November I0, I972

News Arrows?

GORRELI. (”0m page I)

was close. Mezvinsky won

With Nixon/McGovern the vote
wasn't close, it was disasterous to
McGovern believers. Nixon pres
sented a tight ioreign policy pact
age, with rapprochment with china
and the Soviet Union and peace in
Vietnam but a whisper away. a
“Generation of Peace" was pend—
ing.

Nixon preserved the "dignity” of
the Presidential office, allowing
Agnew and others to do his politi-
cal hacking for him Watergate
came, and went, and was accepted
as commonplace political wartare,

Jean Westwood cited the Presi-
den't incumbency and his bnodles of
campaign dollars as prime iactors
in achieving victory Others decried
the President's virt all unlimited ac—
cess to media for "nonrpolltlcal"
messages and broadcasts These
were important factors, but do not
make a complete star ,

McGovern bucked traditional chan-
nels and leaders within the
Democratic party. Certainly nothing
is wrong with that. but as events
progressed it did little to boost his
campaign efforts
George made mistakes that were
difficult to recoup from. He simply
hadn't done his homework on Eag~
leton, on taxes and income pro-
posals, He lost some of his credr
ibility, a quality most ditiicult to
regain, His audience of American
voters was distracted from those
important original issues he raised
in his campaign, Many disheartened
supporters felt he was "right", but
surmized he was too soon for the
American voter.

And what now?

Richard Nixon bothers me. He still
speaks of “peace with honor”, and
I still don’t know what that {imbi—
guous phrase means to him He
still likes to play games, as with
the Russian wheat deal.

“Play the game, the great game at
life," Richard told the television
audience. But who defines the rules?
“Come together for our common
great goals,” he asks Americans,
but are his goals consistent with
mine"

I cannot take heart in Nixon's vic-
tory message. lcannot rejoice with
the chanting crowd: "Four More
Years,” But I can take heart in a
message acknowledging a defeat
“We do not rally to policies ue de-
plore...stand by your convictions ”
. The message oi oeroge McGovern
is the message stated by an unknown
grass roots worker' “He's a voice
that needed to be heard, and we hope
a lot at people did hear him"
I hope a lot of people dill hearhim.
Perhaps he was too soon lhope
that he was not too late,

 

Dean Joseph Wall addressed about
150 McGovern supporters last Frir

day night in a Herrick Chapel Rally
for McGovern.

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9 Elections '72

Diary 0i A
McGovernWorker

by Bonnie Roswig

If one believes that the system is
wrong one must try to improve it
That was the premise iwas work
ing under when i decided to work
for George McGovern on Election
Day I knew that McGovern hadn’t
a prayer of Winning, but I thought
by our efforts we could at least
get some liberal democrats into
office, ,

The Election Day canvass, wewere
told. consisted oi going to the homes
of "lriendly" democrats and res
minding them to vote. Hearing this
relieved me. in previous campaigns
lng we had to do a door to door
canvass where we encounterednasty
Republicans (“If your party had
nominated Wallace, I’d have voted
ior himnbut I'm voting for Nixon),
nasty Democrats, nasty independr
ants and big ugly nasty dogs.
Tuesday 5:45 7Arrived at Herrick
to be greeted by the smiling face of
Lenny Kurz who was standing at the
podium saying, “No coffee and dos
nuts are allowed in Herrick Chapel".
Tuesday 6:l5 — Was shipped on to
Des Moines in a our full of en-
thusiastic but sleepy workers
Tuesday 7:157,“th getting lost
several times we linally arrived

at Democratic Headquarters. Upon
walking into Headquarters we kept

tripping over sleepy Grinnelllans

photo by Ken Winnkur

PPPE’s election night party drew many to the South Lounge to observe
the returns on all oi the major stations.

who were strewn about the hall-
way waiting ior rides to their os-
sigued districts.

