Thursday. July 17. 1980 The Tar Heel 5
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By Walter Mears
AP Special Correspondent
DETROIT (AP) Conservative qualms
notwithstanding, George Bush is no
flaming Republican liberal.
He might by a smoldering moderate
and "that's enough to make him suspect
among some in a GOP world that has
turned toward the right.
It also is enough to convince pragmatic
conservatives that it might be a good idea
for Ronald Reagan to make him No. 2 man
on the 1980 ticket, to balance and broaden
its appeal.
Some balance. Bush agrees with Reagan
on almost every issue. There's more
symbolism than substance to their
differences. They are both conservatives,
differing only in degree.
Dean Burch works with Bush; he was
Barry Goldwater's Republican national
chairman. William E. Timmons is deputy
campaign manager for Reagan; he
engineered the takeover that made young
Republican organizations into Goldwater
cadres 16 years ago.
At the Republican National
Convention, men whose political roots are
deeply and firmly conservative are billed,
suddenly, as the new moderates.
That's because the convention that
nominated Reagan for president is, in fact,
more conservative in outlook than the San
Francisco convention that nominated
Goldwater.
In Goldwater's time, there was a liberal
wing, identified with his arch rival, the late
Nelson A. Rockefeller. Goldwater
trounced him for the nomination, rubbed
it in with conservative rhetoric, and lost the
election to aLyndon B. Johnson landslide.
At this convention, there are few
survivors of the Rockefeller wars. Sen.
Jacob K. Javits of New York is one: he's for
Reagan, although not for the more
conservative planks in the GOP platform.
Former Michigan Gov. George Romney is
another, but he's not saying much.
That's why critics of a Republican
platform that witholds endorsement of the
Equal Rights Amendment couldn't muster
the support of six states Tuesday night to
get the platform debated on the convention
floor.
At the 1964 convention, there was ample
minority support to force fights, although
losing fights, on the equally symbolic
issues of that GOP campaign: extremism
and civil rights legislation.
It was in the debate on extremism that
Rockefeller was booed by conservative
delegates when he argued that a radical
minority "alien to the middle course.. .the
mainstream" was trying to take over the
party.
Mainstream one of Rockefeller's
favorite words in that campaign means
Ron&!d Reagan
something different now. "The whole
.country has moved to the right, so the
Republican Party finds i.tself in the
mainstream," said Gov. Al Quie of
Minnesota.
Edwin Meese, Reagan's chief of staff,
said "the mainstream thinking" of the
nation has moved toward conservatism, so
that the views of the voters parallel those of
the former California governor.
So it was nostalgia with a message when
Goldwater took the cheers of the
convention Tuesday night, for a speech
that sounded the themes of his 1964
campaign.
"A prophet in his own time?" said Rep.
Barry Goldwater Jr., R-Calif. "You're
damn right. In our hearts, we knew he was
right."
Convention votes platform approval
By Gregory Nokes
Associated Press Writer
DETROIT (AP) The Republican National Convention voted
overwhelming approval Tuesday night for a 1980 campaign
platform that blames President Carter for economic
mismanagement and military weakness and pledges "a new
beginning for America" behind Ronald Reagan and the
Republican Party.
The approval of the 78-page document by voice vote by the 1,994
delegates came with only a smattering of objections.
A motion by the delegation of Hawaii to suspend the rules to
discuss the platform failed because there was no other support. The
delegation from Massachusetts tried to obtain a roll-call vote on the
platform, but that was declared out of order by convention
chairman and House Minority Leader John J. Rhodes of Arizona.
A small band of supporters of the Equal Rights Amendment
gave up an attempt to write a pro-ERA stand into the platform on
the convention floor.
Reagan said earlier in the day he is satisfied with the platform's
stance on women's rights, even though it withholds endorsement
of an ERA-type amendment to the Constitution for the first time in
40 years. Without his support, any attempt to amend the platform
was doomed in this Reagan-dominated convention.
Approval of the platform was the last major item of business
before the convention prior to the nomination of Reagan as the
party's presidential nominee Wednesday night.
"We believe this platform reflects the concerns and aspirations of
the American people," said Sen. John Tower, R-Texas, the
platform committee chairman.
Tower read to the convention the preamble to the platform
which says that under Carter, the nation is drifting perilously
toward chaos. "Should the trend continue, the 1980s promise to be
our most dangerous years since World War II," it says.
"We go forth to the people with ideas and programs for the
future that are as powerful and compelling as they are fresh.
Together, we offer a new beginning for America."
Gov. Robert D. Ray of Iowa, a Republican moderate, said pro
ERA delegates had decided against pursuing the last-ditch effort
for support for ERA. "It doesn't mean everyone's going to agree,"
Ray said. "I think they're very anxious to go out and win an
election."
