Histry in Sherman Park

Schell's detailed account of how the members of one Middle American family arrived at their voting choices in the 1984 presidential campaign is as bland as the campaign itself. Reprinted from the New Yorker, this essay traces the political thinking of a pseudonymous Milwaukee family and their circle of friends and relatives. From this microcosmic analysis, Schell (The Fate of the Earth) concludes that many voters saw the Democrats as pessimists because Mondale emphasized the limits of U.S. military intervention and industrial growth. Reagan was viewed as an optimist. Schell also finds that as the two major parties increasingly abdicate their role of organizing people's thinking, Americans are growing less and less attached to parties, and to politics in general. How the ordinary voter makes peace with the threat of total nuclear annihilation is an underlying theme. (October28)