CAMPAIGN KICKOFF
There was the same sense of tension, the same feeling of rising excitement, the same hope of glory to be won, as though the two teams were poised for a kickoff.
In the hamlet of Plains, Ga., where the jungle heat of August still hung on, Jimmy Carter was tanned and rested from his long midsummer idyl and eager to go. When the word came that the debates were on--that he would be able to meet Gerald Ford face to face while tens of millions watched on television--Carter was delighted, confident that he would do well in the duels that could decide the campaign.
As for Ford, he was in a euphoric and combative mood, still cheered by his victory over Ronald Reagan in Kansas City. Talking to Republican legislative leaders gathered in the Cabinet Room, the President refused to surrender any section of the country to Carter--even the South. Warned Ford: "If I find anybody on the staff promoting that line, he'll be fired." Said one Congressman later: "I've never seen the President so vehement."
Although Ford clearly starts out as the underdog--trailing in the latest Gallup poll 37% to Carter's 52%--the struggle with Carter promises to be the most exciting and fascinating since John Kennedy edged Richard Nixon in 1960. In fact, in its patterns and subtleties, it may well be even more complicated than that epic contest. As the man who is trying to reunite the old Democratic coalition, Carter chose the site for his Labor Day speech with special care for its symbolism: Warm Springs, Ga., where Franklin D. Roosevelt often visited and where he died in 1945. In his address, Carter will argue that only someone who has not been in Washington for most of his adult life--as Ford has--can provide the new ideas and fresh vision demanded by the times. Carter also plans to go this week to Chicago, where Mayor Richard Daley is whumping up a mammoth torchlight parade to spark a drive aimed at capturing Illinois and its 26 electoral votes.
Officially, Ford will not begin his campaign until the week of Sept. 12, when he will speak at the University of Michigan, his alma mater. The President intends to talk of his plans for the future of America, hoping to make a favorable contrast with the evocation of the past created by Carter's pilgrimage to Warm Springs. But officially or not, the President will be campaigning hard this week. An edited version of his socko acceptance speech will be shown on CBS-TV. The President Ford Committee bought the air time, for $86,000, because the speech was delivered at 10:30 p.m. in Kansas City--a time when untold millions in such pivotal Eastern states as Pennsylvania (27 electoral votes) and New York (41) had already gone to bed. Then, staying in Washington and acting "presidential"--a major theme of his campaign--Ford will address the B'nai B'rith convention, a speech that will be closely studied by key Jewish leaders. Ford will also meet with the same Roman Catholic bishops who last week got into yet another squabble with Carter over the abortion issue (see story page 21). All in all, quite a week of campaigning for a noncampaigning President.
What makes the coming election so gripping is that it is much more than a contest between a conservative President and a moderate challenger with liberal leanings. Issues and ideology will matter, of course, but the struggle will most likely be decided on other grounds. It will be colored by religion and haunted by Watergate. More important, the American people, fed up with politics and politicians, are in a mood to choose the man they see as the stronger leader--someone they can trust.
Both camps realize the situation full well. Hamilton Jordan, Carter's frank, perceptive campaign manager, might be speaking for the President's men when he says: "People like Gerald Ford. They think he's honest. They think he's well intentioned. A lot of people in this country think he's been a very strong President. People are just coming to know Jimmy Carter. They like him. They think he's honest. They think he's well intentioned. A lot of people have made a tentative judgment that Carter would be a stronger President. I think the election will turn on whether that judgment is confirmed or withdrawn. If it's confirmed, Jimmy will win. If it's withdrawn, Ford will win."
Despite his early and substantial lead, Carter was anything but overconfident. For his part, the President remained convinced that he could win an election that depended so heavily on the sense of character and strength each candidate can project. Thus the three televised Ford-Carter debates could swing the outcome either way, not so much by what Ford and Carter actually say about the issues but by the general impression of their potential for leadership that they are able to convey to a nationwide audience.
