THE CAMPAIGN OF ISSUES In 1960 Candidates Run Against Ideas

In 1960 issues are astir, and no dominant personality such as F.D.R. or Ike, no overriding emergency such as World War or Great Depression looms on the November horizon to overshadow them. A historian of U.S. presidential elections might well have to go back to 1012, with its clashing tides of opinion on tariffs and regulation of Big Business, to find a presidential contest in which issues were as significant as they promise to be in 1060. So far no hopeful in either party has nailed together a complete issue platform (the closest: New York's Governor Nelson Rockefeller -- TIME, Dec. 28). But most candidates have begun to sense that they may in the long run be measured by how they measure up to the issues. The major issues and positions thus far:

DEFENSE & PEACE

Already hotting up is a major debate over the adequacy of the Eisenhower Administration defense programs to cope with the dangers of the coming "missile gap" (TIME, Feb. 8). Nixon defends the Administration program with no sign of misgivings. Among the Democratic hopefuls, Texas' Lyndon Baines Johnson and Missouri's Stuart Symington have hammered hardest at the missile gap, but Massachusetts' John Fitzgerald Kennedy has been frankest in facing the prospect that more defense might cost more money. The nation must increase the "portion of our national resources" devoted to missile programs, he says. Symington, Harry Truman's onetime (1947-50) Air Force Secretary, claims that drastic reorganization of the defense structure could chop defense costs by $10 billion -- 25% of the present defense budget.

As measured by pollsters, the missile gap's impact on public opinion has been faint so far--partly because of widespread public confidence that President Eisenhower knows plenty about defense, partly because the public tends to see national defense as part of the larger issue of "peace," which also takes in the aims and conduct of foreign policy. Public-opinion probers find that the public 1) puts "keeping the peace" far ahead of all other national issues, and 2) believes, by a margin of 7 to 5, that the Republican Party is able to keep the peace better than the Democratic Party. That 7-to-5 margin may be more than enough to cancel out any gains the Democrats can squeeze out of the missile gap. Shrewdly aware that "peace" rather than national defense is the No. 1 issue as the public sees it, Hubert Humphrey has been comparatively quiet about the missile gap, has stressed disarmament instead. "There is a real possibility of progress toward genuine disarmament," he keeps repeating.

The "missile gap" will loom bigger in November if Democrats can succeed in convincing the voters that the U.S. is also lagging in the space race, in rate of economic growth, and in scientific-technical education--and that all the lags together add up to a danger that the U.S. may slip to "second best" in the world. Such a composite "secondbest" issue is already shaping up among pundits. But it is a sticky issue for a Democratic candidate to grab hold of, involving a risk that it might lose votes by seeming unpatriotic.

GROWTH & INFLATION

The underlying ideological difference between the Democratic and Republican parties emerges in the debate between 1) the Democratic claim that the Administration's stress on sound money has hindered the nation's economic growth, and 2) the Administration argument that sound money fosters economic growth by encouraging saving for investment. The Administration's "prosperity," argue the Democrats, is really stagnation: the economy has been growing at a rate of 2.3% since 1953 when it ought to have been growing at a rate of 4.5% (or 5% or 6%). Humphrey and Johnson have hit the "growth" issue hardest. "Tight money," cries Johnson in a scrambled metaphor, "can only mean a tight grip of stagnation about the windpipe of our future." Humphrey, playing on an old Populist dislike of bankers, claims that the Administration's tight-money policy, by pushing up interest rates, is "a benefit for the big banks."

Since it involves basic Government policies that affect the lives of all citizens, the "growth" controversy may be the most important domestic issue of the 1960 campaign. But so far it has had little impact on public opinion. As the public sees it, the No. 1 economic issue by far is the high cost of living. Paradoxically, the public feels, by a margin of 8 to 5 in a Gallup poll, that the Democratic Party, rather than the Republican, is more interested in trying to hold down prices. In public opinion, apparently, the long spell of price upcreep beginning in 1956 cancels out the Administration's stress on the goal of sound money.

THE FARM MESS

Just about everybody in both parties--even the farmer himself--agrees that federal farm programs have become intolerably expensive (cost in fiscal 1959: $7 billion). But none of the presidential hopefuls have as yet come out with a convincing agenda for cleaning up the mess. Humphrey has unveiled a four-point "charter of hope for agriculture," and Kennedy and Symington have outdone him with rival six-point programs, but all three programs are short on specifics. Johnson says that "American ingenuity should be equal to the task" of channeling surplus food to "those who need it," but his own ingenuity has produced only a slogan ("food bin of freedom"). Administration insiders say that Nixon, with the President's tacit blessing, is planning to speak out with a farm program of his own, departing from Agriculture Secretary Ezra Taft Benson's rigidities enough to sidestep the massive dislike that Benson has piled up among the farmers.

