University of Oklahoma - Sooner Yearbook (Norman, OK)

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and promises of cooperation flowed like the waters of the Mississippi rather than the flood of Watergate. Then slowly but surely the honeymoon wore thin. In- flation was eating at the economy of the nation. Unem- ployment was on the rise. The balance of payments be- tween the U.S. and foreign nations ran further and further into the red. Then the final split to the honeymoon was announced when President Gerald R. Ford pardoned Richard M. Nixon for all possible crimes that he might have committed during the years that he was president. Public reaction was tremendous. Many felt that the President had acted prematurely. Many felt that he had done the right thing, that for a President to resign from office was punishment enough. The country was divided. Public outcry grew toward a subversion of justice. Questions arose as to how a man could be pardoned for something he hadn't been convicted of doing? How could the President do this without due process of law? But Ford stood firm. He said that it was for the welfare of the nation that he had pardoned Nixon. He said that the whole affair of Watergate needed to be buried so that the country could get focused on the needs that were more pressing and more urgent. He urged Americans to turn from the petty rhetoric of Watergate to the real problem facing the country. But debate raged on. Senate hearings and House judiciary hearings were held in order to officially discuss the moves made by President Ford. Finally Ford made his move to quiet the storm. He made an appearance before the House Judiciary sub-committee which had originally probed the Nixon- Watergate scandal and had made impeachment recommendations to the House Judiciary Committee. This committee eventually voted articles of impeachment against Nixon. This seemed to cool the debate of the pardon. Congress settled back to a routine legislative process and the President returned to trying to solve some of the problems his administration had inherited from the Nixon ad- ministration. Both seemed to be waiting for the month-long legislative recess just prior to the off-year election. The democrats seemed to be waiting for the right moment in the elections when they could spring all the ills of the country and the stench of Watergate upon the republican hopefuls and end up with a democratically dominant legislative branch, President Ford seemed to be biding his time. He wanted to wait and throw his support behind troubled republican candidates in order to swing the tone of the election into the GOP's favor. When it was all over and the weight for both sides had been thrown, the President and the republicans had lost ground. Voters had gone to the polls and elected a veto proof House of Representatives and had come within eight seats in the senate of electing a Hveto proof U.S. Senate. Even in the home district of the House of Represen- tatives where Gerald Ford had been elected, voters put a democrat into that seat, a seat that had been a republican stronghold for the last 12 elections. All across the nation democrats had taken hold from the gf- 1-it HIS SENATORlAl. ASPIRATIONS riding high, Republican Henry Bellmon addresses OU law students during his campaign for re-election to the U.S. Senate. republicans. Democrats enjoyed successes they had not had since 1958 and increased their hold on the governors' houses across the land. Whether it was the stench of Watergate or the sagging economy is hard to say. It is even harder to say what the months to come will bring for the President, the Congress and the nation. Whether a republican President can work and solve real problems in the face of a democratically controlled Congress is the big question. Whether that democratically controlled Congress can promote programs that will ease the problems of the nation and still be acceptable to a republican President is another question up for debate. Only time will tell. Q

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by Don Huntington Political winds of change blew across America creating a new and fresh climate for the political scenery of the nation. As the winds died down the morning following the balloting, many changes had taken place. From coast to coast voters had changed the traditional face of politics into something that remains yet to be tested. As evidence of the change, voters elected two black officials, in two state wide offices, in two different states. Voters also elected the first woman governor of a con- servative eastern state. She became the first woman elected governor not to succeed her husband. In Oklahoma change also swept into politics. Voters returned to a normalcy of voting that they had not ex- perienced since the 1958 Prairie Fire campaign and election of the late J. Howard Edmondson, Oklahoma's youngest governor. When the winds of political change had subsided over the waving wheat of Oklahoma a virtually unknown state representative had swept into the Governor's office of the State of Oklahoma. David Boren brandishing his Broom Brigade open politics cleaned out the old guard in one of the most lopsided elections in the state's history. Boren garnered 63 per cent of the vote over his Republican opponent. He rode into the governor's office on a platform of cleaning out the old guard politicians, OPPOSITE: THE RETURNS OUT, Governor-elect David Boren of Seminole gleefully addresses his campaign workers upon his November 5 victory. BELOW: WITH FISTS ROLLED, President Gerald Ford describes his future national economic program to Oklahoma City gif' Q f .nj s. cleaning up waste in government spending, and revamping of the state medical services and state corrections department. He had begun his long trek to the state house with the defeat of incumbent governor David Hall, and U.S. Representative Clem McSpadden. Hall made his showing a poor third in the race as Boren eroded his strength in the youth vote and the educational strong holds and lVlcSpadden sapped Hall's strength in the rural communities. But Boren's win in the primary had just begun his race to the state house. Boren still had to face a Republican. Jim lnhofe, a Tulsa insurance man, State Senator, and also a reform candidate, easily disposed of his primary opponent Densil Garrison. Inhofe had campaigned on a platform which included governmental reform as its main plank. He also sought to take steps into prison reform and elimination of wastes in Oklahoma governmental spend- ing. But once the votes were counted in the November 5 election Boren had become the state's second youngest Governor. He had taken the state tally by almost a 2 to 1 margin. He made even greater inrodes in the student vote of the University of Oklahoma student body by taking a 3 to 1 edge in the predominantly student precincts around the campus. Boren had proved that with hard work and an open attitude that one man could rise against the political might of the powerful old guard politicians and maybe set the tone for the next four years of growth for the State of Oklahoma. Q Republicans. BELOW: A GOVERNORS DESK for Democrat David Boren as he does paper work in preparation for his January move into the highest office in the state. far