D-DAY, AND ONLY ONE POLL MATTERS

Soon, with a climactic barrage of TV and radio pitches, it would all be over. Each candidate would make his final, election-eve television appeal--Jimmy Carter from a relaxed setting in his study in small-town Plains, Ga.; Gerald Ford from a site to be selected at the last moment, depending on his hectic closing schedule. Then, relieved that the campaign had ended, millions of Americans would cast ballots. Other millions, unmoved by it all, would stay home--and perhaps decide the outcome.

By the pollsters' reckoning, the result remained in doubt. The fresh face of the Deep South's first major-party presidential candidate since 1848 had grown all too familiar. His lead in the public opinion polls had fallen further and faster than that of any previous presidential candidate. Yet he clung to a narrow edge. Old Footballer Ford had plunged on, head down and 3 yds. per carry, and was within striking distance of his greatest goal.

Would the slim margin the polls gave Carter translate into a victory? Universally, the nervous pollsters agreed that this depended on the voter turnout. Declared Pollster Louis Harris: "Voter turnout has never before been such a pivotal factor. We have never been so worried about it."

The experts were in general agreement that Carter had pinned down the solid majority support of most elements of the old New Deal coalition: union members, big-city residents, the young, low-income earners, blacks, Jews, Southerners (though his own late polls showed some slippage there). Only the Catholic vote was in serious doubt. Ford, by contrast, had similarly gained a solid lead among independent voters, the college-educated, suburbanites, white-collar workers, professional and managerial types. Once that breakdown would have meant a Democratic victory; no longer. According to Harris, where the old coalition accounted for just over 60% of the potential voters when F.D.R. rode it to victory in 1936, it accounts for only 43% now; the pro-Ford groups have quadrupled from about 10% to 40% in the same period. The Ford followers, moreover, are traditionally more likely to go to the polls.

Those figures help explain why the voter turnout may prove critical. The percentage of eligible voters casting ballots had declined from 63.1% in 1960 to 55.4% in 1972. With no Viet Nam War or counterculture turmoil to sharpen the difference between the candidates, some experts predict that only half the nation's 150 million eligible voters will care enough to go to the polls.

As most analysts see it, that could mean a narrow Ford triumph. As a result, while Ford was expected to make a pro forma appeal for all Americans to vote, his forces were more selectively keying their telephone banks and other get-out-the-vote drives to his areas of known strength. Even if the turnout is in the low 50% range, Carter could win a thin popular-vote edge but lose in the Electoral College. More probably, how ever, this would enable Carter to hold a slim popular-vote margin that could translate into a substantial electoral victory. At 55% or better, he is generally conceded the election.

In the final days of the race, Carter campaigned hard in the large electoral vote states (New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Texas, Illinois and California). Victory in only a few of them, on top of his Southern base, could give him the presidency. He depended heavily on the get-out-the-vote effectiveness of labor unions, big-city Democratic organizations and the Democratic National Committee--the type of Establishment groups he had kept at a distance in winning his party's nomination. But he needs them now.

Ford until the past ten days had hoarded the campaign funds allocated under the new financing law by staying in the White House for so long. His strategists felt he had been more effective campaigning from a more "presidential" stance. They were also convinced that the money could be better spent on a final, all-out TV and radio blitz aimed at many of the same large states that Carter was emphasizing.

As Ford plunged into those states, his camp aired half-hour regional shows in which film clips of his final noisy rallies were juxtaposed with quiet, informal chats between the President and ebullient Sportscaster Joe Garagiola. "How many leaders have you dealt with, Mr. President?" asks genial Joe. "One hundred and twenty-four leaders of countries around the world, Joe," replies the President. Despite reports that Carter had far less money left than Ford and would not be able to match the President's TV onslaught, the Georgian's aides had paid for their final TV and radio time weeks ago. Carter thus was to present a similar mix of regional telecasts and a national appeal. Both candidates were spending about $4 million in this effort.