Ford starts with many familiar problems: the low state of the Republican Party, the legacy of Watergate, the polls showing that most Americans believe he should not have pardoned Richard Nixon, the lack of a national constituency for an unelected President, the scathing attacks by Reagan on his leadership abilities, and the absence of great faith in his capacity to cope with the job. Still, Ford does have the considerable advantages of incumbency. As President, he can shape events--send bills crackling up to Congress, make appointments, dominate the news. And Ford--a hearty, unaffected man, a kind of prototypical Midwesterner--has clearly restored both dignity and informality to the White House. People tend to regard him, as one of his aides puts it, as being "safe, secure, sound."
Although the unemployment rate has been rising--it went from 7.3% in May to 7.9% in August--the nation is rebounding, if somewhat erratically, from the 1973-75 recession; Ford's go-easy tactics of letting the economy largely right itself are so far working out fairly well. No American boys are fighting overseas; none are even being drafted. There is a growing sense of well-being in the country, particularly among the members of the huge and increasingly affluent middle class.
Taking on Carter, Ford will stress his own "experience" and speak often of the need for "trust." Carter, he is already saying, lacks experience and should be viewed with suspicion because "he is the biggest flip-flopper I know." Not only that, Ford has claimed that Carter inspires widespread public "fear and apprehension" because of his inexperience in foreign affairs.
Ford will also do his stubborn best to label Carter a closet liberal, to link him to the Democrats' big-spending platform (which was largely shaped by Carter's men), and will cite his naming of Senator Walter Mondale as his running mate as proof that Carter is, at heart, too far to the left for the American mood. The President will rail against the do-too-much Democratic Congress and argue that his 55 vetoes saved the taxpayers "billions."
The goal of Ford's strategy will be to build a coalition of support; Carter's will be to hold on to his. The Georgian will attack Ford for "indecisiveness," claiming that he would be not only a better manager but a more aggressive one. When a Senate committee charged last week that the Medicaid program was beset by multibillion-dollar fraud and inefficiency, Carter wondered where the President had been while the mess was brewing: "Sitting in the White House, perhaps,timid, fearful, afraid to lead, afraid to manage."
Carter will try to turn Ford's vetoes against him by stressing "the human suffering" that they have caused. Ford is also guilty of some flip-flops of his own, notably on energy, taxes and support for national parks. As he did in the primaries, Carter will emphasize the fact that he is not a Washington man. He will continue to try to appeal to the hearts of Americans by saying he would work for a government as good as they are. If the Republicans get rough, Carter is ready to respond in kind. Says one senior aide: "He knows how to play that game too.''
His worst enemy may turn out to be himself. For one thing, his almost messianic sense of purpose, his Southern populism, his compulsion to serve and his overwhelming desire to be elected could lead him to promise too much to too many--to be, in short, the ardent liberal reformer that Ford will be claiming that he really is. Says Jack Watson, one of Carter's chief aides: "Jimmy is a riskier candidate than Ford because he is so aspirational."
Carter also tends to give subtle, complex, something-for-everyone answers, and occasionally to fudge and hedge his positions. He has taken three different stands on whether or not he would embargo grain sales to the Soviet Union (the last: no embargo unless a national food shortage or some other emergency required it). Ford's campaign manager, James Baker, has coined a word for this Carter characteristic: "Waffability."
A major handicap for Carter in holding on to key components of his coalition could be that he is a "born again" evangelical Christian. Many Catholics, who have not always fared well at the hands of Southern Baptists, are worried about the fact. So are some Jews, who constitute only 4% of the electorate but are highly important in key states like New York, California and Florida. Republican Senator Mark Hatfield, a deeply religious Protestant, suggests that Carter's brand of evangelicalism also unsettles many other Protestants because it implies that "he has a direct line to God."
Carter's background has contributed to the undeniable fact that his support in many areas is squishy. Even at the time of the Democratic Convention, Carter's moment of triumph, Pollster Louis Harris said that the Democrats he surveyed "talked about him as though he were an outsider. They didn't say 'My man got it.' It's difficult to find any real enthusiasm." Admits one Carter staffer: "Unless our 'soft support' firms up, we're in trouble."