The handful of delegates admitted they lacked sufficient votes to
bring the issue to the floor. Sen. Charles Percy, R-Ill., also failed to
get enough support to change platform wording that urges
appointment of judges who opposed abortion.
He needed the support of six state delegations to get a vote to
suspend the rules to consider a change in the platform. After that, a
two-thirds favorable vote of the delegates would have been needed
to actually suspend the rules to allow a debate, an impossible
number.
Percy, a moderate, said he couldn't get any states, even his own
state of Illinois, to support his proposed change, an indication of
the strength of Reagan's grip on the convention and the low status
of liberals and moderates here.
Although th delegates generally sat quietly during a long
reading of sections of the platform, they applauded loudly at
mention of the party's opposition to mandatory busing to achieve
racial integration of schools and its support of non
denominational prayers in schools, two emotional stands that have
long appealed to many party conservatives.
They also applauded the platform's commitment to "an
immediate increase in defense spending" and a pledge that the
United States will eventually achieve military superiority over the
Soviet Union.
Reagan stood firm in his opposition to the ERA at a meeting
earlier in the day with a group of pro-ERA women Republicans,
including his daughter Maureen, even though he was told it could
cost him votes in November.
Reagan issued a statement after the meeting promising that if
elected president, he would "do a number of things to advance,
guarantee and promote equal rights for women." But he strongly
defended the platform's stand on women's rights.
He also said he would not rule out a vice presidential running
mate who supported the proposed constitutional amendment,
according to Rep. Margaret Heckler, R-Mass., who asked for the
meeting after the platform committee's decision against a pro-ERA
plank.
Reagan was nominated as the party's candidate for president
Wednesday, and the platform was the major policy document for
his campaign, as well as the campaigns of other Republicans.
Some moderates and liberals were expected to have problems
running on the conservative-oriented plalJprnC '
The platform also backs Reagan's call for a tax cut and expresses
dissatisfaction widi the strategic arms limitation treaty negotiated
with the Soviet Union.
Helms wants
conservative
vice president
from staff and wire reporu
To Sen. Jesse Helms, his conservative
crusade is not just a matter of right vs. left
but right vs. wrong. And George Bush is
among the wrongs.
Helms is a second-term senator of
unbending conservatism. To his critics, he
is a leader of the party's radical right and a
potentially troublesome factor if Ronald
Reagan is to keep his appeal broad enough
to appeal to independents and Democrats.
Helms already has left his imprint on
this Republican National Convention,
rewriting the party's
platform last week
and getting "99 v;.L;
Dercent ot wnat l ...rL.
wanted. y -y , j
"I think the best ? j
course to follow is the V j
pimiipieu cuuisc, r ' i
said Helms. "If it's so
bad to be a
conservative, why is
Helms
he (Reagan) where he is? Why should you
say a heartbeat away from his presidency is
someone who is not the same?"
Although Helms earlier had expressed
little personal interest in the vice
presidency, he now says he feels he could
"block bad legislation" if he were vice
president. And if he fails, Helms said the effort may
yet achieve one purpose.
"If it does nothing else, it will serve as a
reminder, 'don't go too far afield,' to
Reagan's advisers,"he said.
Bush, the former presidential candidate,
has become the principal opponent of
Helms' vice presidential effort. Bush, says
Helms strategist Tom Ellis, fails the
conservatives' litmus test.
"Mr. Bush just represents the
Northeastern Republican establishment,"
said Ellis, a Raleigh lawyer. "They arc die
losers in this year's battle. They were the
winners in 1976, and Jesse went out and
made speeches in 20 states for Gerald
Ford."
Helms gained the attention of delegates
with his efforts on the platform stressing
military superiority and reciting for the
platform committee what he regards as the
evils of the Panama Canal treaties.
But if he has gained a reputation as the
conservatives field marshal, the positions
are nothing new to him.
In the Senate, Helms positioned himself
firmly as the leader of efforts to block the
canal agreements; to allow prayer in the
schools; to protect Taiwan, and to oppose
SALT II. In his first term, he accused
President Nixon of appeasing China.
Such stands have won him admiration
from conservatives in both parties in his
home state, and made him the darling of
television evangelists.
Helms, 58, went to the Senate in 1972
after a career as a radio and television
editorialist in Raleigh, where he gained a
wide and devoted following. He supported
a state law in the 1960s that banned
communists from spcaxing on college
campuses, often rallied against university
liberals and was regarded at a
segregationist by some as he opposed civil
rights legislation.
Always outspoken, Helm once call
public schools an "intrusion of social ism."
and he compared school bming for
. integration to police state powers.