Squeezed Out off the Middle

By John F. Stacks

Anderson has himself and the system to blame for his failure

When John Anderson began his independent race for the presidency last April, his campaign was more than a pipe dream and an ego trip. The public opinion polls showed that great numbers of Americans were unhappy with the prospective nominations of Reagan and Carter. They indicated as well that a lot of people were eager for a third choice. Looking back, an Anderson aide said last week: "The whole campaign represents a missed opportunity." The reasons that Anderson failed to exploit his opportunity were a result partly of his own limitations and partly of those of the system. His experience showed dramatically how difficult it is for an independent to reach the White House.

Written by Republicans and Democrats, the election rules naturally provide a huge advantage for the established parties. Their candidates are automatically certified for the ballots in the 50 states. The federal treasury gives their nominees $29.4 million each with which to run their general election races. And the parties themselves are allowed to raise an extra $4.6 million to spend on behalf of their tickets.

Still, Anderson and his band of sometimes arrogant but always ardent amateurs plunged in anyway. By the end of the campaign, they had raised some $12 million, mostly by direct-mail appeal, from 217,000 donors. Indeed, they had a list of financial supporters three times larger than the Democratic Party's and had proved that they could raise money in $30 and $40 chunks. More remarkable yet, they managed to collect enough signatures in just a few months to put Anderson on the ballot in every state.

Ironically, these accomplishments helped doom him in the end. His effort to raise money and get on the ballot so monopolized his time and talent that he was unable to fulfill the most fundamental requirement of all for an independent: giving the electorate a clearly defined reason to vote for him. Instead, Anderson's campaign spent more tune criticizing Carter's record and Reagan's qualifications than in defining the "Anderson difference."

"Anderson had a real prospect with such looseness in the electorate," says John Sears, Reagan's former campaign manager. "But he wasn't able to elevate himself from the posture of being the lesser of three evils. Had Anderson been able to articulate some truly new ideas, I think he would have done very well." Looking further for an explanation of just what went wrong, Edward Coyle, Anderson's former deputy campaign manager, says, "There was no burning issue that people were outraged about, no issues on which he was right and Reagan and Carter were wrong that he could grab hold of and run on."

At his apogee in early summer, Anderson was favored by nearly 25% of the voters, according to the surveys, but he was caught in a vicious circle: he could rise no further in the polls if he did not seem to have a chance of winning, and he could not appear to have a chance of winning unless he rose higher in the polls. Trying to break out of his dilemma, Anderson moved left, at least in the perception of many voters, to mobilize his mostly youthful supporters and liberal money givers. As a result, he began losing the backing of the political center, and down he went in the polls and, on Nov. 4, in the voting booths.

Might it have been different? Probably not. Until nearly the very end of the campaign, Anderson was too preachy, humorless and high-flown on the stump. For all his intelligence, he did not wear well. His personality was not bright enough to overcome his lack of a theme.

Another basic problem, compounded by the fact that he started in April, far too late, was that Anderson necessarily had to run as an independent because he had no time to organize a third party, which would have given him a supporting framework. Says California Pollster Mervin Field: "Anderson was suddenly thrust into the arena and asked to play major league ball without a team and without preseason conditioning." Altering the metaphor, Campaign Director David Garth says, "It was like they gave us a moped and told us to race against two Maseratis. But I still think it wasn't that far off if we had done it correctly." Sid Gardner, a liberal Republican who coordinated Anderson's efforts in Connecticut, learned his lesson: "If you are serious about winning the presidency, you start early and you start serious. It is not faddish, it is not chic, and it is not just reaction to whoever the two parties' nominees are."

Anderson takes much of the blame for not making more of his opportunity, which he knew was there. But he also believes that the obstacles were too great. Says he: "The mystique of the two-party system has been crafted in the minds of many people as somehow an institutional prop that we shouldn't throw out in an age of instability and rapid change. May be it is just one more thing that it is a little too much for people to be willing to comprehend and absorb in a relatively short period of time."

Encouraged by even the modest accomplishments of this campaign, some Anderson aides are now contemplating forming a third-party movement based on their experiences. Anderson's direct-mail expert Tom Mathews, for example, says that should the candidate try to build a third party, he could count on $3 million a year from the campaign's loyal contributors.

Perhaps, but such a continued effort would depend largely on the political climate that develops in the next few months. It also depends, of course, on what Anderson himself decides to do. At the moment, he is not sure whether or not he wants to lead a third party. Says the man who caused a great deal of excitement in the 1980 race--at least for a while: "I can see through a glass only darkly now."

--By John F. Stacks.

Reported by Eileen Shields with Anderson

With reporting by Eileen Shields

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.