For the Record

As of now, more Americans (43 per cent) say they will vote for Republican candidates for the House in 1982 than for Democrats (35 per cent). Significance: this is the first time in thirty years that the GOP has led the Democrats. An AP/NBC poll shows 69 per cent of Americans agree with Ronald Reagan that income taxes are too high; only 47 per cent think property taxes are too high, down from 57 per cent three years ago.How do they feel about cuts in social programs? The latest New York Times/CBS poll says 50 per cent favor cuts in food stamps (12 per cent oppose them), 37 per cent approve cuts in spending for the arts.

Former Democratic National Chairman Robert Strauss knows a pro when he sees one, even in the other camp. “This fellow [Reagan],” he says, “is a one-man band, and his White House staff is simply spectacular. Reagan has done what he said he would do and done it far better than I had conceived he would do it.”And Joseph Califano, Jimmy Carter’s HEW Secretary (for a while), a Democratic standby since LBJ’s days,, concurs. “In political acumen and leadership, he [Reagan] is far more effective than any other President since LBJ.” Charlene Mitchell of the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Oppression is, well, less flattering: “Can we [the Left] afford to sit and gape as the velvet glove [Reagan’s] is removed from the iron fist of repression? . . . Terrorism is now the rallying cry for political thugs from South Africa to Chile to El Salvador … to partake of the feast of the monopolist vultures who are bleeding our country white in the name of defense.”

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As of now, more Americans (43 per cent) say they will vote for Republican candidates for the House in 1982 than for Democrats (35 per cent). Significance: this is the first time in thirty years that the GOP has led the Democrats. An AP/NBC poll shows 69 per cent of Americans agree with Ronald Reagan that income taxes are too high; only 47 per cent think property taxes are too high, down from 57 per cent three years ago.How do they feel about cuts in social programs? The latest New York Times/CBS poll says 50 per cent favor cuts in food stamps (12 per cent oppose them), 37 per cent approve cuts in spending for the arts.

Former Democratic National Chairman Robert Strauss knows a pro when he sees one, even in the other camp. “This fellow [Reagan],” he says, “is a one-man band, and his White House staff is simply spectacular. Reagan has done what he said he would do and done it far better than I had conceived he would do it.”And Joseph Califano, Jimmy Carter’s HEW Secretary (for a while), a Democratic standby since LBJ’s days,, concurs. “In political acumen and leadership, he [Reagan] is far more effective than any other President since LBJ.” Charlene Mitchell of the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Oppression is, well, less flattering: “Can we [the Left] afford to sit and gape as the velvet glove [Reagan’s] is removed from the iron fist of repression? . . . Terrorism is now the rallying cry for political thugs from South Africa to Chile to El Salvador … to partake of the feast of the monopolist vultures who are bleeding our country white in the name of defense.”