George Reedy, Lyndon Johnson's press secretary and now dean of Marquette University's journalism college, attributes the Democrats' pale, shallow support of Carter to the "Dr. Fell syndrome"--after the old English nursery rhyme: "I do not like thee, Dr. Fell./ The reason why I cannot tell./ But this I know, and know full well/ I do not like thee, Dr. Fell."
Like Willy Loman, Jimmy Carter went on the road last week, hoping to be not only liked, but well liked. In Atlanta, he met with some 100 prominent Jews who had been flown in by the Carter campaign. He asked for their help and their advice, reiterated his strong support of Israel, and added a new line that roused great applause: "Israel did not cause the Palestinian problem." Carter also did well at a meeting with 400 people arranged by the New York Board of Rabbis, though there was still some holding back. While in New York, he gamely appeared before a group of Italian-American leaders, whose feelings had been rubbed the wrong way by his seeming lack of rapport with ethnics and his use of the pronunciation "Eye-ta-lian" in his acceptance speech. Later, Lawyer Peter Cella, who scheduled the session, said: "One has to respect Carter for his political professionalism. We determined that he showed sensitivity and sincerity. Still, we are adopting a healthy skepticism."
During a stop in Washington, Carter got the bluff blessing of AFL-CIO President George Meany, who sat out the 1972 campaign because he could not stomach George McGovern. "Our candidate," vowed Meany, "will get the full backing of the best political machine in the country." There already were strong signs that labor would deliver for the Carter-Mondale ticket--not only in votes but in voter registration. The well-organized United Auto Workers--1.4 million members across the country--is revving up. Ohio labor leaders are working closely with the Democratic organization. Says Thomas Bradley, president of the AFL-CIO in the Baltimore area: 'Tm working my fanny off for Carter because we just don't see any understanding of the economic situation in the Ford Administration."
Carter is going into the campaign with a bright, young and exceptionally well-organized staff that still manages to stay loose, though one aide confesses: "It's just beginning to dawn on me that we're in the big leagues now." Carter gives his people remarkable autonomy, leaving himself free to read, speak, think--and even pose for some photos by Andy Warhol. The Democratic National Committee will raise money by selling a limited-edition portfolio of the pictures.
The Mondale and Carter staffs have merged smoothly. Asked how the blending was proceeding, Campaign Manager Jordan replies with a good ol' boy grin: "You should ask Dick Moe [Mondale's top aide] about that. He's down getting my shoes shined right now."
The staff, which will soon number 700 nationwide, is coordinated from the Atlanta headquarters (302 members) by Jordan, 31, who is waging his own anti-inflationary drive. To scratch up money to hire more people in the field, he has cut salaries by 10% (top pay is $1,800 a month). Jordan has also tightened procedures that had allowed one spectacular goof--someone turned down an invitation for Carter to address the Steelworkers' national convention last week. After some scrambling, Mondale made the meeting.
Carter's campaign, like Ford's, will be financed entirely by $21.8 million in federal election funds, plus $3.2 million from the national committee. That is peanuts compared with the $42 million that Nixon lavished on his re-election drive. With funds so limited, victory may go to the campaign that has better management and Carter, who has all his budgeting computerized weekly, seems to be far ahead of Ford on this point.*
Carter will pump $10 million into advertising, including $6.5 million on TV spots. He has such trust in his men that he did not even screen the ads that began appearing on CBS last week. The second biggest outlay will be $4.5 million for the field staff, which already has selected its 50 state coordinators, including former partisans of men whom Carter left dazed in his wake: Scoop Jackson, Mo Udall, Hubert Humphrey.
The nerve center of Carter's campaign is a small, windowless chamber on the 24th floor of downtown Atlanta's Colony Square office building. The door, unmarked except for a taped-up piece of white paper bearing the handwritten designation 22-A, is always kept locked. Only six persons have the key. Known as "the situation room," it resembles a combat-ready headquarters. The beige walls are decorated with charts, graphs and maps that reflect Carter's strategy. The barnstorming schedules for the candidate, his wife Rosalynn and their three sons and wives, plus Mondale and his wife, are traced by grease pencils on plastic sheets taped over three large maps of the U.S. Carter's itinerary is drawn in green, Mondale's in orange.
