Time Essay: Toward a Better Presidential Campaign

POLITICS is a monster in the land; it is bigger, louder, more expensive than ever, even if the latest campaign-spending-limitation bill becomes law. It is airplanes, polls and delegate counts. It is cocktail parties, TV cameras and ghostwriters. The campaign of '72 just might expend more national energy and resources than any in history and enlighten the people less.

Right now, about 75% of a presidential campaign is hoopla, manufactured movement and entertainment designed to bedazzle. Substance, and there is some, is largely buried and ignored in the rush of the jets, the bands, rallies and booze. Ensnared in all this tinsel,...

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