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Show Editorial Candiates All Avoid Vital Viet Nam Issue Although this editorial is being written before final voting returns are in, perhaps a few general observations ob-servations on the election would be in order. On the national level the campaign issues, strangely strange-ly enough, have generally been limited to domestic issues, is-sues, and not to the war in Viet Nam. The reason why many candidates have chosen not to make Viet Nam an election issue is three-fold. In the first place many candidates have recognized the fact that the majority of the voters do, in fact, support America's newly evolved role in Southeast Asia as a sort of Free World policeman. Events of the past year have clearly shown that John Q. Voter is basically a hawk. Surely the fact that President Johnson's popularity rose after the. bombing of oil dumps in Haiphong did not go unnoticed unno-ticed among the nation's office-seekers. Actually the only major race in the country where American involvement in-volvement in Viet Nam has been a major campaign issue is the Oregon gubernatorial race between Republican Re-publican incumbent Mark Hatfield and former Democratic Demo-cratic representative Robert Duncan. A victory by Hatfield, who opposes the Administration's handling of the war, could have a major effect on the 19 6 8 elections should the situation in Southeast Asia remain critical. Another reason why candidates, particularly the Republicans, have failed to exploit any voter discontentment discon-tentment over Viet Nam is the realization that any wide-spread opposition to America's involvement at election time would give the impression to the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese that the United States is divided in its resolution to see the war through to the end. It is this same belief on the part Communists which has until now been one of the major reasons why the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese have steadfastly steadfast-ly refused to negotiate the halting of hostilities. North Viet Nam's rulers simply refuse to believe that the American public is patient enough to support the war effort until its completion, especially since that war could drag on for years. One other reason why many candidates have not chosen to make Viet Nam a major issue bears mentioning. men-tioning. For the most part the general public doesn't understand the complexities of the war in Viet Nam. While the situation is admittedly lamentable, the fact remains: most Americans don't understand what is going on in Viet Nam. Thier plight is, in turn, mirrored mir-rored in a lack of knowledge on the part of many candidates, can-didates, who, when asked about their views on Viet Nam, avoid any lengthy discussion about the subject to form a valid opinion. While the argument that wide-spread opposition to the Administration's Viet Nam policy would give the appearance of American disunity is a valid one, we find it indeed unfortunate that the American public was not given the opportunity in this election campaign cam-paign to hear the Viet Nam issue freely discussed, and to indicate with its vote whether it approved of a war which is costing the country billions of dollars and thousands of lives. |