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The President ruled out any television debates with McGovern on the lofty grounds that "when a President speaks, he makes policy every time he opens his mouth," and he must not do so "in the heat of partisan debate" while there is a war on. Actually, of course, a debate would give the underdog challenger a priceless chance to catch up. Surprisingly, Nixon conceded that he himself has been radical at times, and that this is no basis on which to judge a candidate's programs. "We want change," he said, "but change that works. It is not a question of whether it is radical or not. My trip to China was bold, radical and different." Without mentioning McGovern's name, but presumably referring to the Democratic candidate's revised economic program, he assailed as unworkable "a half-baked scheme, where you nave one today and one tomorrow and then you check the p.m.s to see whether or not there is a new one." A bit grandly, he predicted that if he is re-elected and is given a Congress that agrees with him, "we could have a legislative record in the first six months which could equal in excitement, in reform, the 100 days of 1933." Nixon, it seems, would like to be remembered as a later—if different —Franklin Roosevelt.