For the Record

Will Jesse Jackson benefit in concrete political terms from release of Navy Lt. Robert Goodman Jr.? Some say yes, some say no. Joe Reed, chairman of black Alabama Democratic Conference (which has already endorsed a Mon-dale-Jackson ticket), believes Jackson “is no more electable than he was last month.” Jackson, Reed says, lacks both an organization and the image of someone who can defeat Reagan. . . . Alan Cranston’s campaign manager, Sergio Bendixen, sees Jackson’s coup as a plus for everyone but Mondale, according to Washington Post. “Anything that strengthens Jackson’s campaign weakens Mondale’s,” Bendixen says. “Anything that weakens Mondale helps the rest of us in the second tier.” . . . Democratic pols, worried all along that Jackson was a loose cannon, are even more worried by some of his supporters, such as the Rev. John Nettles, who announced last week that blacks who support Mondale are putting “another bullet in the body of Martin Luther King.” . . . Not that the other Democratic candidates aren’t playing tough ball. Says Fritz Hollings of John Glenn: “Glenn must still think he’s in space. He’s orbiting the issues faster than he orbited earth.” Or Hollings again, on what happened to the Democrats in 1980. “All of a sudden some stumblebums come from the national level and just bury the whole ticket. I mean Carter and Mondale just buried us.” . . . On the gay front, Mondale, Jackson, Cranston, and Hollings pass muster but John Glenn and Gary Hart (who refuses to support a national gay-rights bill) do not. Says Allen Roskoff, New York State ADA chairman: “We have to do everything we can to keep Glenn out.” They’re now calling it Glenn’s gay gap.

Sobering analysis for Ronald Reagan from three GOP pollsters, Lance Torrance, Arthur Finkelstein, Bob Teeter, according to Wall Street Journal: They feel the strong economy may not offset foreign-policy problems because people 1) are not convinced inflation is licked; 2) worry over the staying power of the recovery; 3) are scared of the deficit; and 4) are concerned over the “fairness” issue. . . . On the other hand, Everett Carll Ladd of Roper Center sees a good future for Republican Party and the end of the Roosevelt era. Ladd points to voting preferences: People in their seventies (i.e., those whose attitudes were formed before the Depression) are evenly split between Democrats and Republicans, as are those in their twenties—born well after the Depression. Those who came of age or were children during the Depression tend to vote 2 to 1 Democratic. . . . This jibes with recent Gallup poll of college students showing students in the Eighties every bit as conservative as students in the Fifties.

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Ronald Reagan

Presidential Election

Will Jesse Jackson benefit in concrete political terms from release of Navy Lt. Robert Goodman Jr.? Some say yes, some say no. Joe Reed, chairman of black Alabama Democratic Conference (which has already endorsed a Mon-dale-Jackson ticket), believes Jackson “is no more electable than he was last month.” Jackson, Reed says, lacks both an organization and the image of someone who can defeat Reagan. . . . Alan Cranston’s campaign manager, Sergio Bendixen, sees Jackson’s coup as a plus for everyone but Mondale, according to Washington Post. “Anything that strengthens Jackson’s campaign weakens Mondale’s,” Bendixen says. “Anything that weakens Mondale helps the rest of us in the second tier.” . . . Democratic pols, worried all along that Jackson was a loose cannon, are even more worried by some of his supporters, such as the Rev. John Nettles, who announced last week that blacks who support Mondale are putting “another bullet in the body of Martin Luther King.” . . . Not that the other Democratic candidates aren’t playing tough ball. Says Fritz Hollings of John Glenn: “Glenn must still think he’s in space. He’s orbiting the issues faster than he orbited earth.” Or Hollings again, on what happened to the Democrats in 1980. “All of a sudden some stumblebums come from the national level and just bury the whole ticket. I mean Carter and Mondale just buried us.” . . . On the gay front, Mondale, Jackson, Cranston, and Hollings pass muster but John Glenn and Gary Hart (who refuses to support a national gay-rights bill) do not. Says Allen Roskoff, New York State ADA chairman: “We have to do everything we can to keep Glenn out.” They’re now calling it Glenn’s gay gap.

Sobering analysis for Ronald Reagan from three GOP pollsters, Lance Torrance, Arthur Finkelstein, Bob Teeter, according to Wall Street Journal: They feel the strong economy may not offset foreign-policy problems because people 1) are not convinced inflation is licked; 2) worry over the staying power of the recovery; 3) are scared of the deficit; and 4) are concerned over the “fairness” issue. . . . On the other hand, Everett Carll Ladd of Roper Center sees a good future for Republican Party and the end of the Roosevelt era. Ladd points to voting preferences: People in their seventies (i.e., those whose attitudes were formed before the Depression) are evenly split between Democrats and Republicans, as are those in their twenties—born well after the Depression. Those who came of age or were children during the Depression tend to vote 2 to 1 Democratic. . . . This jibes with recent Gallup poll of college students showing students in the Eighties every bit as conservative as students in the Fifties.