The aim of the plan is much more sophisticated than keeping the ten Carter and Mondale family members from bumping into each other, or making sure that all major sections of the country receive "a hit"--Carter talk for a visit from one of the campaigners. The schedules are drawn to concentrate efforts on some 20 high-priority states, selected by Jordan on the basis of a mathematical formula that weighs the electoral votes of each, its record of voting for presidential candidates and its potential for successful wooing by the Carter campaign. The list includes California, Illinois, Michigan, New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania. Jordan has assigned a highly secret "hit goal" total for each state. A visit by Carter is worth seven points, Mondale is rated at five, the candidates' wives at three, and the Carter sons and their wives at two apiece.
Both Carter and Mondale will travel in chartered Boeing 727s, which will haul enough black boxes of communications gear to run a SAC mission. A computer on Carter's plane, linked to the Atlanta headquarters, will spew out a daily intelligence report on such matters as poll results, position papers, travel schedules and campaign spending. Carter is also keeping a cool eye on Ford's efforts. Says an aide: "We're getting really good intelligence on their scheduling--legitimately, I hasten to add."
Material for Carter's appearances--including the all-important debates--is organized by an "issues staff' headed by Stuart Eizenstat, 33, an Atlanta lawyer. Hoping to scotch the criticism that the candidate is fuzzy on the issues, Eizenstat's group is drawing up 40 position papers on subjects including tax reform and Government reorganization. Defining Carter's philosophy, Eizenstat says it tries to combine "the compassion and concern of liberalism and the caution and efficiency of conservatism." Would he call it the "new liberalism?" No indeed, says Eizenstat. "I'd call it Carterism."
A compulsive planner--and a congenital optimist--Carter is already well along in his plans to take over the White House, risking the opprobrium of being considered too cocky in order to be sure he is ready. Under Jack Watson, 37, another Atlanta lawyer, a staff of twelve is compiling a talent inventory of possible nominees for Cabinet and sub-Cabinet posts. They are also examining the more immediate questions that Carter would have to face upon taking office.
To help him win, the Democratic National Committee will be leading a nationwide, $2 million campaign aimed at registering at least 8 million of the 48 million eligible but unregistered voters by Election Day. The targeted states closely parallel those on Carter's hit list. Most of the unregistered voters are likely Democrats: the blacks and the Latinos, the poor and the young. The D.N.C. and labor will also be working to ensure that all eligible voters cast their ballots on Nov. 2. A recent survey by Peter D. Hart Associates shows that people who do not plan to vote prefer Carter over Ford by 50% to 15%.
In contrast to the smoothly functioning Carter apparatus, the Ford headquarters is still in a scramble after the long battle to win in Kansas City. A number of basic budget decisions have not been made, though about $10 million has been allocated for media blitzes. At one point last week, two staffers were separately scheduling the campaign itinerary of Senator Robert Dole, Ford's running mate.
To bring some order, the President is counting heavily on James Baker, 46, who replaced Rogers Morton as campaign manager. Baker is the man who so successfully wooed the delegates in Kansas City. A wealthy Houston lawyer, he did not become a Republican until 1970 and had no national political experience until the primary fight. He is a cool, low-keyed operator with a talent for getting the biggest bang out of his bucks--"a C.P.A.-realist type," in the admiring phrase of Republican Senator Howard Baker (no kin). Jim Baker will work closely with Political Director Stuart Spencer and White House Chief of Staff Richard B. Cheney.
Their first job will be to hold their boss in check. Says one Ford aide of the President: "His instincts are to travel a lot. He's combative and competitive. To him, politics is a body sport. But he's also rational. He knows what happens when he travels all the time. We've gone through periods when we were really flapping." What also happens, as Ford sadly realizes, is that the more he stumps, the lower his ratings drop in the polls, because of his plodding style.
