The Star Press du lieu suivant : Muncie, Indiana • Page 13

THE MUNCIE STAR. SUNDAY. MAY 1. 1983 SECTION A-PAGE 13 Leadership Reagan's Style Is Exact Opposite of Ike's 'Hidden Hand9 Wilson-Carey Rerun in Fall? By LARRY LOUGH The SUr't Managing Editor Only four candidates are capable of winning the Democratic nomination for Muncie mayor Tuesday. Maybe only three.

Who will win is, well a mvsterv. Joseph Kraft And there's lots of mystery in the 1983 primary election. Hotly contested races for at-laree city council nominations on both tne Democratic ana Republican tickets are attractions in themselves. Democrats also have a good one in the 4th District council race, where there's nearly as Larry Lough many candidates in one district contest as Republicans have in all six council wards. And then, there are a lot of races that aren't difficult to figure i out.

WASHINGTON The "hidden hand presidency" is a term developed to describe the leadership of Dwight Eisenhower. But it also proves useful as a measure of the Reagan administration. For Ronald Reagan, far from keeping a hand hidden, is a position-taking president. He often argues for the sake of argument. So, as the experience of his speech on Central America shows, he cannot easily evoke bipartisan support simply by a sudden switch in tone.

Prof. Fred Greenstein of Princeton is the chief exponent of the "hidden hand" theory of the Eisenhower presidency. As he sees it, the Eisenhower approach encompasses several distinct features. On sharply divisive national issues, Eisenhower held himself above the battle in a position of deliberate ambiguity. Friends and foes alike were maddened by his refusal to declare himself on such matters as school desegregation, McCar-thyism and the application of deterrent strategy in Europe or Asia.

But when the showdowns came, Eisenhower had overwhelming majorities for sending troops to Little Rock, for the censure of Joe McCarthy and for the defense of West Berlin and the Taiwan Strait. In dealing with the Congress, Eisenhower worked behind the scenes with strategically placed leaders. He was in almost daily touch with Sam Rayburn of the House Democrats and Lyndon Johnson on the Senate side. But he never advertised it. He let the congressional leaders look like great patriots for backing his foreign policy.

In managing his own associates, Eisenhower let the blame for unpopular measures fall on officials who were kept at arms' length. Associates who took the heat like Secretary of State John Foster Dulles or Secretary of Agriculture Ezra Taft Benson were perceived as autonomous figures working on their own agendas. Certainly they were never wired into doesn't necessarily work for Reagan. The 1980s are a far cry from the 1950s. By challenging conventional notions on such matters as public spending and redistribution of wealth.

Reagan has done an undoubted service. It is nice, particularly after Jimmy Carter, to have a president who knows what he thinks and says it. There is even something touching about the naive faith that those wife disagree don't understand. Still, far from building support, Reagan tends to dissipate it. His approval rating in the Gallup Poll now 41 percent stands below that of the last five presidents at comparable times in their terms of office.

Congressional majorities oppose his priorities on defense, social spending and taxes. So it was in the speech on Central America to the joint session of the Congress Wednesday night. The president deliberately staked his prestige on a highly contentious issue. Instead of concentrating behind the scenes on a few prestigious leaders, he went public to the full Congress to the maximum extent. The advanced background briefing was done not by independent figures of weight like Secretary of State George Shultz but by controversial persons plucked from obscurity by Reagan himself.

Whatever the merits of the case, the plea for bipartisan support fell on ears disposed to be deaf. The Democrats felt obliged to ask for equal time. To make their response, they picked not an elder statesman full of respect, but an eager youngster, well schooled in adversary politics Sen. Chris Dodd of Connecticut. Predictably.

Sen. Dodd taxed the president with a policy of "massive military buildup" that amounted to a "formula for failure." The lesson of all this is that political leaders are not protean. They cannot suddenly switch from confrontation to conciliation and be believed. Enduring accomplishment is not built on polarization. It derives from consensus.

On the Democratic side, for instance, incumbent Leo Voisard will win renomination in the 1st District on his way to an assured second term; Bill Poole will take the 5th District nomination, and Alice Mclntosn, wno is destined to succeed the retiring Daniel Kelley will take her first step toward the 6th District seat. On the GOP ballot, Mayor Alan Wilson will be renominated and given a chance to (1) run on his record and (2) be the first Republican mayor Muncie ever re-elected. particular White House aides. Indeed, after Sherman Adams came a croppper, the main aides Bobby Cutler in foreign policy and Wilton Persons in domestic affairs were largely unknown. On each one of these items, the Reagan administration presents an opposite case.

