Which Conservative?

Twelve million Brazilian voters next week will choose one of two conservatives --Sao Paulo's former Governor Janio Quadros, 43, or retired Field Marshal Henrique Baptista Duffles Teixeira Lott, 65--as President of Brazil. Such are the ground rules of Brazilian politics that hardly a voter will realize that he is casting his ballot for a conservative; ever since the campaign began early this year, each camp has spent close to $5,000,000 convincing Brazil that its man is an ardent leftist, a welfare statist and a Brazil-firster.

Switch Talker. On his own behalf, Janio Quadros has gone to extreme and confusing lengths to promote images of himself calculated to please everyone. He has also switched from the name-calling, highly personal campaign style that carried him in seven years from a high school classroom (where he taught history, geography and Portuguese literature) to the governorship of Sao Paulo, Brazil's richest, most powerful state. As Governor, he spent liberally on public works that now support the nation's most bustling industrial complex (steel, automobiles, appliances)--but also got rid of some 15,000 featherbedding state workers.

Stumping for President, Quadros put aside the undignified platform gimmicks he used in state politics. He combed his hair, tightened his tie, brushed the dandruff off his shoulders, and never once pulled a sandwich from his pocket in mid-harangue. He avoided personal attacks on Lott, refused to sling corruption charges indiscriminately.

But, chameleonlike, he switched his coloration to suit his audience. Before industrialists he promised conservative economics; before planners he praised foreign investment; before peasants he recalled his visit to Castro's Cuba and professed admiration for the bearded Maximum Leader. Before Communists he pointed to his trip last year to Moscow and hinted at possible recognition of Russia and Red China; before nationalists he flayed bloodsucking foreign exploiters. As President, he would probably run the same kind of businesslike, economical, development-minded government that he built in Sao Paulo.

Work v. Talent. Marshal Lott is much less flamboyant than even the new Quadros. He began his military career methodically, slogging through military school by dint of grueling hard work. Once he complained to his English-descended father about a brilliant classmate who was always getting the best marks in class. "He has talent," said Cadet Lott. "Yes," said his father, "but if you study hard you will conquer talent."

Lott studied his way to top spot in his class, but took 30 years to reach a rather undistinguished colonelcy. It took another 14 years to reach the War Ministry, where his rigid devotion to duty led him to stage his 1955 "preventive coup" to ensure the threatened inauguration of constitutionally elected President Juscelino Kubitschek.

As government candidate, he inherited the archnationalist and Communist support that helped elect Kubitschek. He left Red-lining harangues to others on his team. For himself, he insisted that he was a practicing Roman Catholic and an unswerving, antiCommunist. He promised to continue building Brazil as Kubitschek has done, but avoided committing himself to the printing-press method of payment that Kubitschek has used to pay for it.

New Image. Lott's main problem in early campaigning was his dullness. Stolid and rigid, with cold blue eyes and a piping voice that made him sound slightly ridiculous, he left his audiences unimpressed. In midcampaign, however, he switched tactics. He struggled to lower his voice a few notes, assumed the role of a wise parent, and at the same time began pepping up his campaign with vicious personal attacks on Quadros. He called Quadros everything from insane to dictatorial, said that Quadros' election would lead to bloody civil war, charged that Quadros was trying to buy the election with a slush fund provided by foreign trusts.

The switch has helped. When the campaign started, Public Works Minister Ernani do Amaral Peixoto, appointed by Kubitschek's Social Democratic Party to coordinate Lott's candidacy, sadly reported to friends that "Lott is unelectable." Urged to expand his campaign itinerary, Candidate Quadros chuckled: "That's all right. Marshal Lott will visit places I can't visit myself, and win them for me." But by last week the lively new Lott was closing so fast that he had Brazilian political experts convinced that he was still solidly in the race.

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