the. Republican Senator 5 ' Orrin Hatch; of Utah, features a drawing of the senator’s suitcase, with
the caption: “For 84 days in 1980, this suitcase visited places most Utahans only see in travel brochures, or dream about in the winter. And each of these trips was paid for by someone other than Orrin Hatch.” The advertisement suggests it is time to "give Orrin Hatch’s suitcase a long rest” . Some : parts of the con- ' servatives’ attack. ..appear much less relevant than • . Hatch's suitcase. In Idaho,
and at least four other states, a branch of Moral Majority, the conservative' Christian organisation, submits a list of questions to candidates, including: How often do you consume alcoholic beverages? One to three times weekly? One to . three times monthly? One to !• three times yearly? Seldom? ■Never? >’Do you believe that one day you will have to give an account of your life to God? If you died right now, are you 100 per cent sure you would go to heaven? “The record is getting distorted rather than highlighted,” says Peter Fenn, chairman of a political action committee that is channelling money to help Democratic politicians in the traditional way. “At a time when politicians are viewed 'as somewhere below the level, of used-car salesmen, .’this is just what the country doesn’t need.”
WILL ELLSWORTH-JONES
“Sunday Times,” London
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