Just Call Him Mister

Three weeks is only a ripple on the four-year tide of a presidential term. But Jimmy Carter seemed to be off to a promising start. From the cold-eyed cynics of the Washington press corps and the aloof observers of academe on to the "show me" proprietor of the Summit Hill bar in Hartford, Conn., the initial reaction to the Carter presidency was impressively upbeat.

"Jimmy Carter met the press and they were his," declared the Washington Post's Haynes Johnson after the President's first press conference. Carter had walked into the lair of the press lions, reported Boston Globe Washington Bureau Chief Martin Nolan, and the score wound up "Christians 6, Lions 0."

The veteran reporters applauded Carter for his relaxed, informal style, his command of the issues, his open answers to sensitive questions. To be sure, the reporters' questions lacked some of their usual bite, and the President dodged a few of the most direct thrusts. Yet he also frankly admitted that "we've made some mistakes" in slighting congressional leaders and vowed to make amends. Indeed, he showed through the week that he was learning fast. He pleased Senate Democratic Leader Robert Byrd by frequent calls for consultation. He moved to isolate Texas Congressman Jack Brooks, the most vocal opponent of the President's Government reorganization plans, by inviting the members of Brooks' Government Operations Committee to discuss his proposals at the White House. (Carter is seeking the power granted most recent Presidents to reorganize the Government, subject to congressional veto of the whole package; Brooks wants congressional power to approve or reject each specific change.)

More broadly, the nation's regional press has applauded Carter's tone-setting use of symbols in his first Oval Office days. The low-key Inaugural speech, the walk down Pennsylvania Avenue, the televised chat in a sweater, the surprise visit to frozen Pittsburgh, putting Amy in a public school, cutting down on limousines, banning Hail to the Chief --all were seen as moving Carter closer to the people. "That spirit of mutuality, that feeling that all Americans are part of the Government and not apart from it, is a feeling that we have missed for years now," editorialized the Dallas Times Herald, which endorsed Ford.

Among economists, there was inevitable disagreement over Carter's program to stimulate the economy (see ECONOMY & BUSINESS). Stanford Sociologist Seymour Martin Lipset also found that Carter's "whole folksy approach doesn't send me, but it's not designed to, and does apparently send the average guy. The question is: How long is it before the average guy starts thinking he's being manipulated?" Yet so far, as Dartmouth Government Professor Laurence I. Radway put it, "turning down the heat and doing away with imperial frills" has made "Joe Sixpack satisfied and pleased with Carter."

Indeed, Summit Hill's Jerome Shea declared from his Hartford bar: "I've got hope for this guy--he doesn't have to get all dressed up like a dude. He did a great thing walking down the street."

Even among Republicans there was grudging admiration. Said Roger Campbell, a Pennsylvania delegate to the Republican National Convention: "He has talked like a Republican on austerity and cutting back." Republican John R. Faust, a Portland, Ore., attorney, called Carter "a genius at finding the middle ground."

A national willingness to see a new President make good is traditional. Pollster Burns Roper found, for example, that during the period between election and inauguration, 64% of those reached in one survey described themselves as Carter supporters--"a measure of the good will he commands." Yet the really tough decisions, the ones that will divide people, lie ahead.

Moreover, as TIME Washington Bureau Chief Hugh Sidey notes, "There is about Washington an element of faddism, a tendency to fall head over heels in love with a new guy, then turn savagely against him when he does not deliver. We are not sure of the effects of Carter's economic package. His relations with Congress are not certain. The energy policy that he has promised is yet to be delivered. We just cannot seem to find a cautious middle ground. So right now, a lot of things are being said and written about Jimmy Carter that make him larger than life."

Come Home. For the time being, Carter is concentrating on making himself so popular that Congress may hesitate to tangle with him on major issues. Last week he set a new style in brief official dinners: his first, for the Supreme Court, lasted only from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. The Justices could spend the rest of the evening at home.

Carter showed his concern for the family life of top Government workers in other ways. "I want you to spend an adequate amount of time with your husbands/wives & children," he wrote in a staff memo, "and also to involve them as much as possible in our White House life." Smiling broadly, Carter mockingly scolded a group of employees: "Those of you who are living in sin, I hope you will get married. Those of you who have left your spouses, come back home. Those of you who don't know your children's names, get to know them."

During a series of visits with federal bureaucrats, Carter wowed Labor Department workers by taking off his suit coat, rolling up his sleeves and declaring: "Just because I am President and because you work for the Federal Government and hold even an exalted job, that doesn't make you any better than the unemployed American in Dallas, Texas, that you serve."

At week's end some members of Carter's staff, taking a hint from the boss, were even suggesting that he need not be called Mr. President. He seemed to prefer "Mr. Carter" or simply "Sir." But not, apparently, just "Jimmy."

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