Reagan: The Importance Of Strong Leadership

LEADERSHIP IS both the rarest and most necessary commodity in American politics. For the past four years, our country has been blessed with the stewardship of Ronald Reagan, a man of humble background who has presided over the most successful presidency of our generation.

Four years ago America stood on the precipice of economic catastrophe and endured a litany of international embarassments under the Carter-Mondale Administration. Inflation soared to nearly 20 percent, causing the poor the elderly, and students to fear for their futures. The dollar tumbled to record lows on world currency exchanges. Foreign policy debacles in Afghanistan, Nicaragua, the Canal Zone and Iran dogged the pride of our nation.

Few can argue with President Reagan's remarkable string of successes. Our economy is now in the midst of the most powerful growth since the aftermath of World War II, due largely to the Keynesian tax out politics Reagan shepherded through Congress. Inflation was stopped dead in its tracks neat the 3 percent level a feat most economists predicted would take a decade or more. The unemployment rate has dropped steadily. The country has shaken off the national malaise that the Carter-Alondale Administration created to explain its own failings. The last majority of Americans would answer a resounding "Yes" to the question. "Are you better off today than you were four years ago?

America's national defense and prestige have risen even more conspicuously. Our support for the British defense of the Falkland Islands, the selfless service of Marines as a peacekeeping force in Lebanon, the lifting of the senseless Soviet gram embargo, the election of a free government in H. Salvadot and the advent of peace negotiations there, the withdrawal of martial lass restrictions upon the people of Poland, and marked growth in relations with Communist China ill represent significant international achievements.

Other intangible but no less important indices of national progress reflect well on this Administration. Crime rates are down across the country. SAT scores among high school students have risen. The Los Angeles Olympics-despite a Soviet bloc boycott provoked by the Carter-Mondale Administration became an attend of international joy and celebration. Crackdowns on organized crime and illicit drug tratficking have succeeded at an unprecedented level.

YET THE REAL urgency of supporting President Reagan lies in the utter incompetence of his opponent, Walter F. Mondale, whose own mentor. Hubert H. Humphrey, characterized as lacking the "fire in the belly" that a president needs. Maybe that's because Mondale has been appointed to every government post lie's ever held.

Mondale has run a disgraceful, Munder-riddled campaign for the presidency, without proposing any substantive alternatives to the problems he perceives in the Reagan Administration. Mondale squandered a whopping lead in the polis to an obscure, alumnus of Yale, who ultimately captured more state primaries. He did not seal the nomination until the final hour of the primary season, and them only by the packing the convention with hundreds of unelected delegates. Then he stunned his party by appointing Bert Lance as his campaign chairman. To top it all off, Mondale vowed to raise taxes.

But the most appalling miscue came in the selection of his running mate. Under pressure from the National Organization for Women and other groups to make a gesture of lokenism. Mondale attempted to make a virtue out of a Accessity by naming an inexperienced Congresswoman to the ticket, Recently the country has learned that Geraldine Ferrane has student after skeleton in her ethical closet, Vice President Bush, in stark contrast, boasts perhaps the most complete resume--including ambassador to China and CIA director-among public servants. The problems in Ferraro's background no doubt surprised Mondale as much they did the rest of the country, and they illustrate incptitude and amateur nature of his campaign.

The philosophical mastery of Reagan's presidency has Included most knee-jerk liberal minds. The president's policies actually follow the legacies of the two most visionary leaders of this century: Franklin D. Roosevelt '04 and John I. Kennedy '40.

In domestic affairs, Reagan has engineered a dramatic Keynesian revival of the economy by returning to the Rooseveltian policies that pulled America out of the Great Depression. Scholars chastised Roosevelt for the deficit spending of his Administration, but the national debt he created proved to be trivial compared to its benefits to most Americans, Reagan, too, has become an accomplished Keynesian president. The spectacular recent performance of the economy shows that deficit spending remains a vital economic tool.

Unfortunately for Mondale, Reagan has succeeded in appropriating the "Peace through Strength" philosophy of defense from the Democratic Party as well. This legacy of Kennedy and Harry S Truman--nowhere more evident than in Kennedy's brave action in the Cuban Missile Crisis--has reappeared in Reagan's performances in Lebanon, Grenada, and Latin America. The diplomacy of concession and fear practiced by the Carter-Mondale Administration have receded into embarrassing memories.

NEXT MONTH, the choice for President is a choice between leadership and incompetence: between the legislative skill of the incumbent president and the lackluster campaign of Walter Mondale. Americans are privileged to live in a historical time when the nation's pride and strength are so completely focused within the man in the Oval Office.

President Reagan will be reelected by an overwhelming margin next month, both because of his own record and the inability of the Democratic Party to field a marginally qualified ticket. This nation has a "pie" of goods and services it produces. Walter Mondale wants to cut the pie into thousands of pieces for every interest-group he can think of, while President Reagan wants to make the pie larger for everyone. The issues for the country are serious: will we allow unemployment to rise, the cost of living to spiral, and the risks of foreign coercion of the United States to multiple during the next four years? We say no, and heartily join the vast majority of American in supporting President Reagan's reelection.