For the Record

The early book shows, as it did in 1976 and 1980, Edward Kennedy in the catbird seat among Democratic presidential hopefuls. Against George Bush, for instance, Kennedy runs neck and neck (50 to 50), while Bush leads Gary Hart by 11 points, Lee Iacocca by 17, Mario Cuomo by 24. But, those figures notwithstanding, the Kennedy charm seems to be wearing thin, even in Massachusetts. … A Boston Globe story quotes an unnamed Massachusetts Democratic congressman who hopes Kennedy will not top the ticket in 1988 because it might cost the party forty seats. “We need a centrist nominee in ’88,” he says. Former Kennedy protégé Rep. Barney Frank also takes a dim view of a Teddy run. . . . Teddy’s various lurches to the right on such things as the line-item veto are not convincing, even to his partisans. David Garth, for instance, calls it Teddy’s “conservative creep.” . . . Kennedy will have the money all right. Paul Tully, who runs his PAC, says they’ve got nearly eighty thousand names on their fundraising list. . . . But now he’s got a new problem with feminist groups that have supported him in the past. Boston Globe columnist David Farrell believes revelations, in Marcia Chellis’s The Joan Kennedy Story, of Teddy’s macho attitude toward his wife may deeply offend the Eleanor Smeal types.

On second look, Mikhail Gorbachev’s Paris card seems less successful than it did at first. Assistant Secretary of State Richard Perle, after conferring with NATO allies in Bonn, reports he’s hearing no urgent appeals from his NATO counterparts for new American negotiation positions on disarmament. . . . NATO Secretary General Lord Carrington says that Gorbachev’s proposals are welcome but “are not the sort of proposals which would be acceptable to the United States or to the West. … I don’t suppose for one minute,” he adds, “that the Soviet Union thought they were going to be accepted out of hand.” . . . On the home front, former ambassador to Great Britain and former Republican National Committee co-chairman Anne Armstrong and Under Secretary of the Interior Ann Dore McLaughlin (Mrs. John) are being mentioned as possible replacements for Margaret Heckler at HHS. . . . While Congress can’t bring itself to pass the line-item veto that Ronald Reagan wants so badly, the country is for it across the board: Republicans in favor, 78 per cent; independents, 73 per cent; Democrats, 63 per cent.

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The early book shows, as it did in 1976 and 1980, Edward Kennedy in the catbird seat among Democratic presidential hopefuls. Against George Bush, for instance, Kennedy runs neck and neck (50 to 50), while Bush leads Gary Hart by 11 points, Lee Iacocca by 17, Mario Cuomo by 24. But, those figures notwithstanding, the Kennedy charm seems to be wearing thin, even in Massachusetts. … A Boston Globe story quotes an unnamed Massachusetts Democratic congressman who hopes Kennedy will not top the ticket in 1988 because it might cost the party forty seats. “We need a centrist nominee in ’88,” he says. Former Kennedy protégé Rep. Barney Frank also takes a dim view of a Teddy run. . . . Teddy’s various lurches to the right on such things as the line-item veto are not convincing, even to his partisans. David Garth, for instance, calls it Teddy’s “conservative creep.” . . . Kennedy will have the money all right. Paul Tully, who runs his PAC, says they’ve got nearly eighty thousand names on their fundraising list. . . . But now he’s got a new problem with feminist groups that have supported him in the past. Boston Globe columnist David Farrell believes revelations, in Marcia Chellis’s The Joan Kennedy Story, of Teddy’s macho attitude toward his wife may deeply offend the Eleanor Smeal types.

On second look, Mikhail Gorbachev’s Paris card seems less successful than it did at first. Assistant Secretary of State Richard Perle, after conferring with NATO allies in Bonn, reports he’s hearing no urgent appeals from his NATO counterparts for new American negotiation positions on disarmament. . . . NATO Secretary General Lord Carrington says that Gorbachev’s proposals are welcome but “are not the sort of proposals which would be acceptable to the United States or to the West. … I don’t suppose for one minute,” he adds, “that the Soviet Union thought they were going to be accepted out of hand.” . . . On the home front, former ambassador to Great Britain and former Republican National Committee co-chairman Anne Armstrong and Under Secretary of the Interior Ann Dore McLaughlin (Mrs. John) are being mentioned as possible replacements for Margaret Heckler at HHS. . . . While Congress can’t bring itself to pass the line-item veto that Ronald Reagan wants so badly, the country is for it across the board: Republicans in favor, 78 per cent; independents, 73 per cent; Democrats, 63 per cent.