In a really tight election, any last-minute gaffe by one candidate, any below-the-belt blow by another could prove decisive. When Ford ads portraying three citizens from Georgia criticizing Carter were attacked as unfair and negative, his managers stopped running them. Ford tried to capitalize on Carter's ill-advised statement that American troops should never be used to check any possible invasion of Yugoslavia by the Soviet Union in a post-Tito period. Carter had made the statement before, but none of the newsmen covering him had made a big issue of it until keen-witted Columnist Joseph Kraft asked Carter about it during the final TV debate. Ford pounced on it, arguing correctly that it was a grave mistake to rule out options in advance. Henry Kissinger followed up on TV, saying that Carter did not understand the "art of foreign policy." Carter tried to counter Ford by declaring: "The world is tired of bluffs and blustering where you insinuate you are going to send troops to some country when you know your own people won't let you do it."

Another dustup occurred after Carter, backed by a U.S. Information Agency poll, claimed the U.S. had lost prestige abroad. Ford retorted by noting the recent U.S. sweep of Nobel Prizes. A group of U.S. Nobel prizewinners thereupon attacked Ford. Harvard Chemist George Kistiakowsky spoke for ten Nobel laureates in arguing that Ford had been too stingy with his budget "to encourage the growth of American science."

Using the power of his incumbency. Ford made news by announcing a new U.S. drive for an international agreement to control the spread of plutonium, which can be used to make nuclear weapons. Since May, Carter has also been calling for controls against the proliferation of nuclear arms.

As TIME correspondents looked back over the campaign during its final days, they detected mounting evidence that voters were not as apathetic as they had generally been portrayed. There is a widespread feeling that neither candidate is good enough, but that judgment may be somewhat unfair; Ford has been a better President than he has often been given credit for. and Carter's accomplishment in making himself a national figure is formidable. Yet, neither candidate has a passionate following, defined a single overriding issue. If the number of undecided voters remains high, it might be less a matter of boredom than of confusion. When in doubt, it is easier to profess that it does not matter than to admit to indecision.

The voters' problem is not that they know too little about the candidates. Saturated with information, they have come to know the strengths and frailties of the two men only too well--and that may be what is giving so many voters pause. There has been too much attention paid by the press to relatively minor flaps: Carter's Playboy interview, Ford's tangled tongue, what to do about Earl Butz. Yet a fairly accurate assessment of each man has emerged.

Carter's is by far the quicker mind. He is both bolder and capable of more brilliance than Ford. His compassion for the underdog in U.S. society seems sincere. But he also seems shifty. He showed that in Georgia by campaigning as a conservative and governing as a liberal. His religiosity is genuine, yet there is a mean streak in him. The blue eyes can turn cold, and his ready tongue can lacerate a foe. When he cools off, he often apologizes. Whether it is out of Christian charity or practical considerations is unclear. Carter is supremely ambitious, self-confident and stubborn --qualities that are both helpful and potentially divisive in a President. Going with Carter is clearly a greater gamble. His supporters would claim that to risk nothing is also to gain nothing.

Ford is likable, unpretentious, undevious. He looks uncomfortable when stridently attacking his opponent. He appears similarly forced and unconvincing when he makes a blatant specific pitch for votes, as he did in the South with his contrived emphasis against gun controls. While he is certainly a bright man, his image as a verbal bumbler nevertheless is not totally unfair; he is also a man who can forget three times in a day which town he is in, as he did recently in Illinois. Far from an inspirational leader, Ford has a limited let's-not-rock-the-boat perspective of the presidency. He offers a prospect of predictability that may reassure many--assuming no imaginative initiatives may be needed over the next four years.

Apart from such differences in image and personality, the two candidates also have some pronounced disagreements over policies and programs (TIME, Nov. 1). There are clear differences in the kind of Administration each candidate is likely to have. The outcome of the election may hinge on how many voters (and what kind) finally decide that, yes, those personality, character and policy differences do matter, to them and to the nation--and therefore cast votes for their preference.

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