Paul Simon

The Crimson staff considered endorsements for the presidential candidates who had backers on staff. None of the candidates garnered majority support, so all five endorsements will be run in the order of the amount of support that they received.

IT'S too good to be true, and therefore the Simon Administration probably won't be.

At every stage in his presidential bid, Sen. Paul Simon (D-III.) has run counter to conventional political wisdom, and, sad to say, such "wisdom" may actually carry the day on Super Tuesday and the rest of the primaries that will follow.

Simon has been slow to adopt the maxims his chief opponents have deployed so effectively with voters in New Hampshire and lowa: cardinal rules like, "don't tell people you will raise their taxes even if it is for the nation's good," "say you'll protect American products, even though you know it will lead to a trade war," and most importantly, "don't get too emotional about America's shortcomings because no one wants to here it, anyway." The couched language and disingenuous strategizing of Simon's prime foes, Massachusetts Gov. Michael S. Dukakis and Missouri Rep. Richard Gephardt, may be politically smart, but they certainly aren't wise for the country. And Paul Simon won't do it.

In fact, political scientists may someday look back at this presidential race, and be able to chart the conquest of image over the American political system. Not the infiltration of medial politics, for Ronald Reagan was nothing, if not a media candidate. But its grand perfection. For in 1988 we have a political contest in which every candidate, from party hack to civil rights leader to ethnic technocrat, conforms to a well-thought-out media plan. Where a 39-year-old, wet-behind-the-ears legislator like Sen. Albert Gore '69 (D-Tenn) is pushed into the presidential race by the results of a poll which shows that voters surveyed think he most lools like The Commander-in-Chief.

Cynics might sneer and say that Simon himself is a media creation--that his sheer abhorrence of political pandering and gregarious glad-handing belies an image-conscious campaign in its own right. And doesn't that fact say a lot about the state of American politics today.

For the dismissal of Simon as just another image from a media consultant's blueprint is perhaps the most stupid failure of the so-called "genius of American politics." It seems that when commentators talk about Simon they can't see his large programs for his bowtie. That commentators shallowly label Simon's call for a caring government a press-office creation after eight years of Reaganomics is shocking. If we ever are going to end homelessness and racism and a thousand other social ills, we are going to have to refute that super-savvy sneerful kind of reasoning. Paul Simon is the man to do it.

HE is electable. Were it not for a few percentage points, Simon would be the "other candidate," who could provide the populist opposition to the smugly meritocratic, technocratic, vaguely bureaucratic, candidacy of Dukakis. As it is now, Simon possesses the range of traditional Democratic party constituencies: ethnics, dumped-on farmers, the elderly, and the working classes.

He is qualified. Simon has the most Congressional experience of any candidate running for the Democratic nomination. His conduct throughout the campaign has been issue-based and on the point.

And his ideas are best for the country. Simon recognizes that America is fast becoming a land divided: with the affluent and educated on one side, and the destitute and the drop-out on the other. (Divisions that have been enhanced by the policies of the Reagan Administration.) That is why Simon, an author of 10 books and newspaper publisher at 19, has targeted his programs for the future on improving education and eliminating illiteracy. Compare that to his so-called liberal foe, Mike Dukakis, who has received poor grades from Massachusetts public educators for being stingy on public university funding.

On civil rights, Simon has risen to prominence as a co-sponsor of the Civil Rights Act of 1984 and from his intelligent and principled questioning during the confirmation hearings of Supreme Court nominee Robert H. Bork. He began his outspoken defense of civil rights when it was least popular, in the 1950's in the Illinois state house.

His foreign policy differs little from the Democratic contenders, except Gore, on the important questions, like a freeze on nuclear testing, and opposition to the illegal war in Nicaragua. And unlike the Rev. Jesse Jackson, Simon leaves no doubt about his support of Israel and the importance of a peace agreement in the region.

And when it comes to government spending, Simon is not afraid to call for defense cuts and more social programs. His program is straight from another era, when government provided for all strata of citizenry. His one troubling position--in favor of a balanced budget amendment--is hardly motivated by the platitudinous and knee-jerk reasons given by the other candidates who favor the amendment. Correctly, Simon observes that unbalanced budgets raise interest rates and in that way facilitate one of the largest income transfers--from poor to rich--supported by the Reagan administration. Even if the legislation would curtail important flexibility in the budget-making process, his reasoning asks the right questions, questions whose class analysis is unparalleled in the current campaign.

On farm policy, Simon offers a coherent aid plan, without giving away the store, as the winner in Iowa, Gephardt, had no trouble doing. And unlike Dukakis, Simon's plans for America extend past the Eastern shore, and its endive-garnished hors d'oeuvres.

A Simon candidacy hopes to restore a long tradition of Democratic presidents, and doesn't manuever its way toward supposed new constituencies who want government out of their lives--whether on an abortion amendment, or large welfare programs. But if the support for Mario Cuomo in the polls--which is exclusively support for his "caring government" rhetoric--can be trusted, then maybe a Simon Administration is what Americans really want. That's an image America can be proud of.