James Reston - Yearning for the Presidential Fix 汉译

Watching George McGovern hop on the presidential merry-go-round again makes you wonder what makes them run. After all, George did not have a very merry ride the last time---but the older they get, the harder they try.

There’s something admirable about it, but also something very sad, Here’s even Harold Stassen, the Young Lochinvar of the 1944 campaign, crying for his lost chances and still reaching for the brass ring 40 years later.

One explanation is that presidential ambition is an addiction as powerful as sex or booze. Once they have gone through all those howling halls, with their banners and adoring supporters--- their pictures on the front page and on the evening TV news---they dream about it in the night.

Memory, as time goes on, is a selective thing. Somehow they forget all the agony---the demeaning scramble for money, the vicious charges of their opponents, the unfeeling and often frivolous criticism of the press, and the endless plane and bus rides, the stumbling into bed and wondering how they can get through it all again next day.

What they remember is not the final thump of defeat, but the might-have-beens, the fleeting glory and the accidents of politics. After all, if Jimmy Carter could make it from Plains, Georgia, to the White House, who knows where lightning might strike? Even Mr. Lincoln was mocked as a country yokel at the beginning, but saved the union and still presides in marble on the edge of the Potomac.

Many run for the presidency who shouldn’t, and many others don’t run who should. Scoop Jackson of Washington ran and failed but was still hoping when he died the other day. Howard Baker of Tennessee, the majority leader of the Senate, probably had more respect in both parties and a better chance to hold things together than anybody else on the political scene today, but he resigned and says he will think about the White House later.

What they do or don’t do usually depends on events beyond their control. After General Eisenhower was elected in 1952 he wrote to his brother, Milton, saying that if he ever suspected him of thinking about running for a second term, he should call the men in the white coats and have him taken away. But despite a heart attack and an ileitis operation, he stood for a second term in 1956, because he was persuaded that if he didn’t his party would split on his successor and open the White House door to the Democrats. Ronald Reagan is hearing the same argument today.

More than 100 years ago Lord Bryce, then British ambassador in Washington, wondered, in a remarkable book, The American Commonwealth, why the best men didn’t run for the American presidency. He concluded they were more interested in other things, such as making money. This still may be true.

But there are probably other reasons why they run or don’t run, one of which is that sometimes they listen to their wives, as Lyndon Johnson did, and Richard Nixon, Harold Stassen and George McGovern didn’t.

Lady Bird Johnson was one of the wisest and strongest first ladies who ever lived in the White House. And not often but sometimes, she had the last word. L.B.J. loved and respected her after his fashion, and when she finally said, "Lynden, its time to go home," for once he did what he was told.

Even in these days, when divorce is so easy and family ties are supposed to be weak, it would probably be a mistake to underestimate the influence of families on presidential politics. Many qualified and attractive candidates don’t come forward simply because they put their private lives ahead of their ambitions, and don’t want to put themselves and their families through the savage political process.

Others tolerate it because the family tie is strong enough to stand it. Nobody can watch the President and his wife without recognizing their faith in one another. What they will decide, whether he should run or not, they will obviously decide together. Nancy Reagan, and not George Gallup, may well have the final say.

Fortunately, this is also true of the Mondales and the Glenns on the Democratic side. These are other serious and devoted couples, and what they do together, knowing that whether they win or lose in the 1984 election they will have friends at their side, no matter.

So it doesn’t really matter that George McGovern gets into the race, though it’s too bad that his wife, Eleanor, doesn’t think this is the best idea he ever had. Let them all dream and take their chances. It’s too bad in a way that serious men like Senator Loyd Bentsen of Texas have stood aside, and that Senator Kennedy of Massachusetts has pulled out.

The 1984 election is not merely a judgment on the past but a bet on the future. Whatever makes the candidate run, the main problem for the voters is to think about the coming years and find those who are coming rather than going.