Is the Roving Worth the Risk?

By Hugh Sidey

Over these past decades we have modernized almost everything, dramatically altering our styles in food, thought and even love. But our political process, while it has adapted some of the new machines to its purposes, remains a Stone Age device.

And so once again on a calm Friday afternoon all the old fear from Dallas bubbled up against the hearts of Americans. What happened on the sunny street of Sacramento cannot be dismissed in a few days. It casts its shadow over the entire presidential campaign and each of the contenders. In the compressed and angry American society of 1975, the risks are too great for the President and the men who want the job to wander casually through the populace wringing hands and squeezing elbows. It is a bitter note for politicians after almost 200 years of open campaigning in a free society, but politics like many of our other institutions needs modifying before more disasters overtake us.

The odds cannot be reduced entirely; the militant Puerto Ricans who in 1950 tried to gun their way through the front door of Blair House, where Harry Truman was staying, came alarmingly close to success. Lyndon Johnson told and retold the story that during his own presidency a dozen or so men had scaled the 8-ft. White House fence and made their way up to the mansion before being apprehended.

It also is as near a fact as anything can be that any President or candidate is going to insist on some public appearances as long as this nation is not a police state. But we can make some changes. Presidential travel and campaigns have become huge and frantic spectacles. The size of the crowds at airports and along motorcade routes has become a bogus measure of political popularity.

The impact of these presidential excursions is almost unmeasurable in real political terms. It was calculated that when Richard Nixon ran for office in 1968 he saw about 1.5 million people in rallies and along parade streets. When that figure is modified to allow for children and nonvoters, it is a good bet that any candidate or President can come into the real line of sight of only a tiny fraction of the voters.

There are signs that even local interest in such forays is lessening as the ritual has become so repetitive. Ford did not draw a full house at the American Legion convention in the Minneapolis Convention Center last month.

The intelligent discussion of issues and ideas can be conducted in Washington and beamed out effectively to any corner of this nation. For all the talk of getting back to the grass roots to find out what is really going on, there is little chance that a President or a serious candidate can learn very much by his thunderous hopping from airport to airport, surrounded by security forces and staff members. A President who wants to know the true national sentiment can learn it with an open mind and a genuine desire to know.

Vestiges of the torchlight era of politics can be retained if sentiment demands it. There can be visits to cities, carefully planned rallies. But surely the number of trips, the motorcades, the shopping-center hoopla, the airport greetings and the curbside handshaking can be reduced.

A good many thoughtful men believe the American people are far ahead of the politicians in this matter, and would welcome a calmer and more substantive debate of the issues by the President and the challengers. The main problem seems to be the men themselves. There is some evidence that Ford's tumultuous roving not only takes him away from his desk at times when he should be there, but also that it is having a negative effect on his political standing. His talk is not matched by his action.

Ford is a creature of habit. He is doing what he did for 25 years as a Congressman. It is, some have suggested, what he does best. Before he entered the Oval Office he was away 200 nights in some years, giving forgettable speeches. The ritual has been elevated now that he is in the presidency, but its basic ingredients are the same. Is the risk worth it? The answer is the same as it was in Dallas -when the gun went off. The old political urge to stand before any audience in any part of this nation will never die, but in this fragile and worried time the national interest dictates more caution from the White House.

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