Tuesday 7:45 - Arrived at our as
signed district in the outerrreaches
oi Des Moines to begin the iirst
sliiit of the canvass Our task was
to go to the homes of these "li‘iendr
1y" democrats and give a short poi
lite speech reminding them to vote
and then recording on specially labs
eled cards ii they were home, ifthey
had voted or when they planned to
vote.

Tuesday 9:00 a.m.-IZ:00p.m. , Tile
area I worked consisted primarily
oi small apartment houses, trailer
camps, and houses by the highway
including such prominent establishr

ments as "Eddie’s Cafe", Oi those
“friendly” Democrats we visited,

approximately 90% weren’t home"

photo in thin I Mull-1v

McGovern volunteers wait in the Des Moines headquarters for rides to
their precincB below a Signed poster of the candidate. it was just the

beginning ofa long day.

NIXON (from page I)

by a mere 700 votes, ln ineshiek,
Mezvlnsky won 52% at the popular
vote, 57% in Gi'lnnell and 63% in the
iirst wztril

in the race lor State Senator, John
Orr from Grinnell did quite well in
both her town and county and went
on to deleat Charles balloun in the
district at large by a vote at 12,460
to 10,202 to become one of four
women senators in the legislature
She will represent the new 36in
District

William vanderpool though receiv-
illg the highest vote percentage oi
any candidate in the iirst ward
(72%) and in the town (64%) lost
in his bid for State Representas
live in the ’7lst District to Demo-

crat Emil Husak. l-lushk won some
mandingly in his hometown in Toma
and went on to win the race 6,248
to 5,368.

The Democrats dominated the na
tional and state legislatures wine
hing all the selits lor those candi-
dates running in Poweshiek. in the
local elections, however, the Ree
publicans dominated the returns

Republican victories went to ins
cumbent Max Allen, who won over
Mayo Stanlord tor Sheriff Thetuo
positions on the County Board of
Supervisors both went to incuuihcnl
Republicans: naymund Harris and
Melvin Elliot. over Democrats
Harry Kilmer nlid rarrcll Johnson
County Auditor llilhcrt Beebe res
tamed his position Since he was
unopposed Democratic victories
went to Evelyn Kctels for County
clerk over nepulilican chi-lair Weir
sh, and Richard Vogcl tor County
Attorney, who went unopposed.

938 MAIN

THREE LEVELS OF SHOPS

especially those who lived intrailer
camps where we had to trudge

through mud to get to them. The
people who were home reacted tons
in various ways. One ot the first

men I encountered angrily shouted
at me, "I‘m not voting today and
I haven’t voted in ten years. All
politicians are crooks!" The other
people I talked to were halt asleep
and unenthuisastic, usually com»
menting, “I haven’t decided whether
or not I’ll votewl probably will

latter on,"
Tuesday 3:00—5:00 - The district we

were working in the afternoon was
the rillrblack district Di Des Moines.
The residents of the area greeted
us cautiously, but the majority had
voted or planned to vote (that di -
trict had a very high voter turn-
out.) The people seemed relative-
ly pleased that we had gone to the
trouble ol reminding them to vote,

and their dogs were friendly. '
Tuesday 5:30—Much t0 the dis-

pleasure ot Headquarters, we could
Ii't stay for the third Shift because
some of us had to be back for a
6:30 rehearsal, and others wanted
to get back to vote. However, we
didn't get back to Grinnell until
6.50 because we missed the Grins

nell exit.

The day didn’t tend to be uplift-
ing, but the night was oppressive,
I'm not sure I’ll be so active in
turther political campaigns, hull
seem to remember saying that in
1968 and in 1970,

As far as McGovern’s deteat goes,
we must remember the words of
John Baily, former Democratic Na-
tional Chairman who remarked,
"Landslides come and landslides

go,"

The ettect of the youth vote on
the election is notclehr, For the
most part, however. the Iirst ward
tended to vote anywhere irom 679%
higher for Democrats than the town
and the town tended to vote 2-57,,
higher loi- Democrats than the
county The strong ieelings tor Mc-
Govern on campus seemed to carry
over to the remainder orthe Dems
ocratic ticket, In absentee ballots
ing Republicans were tavored, the
only exception being Evelyn Ketels.

