Bad news for the President. Latest Washington Post/ABC poll shows 65 per cent of Americans don’t believe Ronald Reagan has told the truth about Irangate, although 66 per cent continue to believe that he is honest. Only 51 per cent trust him to make right decisions in world affairs; 47 do not. However, his new chief of staff, Howard Baker, gets high marks: 61 per cent say he’s doing a good job, 18 say he isn’t. . . . When the Senate overturned Reagan’s veto of the highway bill, it was Teddy Kennedy who made most gracious speech. “President Reagan played the game well, indeed as the leader he is and can be,” said Teddy. “We’ll disagree on the issues as we have on this bill, but the country needs a strong President, and we certainly have one.” . . . Reagan got another assist from a leading Senate Democrat when Fritz Hollings of South Carolina took issue with Chairman Sam Nunn of Armed Services Committee on ABM. The record of ABM negotiations, says Hollings, “is unambiguous” in permitting SDI testing. . . . The President’s intermediate-range-missile negotiations with the Soviets do not please George Will. He fears a rebirth of détente, which he describes as “a spirit of unreciprocated U.S. concessions and unanswered Soviet aggressions.” Will likens new U.S. Embassy in Moscow to “a large broadcasting studio for the benefit of Soviet intelligence.”
Looking at proliferation of presidential candidates, Washington Post columnist David Broder comments that “having more presidential candidates than it takes to play almost any of America’s favorite team sports . . . has its advantages”: Kiwanis and Rotary chairmen in Iowa and New Hampshire can get free guest speakers; any special interest, no matter how small (Left-Handed Liberal Lithuanians), can get a hearing. . . . About the newest entries: Gary Hart already has 36 staff members on board, with headquarters in Colorado, Iowa, New Hampshire, Washington, Texas. National Journal ranked him as most liberal member of Senate in his last term. . . . James Reston has discovered what Hart’s new ideas are: He wears the mantle of FDR and JFK. . . . Richard Gephardt of Missouri calls Harry S. Truman (of Missouri) his mentor, but, asks Christian Science Monitor, what would Truman have thought of Gephardt votes against MX, against Contra aid, against aid to Duarte; his stand for a nuclear freeze? . . . Sen. Albert Gore Jr. (Tenn.) took the big step when Nate Landow and 17 other members of Impact ’88, a liberal fundraising group, picked him, after Mario Cuomo (their first choice) and Dale Bumpers (their second) dropped out. Each has pledged to raise $250,000 for his candidate. . . . On Republican side it was Jack Kemp’s week, and one prominent Republican, Robert Heckman, president of Fund for a Conservative Majority, believes when issues are drawn “Kemp will rise to the top” as the candidate who best supports Reagan Doctrine to reverse Communist gains worldwide. . . . Unlikely endorsement: National Women’s Political Caucus says among GOP candidates Kemp has best record of giving women high-paying staff jobs.
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