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Show Drop Agnew in 72 Vice President Spiro Agnew, who sounded sour notes when he learned that Americans and Red Chinese were going to play ping pong with each other, was noticably mum about President Nixon's announcement of his trip to China. Agnew was off in Africa somewhere flapping about the inadequacy of America's black leaders. Whether he had been informed about President Nixon's gestures toward China ahead of time, we can't know. But when reporters asked him to discuss the President's trip announcement, he had a crisp "no comment." Perhaps this indicates that the vice president's star is falling in the Nixon government. Now that he has used Agnew to hold together a bloc of hard hats and right-of-conservative Republicans and southerners, maybe may-be the President doesn't need him anymore. We'd like to see Agnew dropped from the ticket in 1972. In the first place, we think Agnew would harm the President's chances among newly enfranchised 18 to 21 -year-old voters. But more significant, we would like to see voters identify with Republicanism on the basis of its accomplishments over the past four years welfare reform, proposals for decentralization of bureaucracy through revenue sharing and executive reorganization, the restoration of a cooler, more deliberate America and a definite winding down of the Vietnam War. We don't feci the rhetoric of Spiro Agnew is representative of progressive Republicanism. |