EDUCATION

Last spring the Gallup poll undertook to find out what, if anything, people thought the Federal Government should be spending more money on. Topping the list: education. The Gallup finding indicates that federal aid to education will be one of 1960's most important domestic issues. Johnson, Humphrey, Kennedy and Symington all favor more of it. Vice President Nixon's efforts to take hold of the education issue ("Inadequate classrooms, underpaid teachers and flabby standards are weaknesses we must constantly strive to eliminate") are hindered by the fact that President Eisenhower has drawn back from his first-term support for federal aid, now opposes direct grants for school construction.

Neither Nixon nor any of the Democratic hopefuls have yet grabbed at the real education issue: the troubles of U.S. education arise not from a' shortage of federal funds but from a shortage of citizen responsibility--the failure of many parents and local leaders to see to it that their own communities build adequate schools and that the children in them are instructed according to standards of excellence. Federal grants might help to raise salaries and speed classroom construction in lagging areas of the U.S., but essentially the problem is one that faraway Washington is incapable of solving.

CIVIL RIGHTS

Federal protection of Negro rights may be a hotter issue before the Democratic Convention than after it. The image of Texan Lyndon Johnson as a Southerner is the biggest single roadblock between him and the nomination. If Johnson is not the Democratic nominee (and the odds as of now are against him), the civil rights issue may be pretty well neutralized. Nixon has spoken out forthrightly for civil rights progress, says that the goal is "equality of opportunity for all Americans." Humphrey, Kennedy and Symington all have unspotted voting records on civil rights. All three Senators (and Johnson too) back the Democratic plan for federal registrars to protect Negro voting rights in federal elections. But the Administration has seized the initiative with Attorney General William Rogers' plan for court-appointed referees to safeguard Negro voting rights in all elections, state and local as well as federal (TIME, Feb. 8). Whether the Democratic majorities in Congress accept the Rogers plan or reject it, it may win some Negro votes for the G.O.P. Dwight Eisenhower got an estimated 21% of the Negro vote in 1952, some 39% in 1956; unless the economy sags in the meantime, Nixon might do even better in 1960.

FEDERAL AID

Democrats will doubtless try to make an issue out of the Administration's reluctance--stronger in Ike's second term than in his first--to spend federal money for state and local projects such as public housing, urban renewal, programs to aid depressed areas. Sure to pass during the current session of Congress, as exhibits for Democrats to point to from the hustings, are housing and depressed area bills much bigger than the Administration wants. If Ike vetoes them. Democrats can point to the vetoes. The need for state and local public works is undeniable--the big-city slums, the inadequate airports, the battered depressed areas are all too visible--but it will be a misfortune for the nation if no presidential candidate in 1960 comes forth with a program for getting states and localities to do the best part of the job instead of calling upon Washington to do it all.

TAX REFORM

The Federal Government's power to cope with most domestic problems is severely limited. Washington cannot abolish Southern prejudices against Negroes or the tendency of local politicians to demand federal aid instead of upping local taxes. But there is one issue that the Federal Government is entirely competent to deal with: reform of the federal income-tax structure. The present structure, piled up piecemeal over the years, combines steeply rising tax rates that reach a confiscatory 91% with a maze of loopholes and deductions. A millionaire may pay a lower rate of income tax on his gross income than a salary earner who has to scrape to send his children to college. One taxpayer may carry a much heavier tax burden than a neighbor with the same gross income and the same number of dependents.

Equity demands drastic tax reform that will both cut the rates and plug the loop holes. Counted so far on the side of tax reform : Nixon.

LABOR The real problem -- how to keep Big Labor from damaging the economy by pushing up wages faster than productivity goes up -- is likely to be pretty much ignored in 1960; nobody wants to antagonize labor leaders already annoyed about last year's Landrum-Griffin labor-reform bill. To soothe labor's feelings, Democrats in Congress are planning to pass a bill upping the U.S. minimum wage from $1 to $1.25, or at least $1.10. Democrat Humphrey openly calls the Landrum-Griffin Act punitive. Republican Nix on openly calls it very constructive. RELIGION

Off by itself, unrelated to differences between the two parties, lurks the bristly issue of religion--meaning the religion of one particular Democratic hopeful, Roman Catholic John Kennedy. In a Gallup poll last year, one voter out of three in the South and one out of five in the rest of the U.S. said that he would not vote for a Catholic for President even if the nominee was "generally well qualified" (but only 47% of the voters polled knew that Jack Kennedy is a Catholic). Hence Kennedy's Democratic rivals may try to convince convention delegates that a Catholic cannot win; Kennedy in turn can make a case that Catholics might turn against the Democratic Party if he is refused the nomination after showing he can win in the primaries.

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