The President plans to make only about one trip a week out into the country during the first month of the campaign, but to hold frequent press conferences, perhaps one a week, to capture the headlines. He will break loose in the last two or three weeks of the campaign, when he will travel particularly in the South and such swing states as California, Illinois and Ohio.
While Ford minds the White House, his campaign will be taken to the voters by a group of surrogates dubbed "the advocates," who are Cabinet members, and "the super advocates"--Dole, Vice President Nelson Rockefeller and John Connally. The flamboyant Connally has agreed to run the President's campaign in Texas (26 electoral votes). He will be a lone star on the campaign trail. Says William Greener, a Ford press aide: "When I'm asked what Connally will be doing, I say, 'Whatever he wants.' "
Dole, who was likened to "a hungry Doberman pinscher" by Reagan Aide Lyn Nofziger, has been almost tabby-cat tame on the hustings so far, even making a friendly phone call to Carter while touring Georgia last week. Indeed, in the duel of the two articulate vice-presidential candidates, Mondale has got off the most stinging--if complex--crack to date: "The Republican Party has given us two Presidents and three Vice Presidents in two years with only one election."
Until late last week, Ford did not know for sure whether he would get any real aid from Reagan. The former California Governor was noncommittal. "They know where to reach me," he told newsmen. Ford finally phoned him last Thursday, exchanged some pleasantries, and then said succinctly: "I want your help in the campaign." Responded Reagan: "As I told you in Kansas City, I'll do everything I can."
Exactly what Reagan will do remains to be developed, but his professed willingness to work at all should help Ford considerably, signaling his partisans--zealous campaigners all--to put a shoulder to the bandwagon. Ford has been only moderately successful in signing on former Reagan staffers. Nofziger, who has agreed to do some part-time troubleshooting, says: "I hear an awful lot of our people saying that they will vote for Ford but not work for him."
Like Carter, Ford plans to make much use of his wife and children, who--like Carter's--are formidable campaigners. Because of her fervent advocacy of the Equal Rights Amendment, Betty Ford is a favorite with many women's groups, but her genial manner enables her to fit in anywhere. Last weekend she flew to Chicago to attend a Lithuanian folk dance festival, part of the Republicans' intensive campaign to sap Carter's strength in the North by tapping the Catholic ethnics.
Ford is starting the campaign far behind in the cold arithmetic of electoral votes. Carter naturally has enormous strength in the South. Including Texas, Kentucky and Virginia, the twelve states could give him 139 of the 270 votes needed to win. In addition, he is counting on Massachusetts (14), Minnesota (10), Oklahoma (8), West Virginia (6), Rhode Island (4) and Hawaii (4), plus the District of Columbia (3)--a total of 49 more. He could then gain the remaining 82 votes he needs for victory by combinations of states where he is strong--New York (41), Missouri (12), Pennsylvania (27)--or has a good chance--California (45), Illinois (26), Ohio (25), Indiana (13).
Ford hopes to pick up about 121 votes in his--and Dole's--Middle West home ground, including states that Carter thinks he can win--Illinois, Michigan and Ohio, for example. Even so, Ford would also have to do well in the Mountain and the Border state areas, crack at least a couple of the Southern states, and capture a pair or more of the heavyweights, such as California and Pennsylvania, to reach the magic 270. It will take some doing, but Ford claims to be encouraged by the results of private polls in 18 "battleground" states, which include Texas, Mississippi, Louisiana, Virginia and North Carolina, where he thinks he stands a chance of winning. An assessment of the Ford-Carter standings now:
SOUTH. Gallup's soundings confirm Carter's optimism: he leads Ford 64% to 28% in the area. The President faces long odds in two big states that he hopes to win: in the primaries, Texans gave Carter 2% times more votes than Ford and Reagan combined; and in Florida, Democrats outnumber Republicans 2% to 1. Virginia may be dicey for Carter, but he now has a slight advantage that should be increased by the voter registration drives. Another Ford problem: Southern Republicans were solidly for Reagan, and many still bear grudges.
