THE CHOICE.(The Talk of the Town)

Folder: The Campaign Trail

This Presidential campaign has been as ugly and as bitter as any in American memory. The ugliness has flowed mostly in one direction, reaching its apotheosis in the effort, undertaken by a supposedly independent group financed by friends of the incumbent, to portray the challenger--who in his mid-twenties was an exemplary combatant in both the Vietnam War and the movement to end that war--as a coward and a traitor. The bitterness has been felt mostly by the challenger's adherents; yet there has been more than enough to go around. This is one campaign in which no one thinks of having the band strike up "Happy Days Are Here Again."