Essay: THOSE LITTLE-DISCUSSED CAMPAIGN ISSUES

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THE 1960s began with a summons to national excellence and moral grandeur. Eight years later, Americans are divided, dispirited and disillusioned. The 1968 presidential campaign might have reawakened the quest for greatness. Instead, the electorate's fears have dominated everything. Equally fearful of losing, the candidates have failed to articulate any new sense of national purpose and direction.

It is too glib to say that the candidates have dodged the issues. George Wallace has artfully exploited white fears of black progress; in that unsavory sense, he has indeed confronted the nation's No. 1 agony—race relations. Richard Nixon rightly boasts that he has spoken on 167 issues, and Hubert Humphrey laughingly admits that he is criticized for having more solutions than there are problems. But quantity is no true gauge. The candidates have not yet spoken explicitly and specifically about scores of basic issues that go to the heart of America's future. They have not revealed a definitive set of priorities for applying the nation's resources to its problems. They have not even produced much eloquent, let alone elevated language, no memorable line that is worthy of becoming a cliché.

This year's campaign, like many before it, has become a clash over personalities—and that is all to the good, as far as it goes. To vote wisely for a presidential candidate is basically to judge his strength of character. Richard Nixon and Hubert Humphrey have at least conveyed a clear choice between quite different styles and attitudes. All the same, both potential Presidents have been disturbingly imprecise even about the major issues of war and race, to say nothing of lesser problems. As a result, their true policies often seem equally vague to many voters. Not that taking hard positions on hard problems is easy; more and more national problems have grown so complicated that solutions stump and split the most informed experts. Moreover, a candidate must simplify such problems for the public, and inevitably risk turning complexities into divisive emotions.

Nixon and Humphrey have both assigned volunteer experts to the thankless task of turning out thoughtful if largely unread position papers on all sorts of topics: black capitalism, the problems of aging, rural redevelopment. But most are aimed at small special-interest groups, and if the press reports them, such pronouncements usually wind up in puny paragraphs between the obituaries and the recipes. Above all, candidates give short shrift to many issues because the people themselves are uninterested. Talk about the gold outflow or trade protectionism makes audiences nod and yawn. It is a political axiom, and one of democracy's dilemmas, that only one issue per campaign, or two or three at most, can grab and hold the public.

This raises the question of why there is such a big fuss over the lack of televised debates. Obviously, a confrontation between personalities would be revealing and possibly decisive. But even if the candidates met headon, what would they talk about? The answer should be: plenty. At least five categories of issues cry out for deeper discussion.

One: National Security. What must we do to protect ourselves and promote world peace?