MIDWEST. Gerald Ford is stronger here, but he is no cinch on his own turf. Illinois is a tossup. Dick Daley's great Republican-grinding machine and Chicago's blacks are offset by conservative suburbanites and downstaters. Ohio is a toss-up too. So is Michigan, Ford's home state, where local pride may not be enough to overcome resentment over the recession. Bob Dole's Kansas seems as secure for Ford as Fritz Mondale's Minnesota seems safe for Carter. Ford also should carry Nebraska, but Iowa and the Dakotas are anybody's race. The President might score an upset in usually liberal Wisconsin; Milwaukee is heavily populated by ethnic minorities, and the countryside is generally conservative.
NORTHEAST. Carter is now ahead, but if he stumbles Ford has a slim chance of capturing the fat bags of votes in New York, Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Explains a top New York Democrat: "The Catholic problem is real for Carter. A lot of union people are still holding back. The business with the bishops--he has to find a way to take the sting out of that. People are not against him, but they're not yet hot for him either." New England breaks down fairly neatly: Ford is ahead in the top tier of Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine; the more populous bottom rung of Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island seems strong for Carter.
WEST. Ford is stronger here--and Carter did worse in the primaries--than anywhere else in the nation. The President leads in conservative Utah and Idaho; he is also running neck and neck in Oregon and Colorado and is close to Carter in Washington. Jerry Brown, wooed by Carter and eager to establish his good-soldier credentials for the future, has pledged to stump hard to help the Democrat carry the biggest prize, California's 45 electoral votes. Pollster Mervin Field feels Carter leads by six to eight points, but warns that the margin is soft.
In such a volatile situation, key states could be lost or won by how each candidate performs during the debates. The Federal Election Commission last week gave the League of Women Voters permission to stage the discussions, ruling that the organization would not violate bans on private campaign contributions by putting up $150,000 to buy TV time. Former Senator Eugene McCarthy, running as a liberal independent, and former Georgia Governor Lester Maddox, the choice of the American Independent Party, have threatened to take court action to stop the debates, arguing that their exclusion is discriminatory.
The first 90-minute debate, on Thursday, Sept. 23, will be on domestic and economic issues. In their second encounter, Ford and Carter will chew over foreign policy and national defense, and the third will be open to any subject. Dates of those sessions have not been selected. Between the second and third meetings, Dole and Mondale will stage the first debate of vice-presidential candidates.
Carter's people do not feel the debates will be crucial. They assume that Ford will do well, and they see the sessions as a chance for Carter to establish himself as well qualified to be President. Says Jordan: "The variable in the debates is not Gerald Ford. It's Jimmy Carter. I can't imagine Jimmy debating Ford and people not thinking, as a result, that Carter is a pretty bright guy. A lot of people don't know if he's bright or not. They just know that he's pleasant and seems nice and honest."
The candidates' basic positions on what probably will be the gut issues of the great debates:
THE ECONOMY. On this most important policy issue, the candidates have long taken different positions on the entwined problems of fighting inflation and unemployment. Each has recognized the need to cope with both points simultaneously, but Carter has given top priority to reducing unemployment, and Ford to curbing inflation. Though Businessman Carter champions the free enterprise system and is more of a fiscal conservative than many Democratic politicians, he would intervene more actively in the economy than Ford has done. He seems willing to support limited job-subsidy programs, more spending, easier money, and stand-by wage and price controls should inflation threaten to run away again.
Ford argues that since 1974 his economic policies have cut inflation in half--to an annual rate of 6.2% so far this year. Carter counters that Ford should have acted more boldly so that the economy could have snapped back faster than it has. He argues that more growth is needed to lower the persistent unemployment rate.
FOREIGN POLICY. Even Henry Kissinger says that Carter's views are "fairly consistent" with his own--and Ford's. Essentially, Carter differs on three points: he would be less secretive than Kissinger, give greater emphasis to foreign economic policy, and court the Soviets less while paying more attention to the U.S.'s traditional allies, notably Western Europe. He argues that the U.S. should bargain more aggressively with the Soviets, demanding more in return for concessions.
