Salient. An organ of student opinion at Victoria University, Wellington. Vol. 23, No. 9. Wednesday, November 9, 1960

The Issues

The Issues

Foreign policy will be very important in this campaign, and since the parties do not differ at all on this the dispute will centre round the qualification of the candidates. Nixon's image as a strong man with the Russians is well established. This is Kennedy's weak spot. Since the Summit failure he has been hurt by the suspicion that he is too young to handle the problems facing the U.S., and his suggestion that the U.S. should apologise for the U-2 flights was unpopular. Nevertheless, he shows in his speeches that he is aware of foreign policy problems, and has called for "improved communications with mainland China."

Nixon's weakness is farm policy. The Administration policy has been a costly failure, and Nixon's attempts to dissociate himself from it may not be enough to save the farm vote.

The other big issue in domestic politics is how far the government should encourage economic growth. Democrats insist that the economy should expand at the rate of at least 5 per cent, per annum, to be forced by government spending if necessary. Nixon has scorned this as "growthmanship" and advocates the relaxation of government controls on the that increased government spending on education and welfare is necessary.