The president positions himself openly, and sometimes gratuitously, on the most divisive issues. He is out front on abortion, and gun control, and school prayer, and harsh stands against Russia, China and countries that traffic with them. In dealing with the Congress he specializes in the TV spectacular timed to the eve of crucial votes. When he talks to individual leaders, it is io well-publicized phone calls, or photo opportunities. Far from standing above the battle, Reagan is one of the boys.

Lightning rods, to be sure, exist in his administration. There is Secretary of Interior James Watt, and there is Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger. But they are seen as the Irue Reaganites, the figures in closest harmony with the president. Any doubts are settled by related infighting among the White House staff. Indeed, Edwin Meese, James Baker and Judge William Clark are practically party to every public argument in town.

What worked for Eisenhower, to be sure, John Jackson says that can't happen, that Wilson can't be re elected in the fall. That might be true, but such circumstances didn't stop Democrats from renominating Jimmy Carter for president in 1980. No Tired Warhorse Dodd's Fiery Rebuttal Stirs Memories Another thing: Jackson didn want me to predict winners in Tuesday primary; he said when I picked Wilson to win four years ago, it gave Wilson an advantage votes from people who wanted to go with a winner. So don't anybody vote for Alan Wilson just because I said he was going to win. After all, one highly placed Republican source expressed some puzzlement last week as to why Wilson didn't have city hall employees out campaigning.

That's what mayors always used to do while running scared the week before the primary. That he departed from the tradition speaks well of Wilson. So who will win the Democratic primary for mayor? That's anybody's guess. It will be Jim Carey, Jack Donati or Kent Irwin or maybe Scott Hole. Mary Alice Cherry probably will finish fifth.

Although she's probably as qualified as any candidate to be mayor, nobody ever won an election for being qualified. She has a loyal but small following that helped her win two school board terms in non-partisan elections that allowed voters to pick two or three candidates. In this mayor's race, she might be the second or third choice of a lot of folks, but voters get to pick only one Tuesday. County Clerk Scott Hole might have won had he not 1 just been elected to a second term that he hasn't even started yet and (2) tried to withdraw from the race just hours after he entered. Many Democrats don't like the idea of giving up the clerk's office to a Republican, which is what would happen if Hole were elected mayor this year.

Proof A similar situation had more than a little to do last year with Robert Barnet loss to Steve Caldemeyer in the race for the Democratic nomination for Circuit Court judge. What does Hole have going for him: political smarts, for one thing, and the fact that he might be the Democrats' best chance in the fall. Is there anyone who doesn't know that you "punch 9" to vote for Kent Irwin? He started from ground zero four years ago and finished a strong third in the Democratic race. With a running start this year, he might win. His organization is probably the best in the city, and his political brain-trust is unmatched in the science of running a enthusiasm.

Either the Gipper's TV clout is waning or people are still wary of the ghost of Vietnam stalking Central America. Maybe a few listeners were stirred by Chris Dodd's closing warning that Reagan's military escalation inevitably will bring regional conflict in Central America: "And when that day comes when the 'dogs of war' are loose in Central America, when the cheering has stopped we will know where the president's appeal for more American money and a deeper American commitment has taken us." The old timers were right about Chris Dodd. He burned with the same outraged heresy that fired Senators Morse and Fulbright in the Vietnam era. The White House didn't listen to them, either. offered to barter unconditionally.

Call their bluff. Stop our secret war in Nicaragua. Involve our allies in Mexico, Panama and Venezuela. In Washington, it is all an abstract game. "But for the people of El Salvador," said Dodd, "life itself is on the line." Around the late-night corridors of Capitol Hill, you saw people leaning over radios or TV sets, listening to Dodd.

It was an electric 10 minutes, one of those speeches that make a reputation. But there was no sign that Reagan Co. was paying much attention to Chris Dodd's burning words. The Reagan team's first move was to pick an envoy to do its haggling in Centra! America. With unerring instinct, it picked the wrong man.

