Most Disappointing

The 1964 presidential campaign has been one of the most disappointing ever. It was going to be a confrontation between opposing philosophies; it turned out to be a wrestling match be tween volatile personalities. It was go ing to prove the vital difference be tween two strong political parties; it has merely shown that one, the G.O.P., is in need of great repair. It was going to pit liberal against conservative; but Lyndon Johnson has stated very few liberal tenets, and many an American conservative now doubts that Barry Goldwater really speaks his language. It was not going to be a "me too" cam paign; it has turned out to be one in which the principals largely shout "You're another."

Bombshells. To be sure, Goldwater began with a disadvantage. He had to run against peace, prosperity and an in cumbent President who, many thought, probably deserved a full term of his own. Thus, from the very start, Goldwater was told by the pollsters that he had little chance of winning. He ob viously felt that he would have to drop bombshells if he were to make a decent showing. Bombshells he dropped -and some exploded in his face.

His imprecise use of the language often made it difficult to know just where he stood, as did his offhand treatment of serious subjects. It also laid him open to misinterpretation. Is Goldwater really anxious to plunge the world into nuclear war? Of course not.

But millions of voters wondered. Time after time-on nuclear policy, farm subsidies, civil rights, TVA and social security-he seemed to take a firm stand, backed away, then complained bitterly about having been misquoted. More important, he made almost no major speech calculated to win him any new votes beyond those of the diehard, pre-San Francisco Goldwaterites.

But if Goldwater togged up the campaign, Johnson filled it with pettifoggery. Confident of victory, he had a readymade opportunity to set forth national policies and win a mandate for them. But he put off any action that might possibly prove embarrassing until after Nov. 3, and talked about, urgent matters only in generalities. He failed to deliver on his own pre-campaign pledge to furnish a blueprint for "the Great Society." He preferred to point his finger at church steeples and cry of his critics: "God forgive them, for they really know not what they do."

Bestsellers. Thus, what the campaign has really come down to is a back-alley fight featuring such pejorative words and phrases as "liar," "demagogue," "socialist," "irresponsible," "reckless," "soft on Communism," and "fascist." Scurrilous paperback books about both candidates have become bestsellers. Vicious television commercials have depicted Goldwater as a man willing to sprinkle a little girl's ice cream with cancer-causing strontium 90.

Last week Republicans were ready to put on national TV a 30-minute film dramatizing the "immorality issue." It was replete with stripteasing babes, wild Twisters, Negro riots, long shots and closeups of Bobby Baker and Billie Sol Estes-interlaced with shots of a black Lincoln Continental limousine careening madly along country roads, with beer cans being tossed out of the driver's window. The supposed identity of the driver? His initials might rhyme with "all the way."

The film was not shown because, when Goldwater saw it for the first time, he strongly objected to its emphasis on Negro demonstrators. "This," he snapped, "is a racist film."

The campaign began sterile and never changed for the better. There now seems little doubt that Johnson will win easily. But it has already been firmly established as an anti-Goldwater rather than a pro-Johnson campaign. Some voters likely will stay home or will cast their ballots only for state and local candidates. That fact was already indicated in Maine, which has begun opening its absentee ballots and has discovered that many voters declined to vote for either Johnson or Goldwater.

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