Both candidates favor using U.S. pressure on Rhodesia to move toward "majority" (black) rule and on South Africa to abandon apartheid. Both want the U.S. to work with all parties toward an overall settlement in the Middle East--even Kissinger agrees that his old step-by-step technique is outdated--and both risk offending some Jewish voters by accepting the view that Israel should give up substantial territory that it seized from the Arabs during the 1967 war in return for some kind of international guarantee of its safety.
DEFENSE. Carter calls the Pentagon "the most wasteful bureaucracy in Washington" and figures that "improved management techniques" could cut 5% to 7% out of its spending without reducing security. He wants to maintain overall U.S. military strength on a par with the Soviets'--he speaks of "rough equivalency"--but would somewhat change the composition of the forces. He would scrap plans to produce the B-l bomber, a $21 billion program, while maintaining research and development on the supersonic aircraft. He would equip obsolescent B-52s with new, long-range cruise missiles. He would build more Navy ships but concentrate on smaller vessels, like destroyers, instead of carriers and cruisers. He would reduce U.S. forces overseas.
For his part, Ford firmly supports the B-1 bomber program, opposes bringing home any troops, and warns that Carter's budget reductions could be disastrous. Said Ford last week to cheers at a convention of the National Guard Association: "Cutting muscle out of America's defense is not the best way to ensure peace--it is the best way to destroy it."
BIG GOVERNMENT. Ford emphasizes that his vetoes are fighting the growth of the federal bureaucracy--as well as inflation. He endorses the traditional Republican position that the Government should meddle less in the affairs of the citizenry. Carter wants to make federal programs more efficient and "compassionate"--a favorite word in his political lexicon. He vows one of his first missions in the White House would be to root out Washington's "horrible bureaucratic mess" by reducing some 1,900 federal agencies to about 200. Just how he would accomplish this wonder he has not said.
RACE. Both Ford and Carter oppose "forced busing," but neither favors a constitutional amendment banning it. Both say they would support court decisions on individual cases, though the President has argued that some federal judges "have gone too far" in drawing up integration plans, notably in Boston. The President has submitted a plan to Congress that would limit busing to three to five years in school districts that try to integrate in good faith. Carter supports "voluntary" busing, and thinks the rights of minority groups can best be protected by putting their representatives on the governing boards of the school systems.
WELFARE. Both Ford and Carter favor reforming the haphazard, unfair and inefficient welfare system. The President proposes mainly procedural changes to tighten up the rickety structure. Jimmy Carter would revamp the whole system--taking the burden away from the cities (New York City alone last year paid out $700 million) and giving it entirely to the federal and state governments.
Carter may well be the candidate who has the most to gain by debating these and other issues with Ford--establishing his stature by head-to-head confrontation--but he is also the man with the most to lose as the campaign begins. If he appears to be too evasive or too extreme, he runs the real risk of making American voters ask the basic question in the election of 1976: Is this man really strong and trustworthy enough to be put in the White House?
Sensing this danger, Carter held a press conference at week's end that reflected, as one senior staff member put it, "a conscious decision to move back toward the center ground." Carter shaded his basic position on the economy, emphasizing the importance of controlling inflation more than reducing unemployment--which, of course, is what Ford has been advocating all along. Carter also promised that "there will be no new programs implemented under my Administration, unless we can be sure the cost is compatible with my goal of having a balanced budget before the end of the term." More specifically, he said: "If it requires a delay, for instance, in implementing welfare reform or health care [in order to balance the budget by 1981], then those delays will be there."
Those positions moved Carter toward the center, all right, but they also raised the old question of whether or not he was changing his stands to catch every passing political breeze. At this point in the campaign, it appears that Jerry Ford cannot beat Jimmy Carter--but Carter can.
*There are other incentives to budget wisely. Under the law, campaigners who spend too much must repay the Treasury, and if the overspending is found to be intentional, they could go to jail for a year and be fined $5,000.
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