The choice was multimillionaire Florida lawyer and ex-Sen. Robert Stone, who has been a lobbyist for the right-wing Guatemalan government. The White House has been split with its own civil war over Stone. Reagan moderates yes, there are some thought Stone's choice sent the wrong signal. "The Judge (hard-line foreign adviser William Clark) wanted Stcne because he's a tough anti-Communist," said an insider.

Despite all the glitter and hype surrounding Reagan's speech, he evidently snared few converts on the Hill or in the hustings. Skepticism in Congress was still high. He probably will get half the money he wants for El Salvador arms. A House panel will cut off CIA funds for its cozy Nicaraguan war. Phone calls to the White House 2,031 supported Reagan, 1,638 opposed did not show much By SANDY GRADY Knight Ridder Newspapers WASHINGTON It works this way.

Ronald Reagan delivers his usual artful speech on television. And the Democrats pick some tired political warhorse to reply to Reagan. The Democrats' patsy squints at the Tele-prompter and reads his lines with all the excitement of a bus station P.A. announcer. And all over America people say, "Who is this bum?" and flip the dial.

Sen. Christopher Dodd, rattled this ritual a little Wednesday night. In a way, Dodd seemed a poor draft choice to answer Reagan's Central American oratory. He's only 37. He's not one of the Senate's liberal lions.

Nationally, his identity is a zero. In the ways that count, though, Dodd was a brilliant pick. As a onetime Peace Corpsman, he worked with El Salvador's poor in their villages of dirt-floor shacks. He has returned often. So what he said had a note of passion.

One Dodd sample: "I know about the morticians who travel the streets each morning to collect the bodies of those summarily dispatched the night before by Salvadoran security forces gangland style the victim on bended knee, thumbs wired behind the back, a bullet through the brain." Dodd agreed with Reagan he, too, opposes any Soviet bases or missiles in Central America. But he insisted the Reagan advisers misunderstand the conflict, charging that they are as Ignorant of Central America in 1983 as other White House advisers were of Indochina in 1963. Dodd called Reagan's bucks-for-bullets policy $1 billion during his term to defeat 7,000 Salvadoran guerrillas "pure and simple folly." Backing repressive regimes, he said, is "a proved prescription for picking a loser." OK, what would Dodd do? Cool the weaponry, he says. Negotiate. The El Salvador leftists have campaign, even if not quite the best at running a Democratic primary campaign in Muncie.

But why would folks who didn't vote for Irwin four years ago do so this time? Yard signs? Phone calls? WTLC radio ads? Maybe. Jack Donati probably is the Democrat who most likely could beat Alan Wilson. He also was the Democrat who most likely would have won the primary had Hole not entered the race. Just how many southside votes Donati lost to Hole's last-minute entry will be known Tuesday, and go a long way toward determining if the former policeman, former school board member and incumbent county auditor wins. There seem to be few folks upset that Donati would be leaving the auditor's office if elected mayor, since Democrats would get to pick his successor.

Donati has the support of Chairman Ira (Rip) Nelson, but that's never been any guarantee of victory. In 1979, Nelson backed Elmer Cox, then-president of city council, who finished fourth. Donati will win if Democrats in general think (1) Hole's candidacy was unwise and (2) Carey already has blown his opportunity to be mayor. The guess here, however, is that Carey will win it again. In 1979, he won a four-way race among 10 candidates by more than 450 votes over his closest opponent, then-incumbent mayor Robert Cunningham.

The question is: Who will get the votes that four years ago went to Cunningham and Cox? Donati will get a lot of them, most of them if Hole hadn't but he did. And Irwin thinks he'll get his share. The race just might be decided, then, by who gets the votes of Muncie blacks who, in 1979, gave their support to Cunningham. The best bet is the majority will go to Carey. Put in Big Jim's solid 1979 support, allow 10 to 15 percent shrinkage, add the support of some top-level Democrats who four years ago worked against him, mix in the black vote and spread everything else over a stronger field than the party had four years ago and the result is a shot of Irish whiskey, straight up.

Then again, maybe the result is mud in yer eye. Democratic mayoral hopeful Robert Murphy has complained that local newspapers have ignored the candidacies of lesser-knowns like himself, depriving voters of knowing about alternatives to the high-profile politicos on the ballot. The fact is, of course, that in the last year, Murphy has received more Page 1 attention in The Star than any of his Democratic opponents. But that was before he started taking verbal shots. So we won't leave Murphy out of the predictions: He's going to lose, and in a big way.

