Finally Caught by Catch-22

By Ed Magnuson

With no chance of winning, Anderson vows to fight on

The independent candidacy of John Anderson has always faced a kind of Catch-22 dilemma: millions of Americans were not prepared to vote for him unless they were convinced that he had a chance to win. But he had no chance to win unless enough Americans backed him in the polls so that the voters thought he could win. Complicating his problem, the experienced professionals in both parties predicted repeatedly that as the election approached, Anderson's support would fade. Last week those predictions, partly self-fulfilling, looked accurate.

The most devastating blow to Anderson's prospects was a New York Times/CBS news survey showing that his long-awaited clear shot at achieving new public stature, the debate with Ronald Reagan, had fizzled. The poll had figured Anderson's national support at a weak 9% before the debate--and rated him at exactly the same level afterward. The only consolation for Anderson was that other polls still placed him much higher (Harris at 19%, Gallup at 14%). Anderson had skillfully presented his issues and shown that his debating skills were at least comparable to those of the Republican candidate, but his campaign got none of the lift that it so sorely needed. Some of his most ardent supporters conceded last week that Anderson had no chance of victory in November. It seemed increasingly unlikely that the Independent Anderson would win even a single state.

Thus Anderson appears to have become just what he has always vowed he would not be--a "spoiler" who would siphon off enough votes to alter what would have been the outcome if Carter and Reagan had squared off alone. The Congressman briskly rejects this analysis. Last week he told TIME that if he does fail, he expects Reagan to win--but not because of any result of his own candidacy. Said he: "I just will not accept the idea that I am going to be responsible for Reagan's winning. Carter is losing votes because of Carter, because of his performance, because so many people are just turned off by his utter ineptitude. It isn't really that they are all for Reagan, either. But at least Reagan is the unknown evil; Carter is the known evil."

While not giving up, Anderson could offer only one vague reason for thinking he might yet win. "The tides of public opinion," he noted, "are capable of shifting very dramatically for reasons that sometimes are not easily discerned."

Looking back on his campaign, the snowy-thatched Independent admitted he now realized that "to start a whole movement, a third force in politics, in under six months is too short a period." He also claimed that Carter had benefited from two lucky breaks, just at a time when many Democrats had seemed ready to abandon the President: 1) the economy had picked up slightly "for reasons that had nothing to do with what the Administration did" and 2) Reagan had stumbled badly at first and "made Carter look more viable than he is."

Quite rightly, Anderson takes pride in the fact that he began the Republican primary campaign as a relatively obscure Congressman from Illinois who barely rated an asterisk in national opinion ratings. He wound up collecting some 2 million signatures on petitions that should put him on every state ballot as an independent candidate on Nov. 4--an achievement many experts had considered impossible.

Throughout much of his campaign, Anderson has boldly staked out positions on issues that offer a clear third choice. The fact that they may not be popular did not deter him. His 50-c--per-gal. gas tax, which would be used to cut Social Security taxes, did not endear him to the nation's automobile owners, but would force the U.S. to restrict its driving and hence its dependence on Middle Eastern oil--a goal that seemed especially worthy last week as the war in the gulf continued. Anderson's opposition to the mobile MX missile and to income tax cuts ran against election-year sentiment, as did his backing of Carter's embargo on sales of grain to the Soviet Union--a stand the Congressman took in Iowa.

If Anderson peppered his campaign with a buckshot array of intelligent, unorthodox attacks on specific problems, he nevertheless failed to project the vision that would give wings to a political movement capable of upsetting the two-party system. He might well complain that his 317-page platform was barely read, much less reported. Still the longtime political conservative, who had moderated his views enough to be endorsed by New York's Liberal Party and the New Republic, gambled mainly on riding a wave of anti-Carter and anti-Reagan sentiment. That, clearly, was not enough.

The Independent's campaign has been flawed from the beginning by its own failure to give a large cross section of Americans hard and positive reasons to vote for him. What is more, in a campaign once again dominated by personality and TV imagery, Anderson was handicapped. To his credit, he has shunned much of his image-shapers' advice to win votes by artificially changing his platform behavior. Instead, Anderson has remained true to himself: erratically ebullient, enthused, inspiring, as well as dour, bored, cranky and preachy. In a post-debate memo to Anderson, Stewart Mott, a millionaire backer, wrote sympathetically as well as critically: "That fateful evening, you needed to come across as sensational, exciting, lively, endearing. Instead you were stiff, statistical, stubborn, unsmiling--terrible body language. We know you can be 100% better than that in likability."

In recent weeks Anderson has, however, shown that he can take criticism with good humor and heed some advice. After the Washington Post reported that a TV correspondent had to search through hours of videotape to find any film showing him waving and smiling, the candidate walked out on a stage at the University of Maine with a big grin and a wave. Then he told the responsive crowd that he had just read the Post article. When a reporter asked in a Boston press conference why he could take days off when his campaign was lagging, Anderson bristled, asking: "Would you begrudge me one day off out of seven?" After other reporters mockingly beat the questioner with their notebooks, shouting their demands for a day off as well, Anderson took the cue. When leaving the room, he whacked the reporter on the head with his own note pad --to the laughter of the press corps.

There have been tactical mistakes in the Anderson campaign. He admits that he switched top campaign staff positions too often at first. His aides are still not convinced that his chief adviser, David Garth, made the right decision in mid-August when he asked some 75,000 campaign workers to work solely on fundraising. Many declined because they found cadging money odious, and thus were lost to field work such as organizing rallies and getting pro-Anderson voters registered.

Still, the lack of money has been a major Anderson problem. While his campaign has netted nearly $8 million since April 24, it now needs at least another $1 million for a final TV ad drive. Anderson was buoyed last week by a favorable ruling from the Federal Election Commission that his campaign could borrow from banks against the federal funds he will receive if he gets 5% or more of the November vote. The Democratic National Committee had been warning that such loans were illegal, and banks had been holding up Anderson's application. Now his aides expect to announce a successful loan deal this week.

If Anderson does get the loan, he will have to finish the race so that he can pay it back. Despite a concerted drive last week by the Carter campaign, led by Vice President Walter Mondale, to pressure Anderson into pulling out, he vowed to cross the November finish line, irrespective of which candidate he hurts or helps.

A sampling of current Anderson supporters taken by TIME correspondents showed that he has a loyal following that seems determined to ride out the race with him. These Anderson backers reject the notion that their votes should be influenced by whether or not Anderson can win. "It is everyone's obligation to vote their conscience," argued George Ward, a consulting engineer in Washington, Conn. Insisted Margaret Gilvar, a housewife in Oakham, Mass.: "It is more important that citizens who are concerned make a protest than be swayed by the impact an Anderson vote could have on the other candidacies." Contended Chicago Attorney Andrew Williams: "The fact that Anderson's chances are reduced doesn't make Carter or Reagan look any better." Asked Ann Lewis, a nursery school teacher in Ferndale, Mich.: "Why can't a vote for Anderson be a vote for Anderson?"

Summed up Laurie Ruskin, a student at Oakland Community College in Bloomfield Hills, Mich.: "If everyone who said they weren't going to vote for Anderson because they were afraid they'd be wasting their vote did vote for him, he'd have an excellent chance of winning." Back to Catch-22.

--By Ed Magnuson. Reported by Eileen Shields with Anderson

With reporting by Eileen Shields

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.