Readers of Adam Clymer’s new book will recognize “The Big Ditch” as the name New Hampshire Gov. Meldrim Thomson assigned to the Panama Canal during the fierce debates in the late 1970s over the decision to turn the canal’s ownership over to Panama.
Clymer contends that fight had a major impact on American politics ? influencing everything from the viability of a Reagan presidential run in 1980 to the continued success of heated, single-issue attack ads today. The author doesn’t oversell his argument, and he offers a fair description of the ideas that motivated political players on all sides of the debate.
Students of North Carolina politics will find several references to Tar Heel politics, including the entirety of Chapter 20, which covers Republican John East’s successful effort to unseat incumbent Democratic Sen. Robert Morgan in 1980:
The East campaign had succeeded in portraying Morgan as too liberal, despite the fact that his voting record was viewed more favorably by the American Conservative Union than by Americans for Democratic Action. For his six years, ACU rated him 50 percent right. ADA gave him only 27 percent.
The Canal issue was central to that portrayal. Tom Ellis said it would have been “impossible” for East to win without it. “It was THE issue.” And Jesse Helms told an audience in Burlington not long before Election Day: “Only one North Carolina Senator voted to give away the Panama Canal, and it wasn’t Jesse Helms.