The college wasauimpetusinmany
Democratic victories. Besidesvot»
ing predominately ior Democrats
over 300 hundred studentslett Powe-
shiek county election day to work
in Des Moines, Sioux City, Marsh-
a lllown, and Davenport helping pro—
vide winning margins tor Demo-
cratic candidates tllere.Aiiother50-
100 students stayed and worked in
Grinllell Participation by Grinnell
students exceeded those olany col-
lege or university in low-a.

‘t‘TewsinciyslS

KNAPP (trom page 1)

non-partisan inhabitant ofthiscoir
lege for a majority oi Americans
Nixon is no more a Satan than Mc-
Govern is a savior, The voters look-
ed at the rhetoric of McGovern, and
compared it uhtavorably to his ac»
tions, The best example is the is—
sue ot a Vietnam truce The aver-
age voter was not willing to ace
cept the notion that Nixon had con»
spired with Kissinger to dream up
the whole idea as an election hoax.
They saw, instead, a defeated man
grasping at very small straws, Mc»
Govern was just never able to take
the offensive. His own lack of cred-
ibility caused public attention to lo-
cus on him, and thus the issues ol’
Nixon campaign corruption never

really caught on.
Robert Ray could be well on the way

to the 1974 Senate campaign, His
landslide will apparently be bigger
than Nixon’s in Iowa, If one were
to determine a decisive reason, the
grounding of the Air National Guard
last spring would surely be a likely
candidate. The voters, tired oi the
constant red tape of government
bureaucracy, react favorably to any
swiit action. Bob Ray gave that,
The race essentially ended two
weeks ago when Paul Franzenburg
backed down on the question of re-
venues, his only real campaign iS-
sue. Things have been going rela-
tively well in Iowa, and voters, both
Democratic and Republican, gave
Ray the credit.

In the biggest upset of the lcwa
election, Senator Jack Miller lost
his senate seat to Dick Clark by
over 120,000 votes. Although this
was an upset, and therfore harder
to explain, the central reason would
seem to be that Clark managed to
keep Miller on the deiensive the
whole campaign. Miller answered
specific attacks on his voting record
very well, but Nov. 7 marked an
election and not a debate. Voters
were simply not that interested in
specific votes cast by Miller, but
were wary of is general ecpl‘iomlp,,
outlook. Certainly, articles in the
Des Moines paper headlined, “Mll»
lei" in Favor of Loopholes" did no
good. Dick Clark presented a favor
able image, as the coal responsive
candidate, who was willing to lis-
ten to his constituency.

Finally, in the lst District, Ed
Mezvinsky upset Fred Schwengel
by 16,000 votes. The rationale for
this surprise would seem to be the
simple fact that the first district
has more Democrats than Repub-
licans, Ed Mezvinsky was the per—
fect Democrat, everything to every-
one. When talking to college slur
dents, he aligned himself With Men
Govern, and when before small town
audiences, he avoided the subject.
It is difficult to say how much 9L
fact any issue had on the race, as
there were very few.

On the college campuses, he used
several attacks on procedural votes
by Schwengel in an attempt to color
the incumbent as being tor Vietnam
and water pollution. This veryprobr
ably had little effect, as the real
issue tor students was simply that
Schwengel was a Republican,

Finally, as a last comment on the
election in general, a word should
be included on the ticket splitting
by a large segment of the popula-
tion. By all historic indications,
when a landslide occurs, someone
besides the President should be the
beneficiary. This was not the case.
From my humble vantage point of
the First Ward, the results would
seem to indicate that ticket Splits
ting was widespread Even normally
monolithic college students voted for
Ray and Vanderpool. Perhaps the
phenomenon was just a syintom of
this election, or perhaps it heralds
a new age for American politics.

 

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