But he'll lead the "fringe" candidates, one of whom, we're sure, will get fewer votes than the 16 gathered in 1979 by last-place Democrat Randall Harmon. What goes around, it's said, comes around. A few years ago, J.C. Williams was going 'round and 'round with Republican politicians, trying unsuccessfully to get on their ballot. So, guess who's coming around this year, this time with the party's blessing? The irony of the situation is that GOP officials want Williams on the ticket this year for the same reason they didn't want him on the ticket in 1978 to bring out the black vote.

If that sounds confusing, it's not. In 1978, Democrat Hurley Goodall was running for Indiana House District 38. He was going to win, and become Delaware County's first black legislator, just as he'd been Muncie's first black fireman, and first black school board member. No doubt about it. In that case, reasoned then-newly installed GOP Chairman John Hampton, there was no sense in giving all those Muncie blacks a reason to vote.

Don't challenge Goodall, the theory went, and blacks will stay home on election day and not vote for a lot of other Democrats. But Republican plans almost were spoiled when Williams, a popular black minister, told GOP officials he wanted to run for the legislative seat. Not with our support, they told him, so he didn't run. Now, five years later, Hampton is staying neutral in the primary election except in one case. Who's the one candidate he's endorsed in Tuesday's primary election? J.C.

Williams. "I feel very strongly," Hampton wrote two weeks ago in a letter of endorsement, "that the Republican Party needs to show our black citizens they are welcome in our party. Your nomination is one way this can be accomplished." Abe Lincoln, founder of the Republican Party, would be proud. Our 'War Team' Is Looking Tough Art Buchwald don't want to take away our bargaining chips. The Soviets have got us outnumbered when it comes to conventional war, so if we up the ante and announce we're prepared to fight a limited nuclear war it will give them something to chew on." I said, "What really gets me sore is.

that Congress is dragging its feet when it comes to spending money for a good defense. Reagan knows what the country needs better than anybody." The guy on the next stool said, "You better believe it. I saw him in Hellcats o( the Navy the other night on TV, and the man really has the guts to stand up to the Russians." Dumbarton refilled our glasses. "I think Reagan has what it takes. But I'm not too sure about 'Cap' Weinberger." "Why not?" "He's too light.

He could be knocked over by one SS 19 intermediate range missile. You want a big guy in that position who can take a lot of punishment when he gets hit by an ICBM." A guy at the end of the bar said, "Anybody hear the Baltimore Orioles score?" Dumbarton said to him angrily, "Watch your language, buddy. There are ladies in this bar, and if you want to talk dirty you can go drink somewhere else." It used to be if you went into a bar you could always find an argument over the merits of a pro football team. But now, thanks to Ronald Reagan's constant drumbeat concerning defense weapons, he's got the whole country talking about whether we can win a nuclear war or not. I dropped by "Dumbarton's Bar Grill" the other afternoon for a beer.

The man on the next stool said, "How do you think we'll do against the Russians this I couldn't tell which side he was on so I played it cool. "It's too early to tell. It depends if we can harden our Minuteman silos in time to put our MX missiles in place." "Exactly what 1 was thinking," he said. "Of course the commies could still crawl through our window of vulnerability." "Yeh, but if we get the B-l bomber built, set up our Pershing and cruise missiles in Europe, and develop a tricky 'star wars' defense, we can zap their land-based air attack before it gets off the ground," I said. "You know where I think we're making our big mistake?" he said.

"We're trying to match the Soviets missile for missile. What we should do is go ahead with single-warhead Midgetmen that the Russians couldn't hit because we'd spread them all over the country. There's something to be said for not putting all your MXs in one dense pack." "You know what we have to do?" the guy on the next stool said. "We have to rethink MAD, the Mutual Assured Destruction strategy we've been using for the past 20 years. It's not working any more.

I say we sit down with the Soviets in Geneva, offer them a zero option, and if they don't take it, tell them to buzz off." "How do you feel about a limited nuclear war?" I asked him. "I'm not against it, as long as we don't kill more than 40 or 50 million people on each side. What about you, Dumbarton?" "It's an option," Dumbarton said. "And I.