TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/election/76elect/76elect.012

Text File | 1992-10-19 | 14.9 KB | 288 lines

x>                                                                            ╚November 15, 1976

THE DECISON

CARTER!


     So the Carter era begins.

     New faces and new accents in Washington; a cast of
characters far more "different" than a change of Administration
usually brings; perhaps fresh directions for the nation. All
this was greeted by the country in an oddly subdued mood. There
were considerable expectations, some apprehension and, still,
a rather dazed sense of having gone through one of the most
remarkable campaigns in modern American history.

     The transition was dramatized on the day after the
election in a memorably moving appearance by the barely defeated
Gerald Ford, wife Betty and their children in the White House
press room. His voice a hoarse rasp from his final, valiant
campaign drive, the President asked Betty to read the "Dear
Jimmy" telegram that he had sent that morning to Winner Carter.
As he listened, the muscles of his face tensely straining, he
plainly struggled to control himself. Betty, also showing the
weight of loss, smiled wanly and struggled to hold back tears,
almost stifling the first mention of "President-elect Carter."
Slowly, very slowly, she recited Ford's telegram: "We must now
put the divisions of the campaign behind us and unite the
country once again. I congratulate you on your victory. You have
my complete and wholehearted support. May God bless you and your
family." Then Ford walked into the group of reporters to thank
them for their help to him and his family in his two years as
President. Said he of the campaign: "Well, we came from way
back. Nobody can say we didn't give it a helluva try."

     Ford had tried so hard that Jimmy Carter's narrowly
triumphant Election Night was a haunting, suspenseful replica
of his entire amazing, tortuous drive for the presidency. Just
as he had broken out of the Democratic pack in the primary
election to win his party's nomination and hold a seemingly
insurmountable 33-point advantage over Ford in the opinion polls
last July, Carter was propelled into an early
election-tabulation lead by the regional pride of his nearly
solid native South. Then he seized two large states that had
seemed doubtful: Texas and Pennsylvania. Once again, as in the
early campaign against Ford, victory seemed all but certain.
Once again, just as he had seen that huge campaign margin
vanish, Carter could not pin down the 270 electoral votes needed
to move him into the White House.

     For hour after hour the uncertainty continued. Even after
midnight, Eastern Standard Time, the division hovered uncannily
close in New York, Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, Iowa, Virginia,
Maine, Mississippi, Hawaii, New Mexico.

     But while an anxious nation watched its television
screens, the supremely confident Carter knew the way his
personal winds were blowing. He awaited the returns in a starkly
modern three- room suite in Atlanta's Omni Hotel, -- a posh
setting that contrasted with the humble accommodations, often
at the homes of supporters, that he had use as he began his once
lonely campaign 22 months ago. At 11 p.m. he placed a call to
Massachusetts' Congressman Tip O'Neill, who is in line to become
Speaker of the House. In his soft drawl Carter said: "Tip, I
feel confident that I will be able to work with you and the
members of Congress, and we'll get along great together."
Already, Carter was thinking ahead to the task that he will face
as he picks up the reins of Government. The long years of a
divided Washington, with a Republican President split off from
a Democratic Congress, were about to end.

     During the long night of vote watching, Carter sat,
coatless, his tie loosened, eyes on the TV screens. He also
spoke by telephone with AFL-CIO Chief George Meany, New York
Mayor Abe Beame, Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, Minnesota Senator
Hubert Humphrey and a nearly forgotten Democratic vice-
presidential candidate, Tom Eagleton. He talked to Philadelphia
Mayor Frank Rizzo, whom he had once scorned as one of the
"political bosses" to whom he owed nothing. "I really appreciate
what you did for me," he told Rizzo, referring to the
breakthrough victory in Pennsylvania.

     Slowly through the early morning, Carte picked up the
states he needed. One early network projection tossed New York's
juicy 41 electoral votes into the Carter column. By many counts,
it was Mississippi that finally sealed the end of eight years
of Republican rule.

     As of Wednesday afternoon, Carter could be certain of only a
56-vote electoral margin. He had won 23 states and the District
of Columbia -- 297 electoral votes. Ford had won 27 states with
241 votes. In no fewer than seven states the electoral winner
was determined by roughly 1% of the votes. Carter's popular vote
edge was more substantial. In actual votes, Carter won by almost
2 million, or 51% to Ford's 48%, greater than the bare victories
of either jack Kennedy in 1960 (49.&%) or Richard Nixon (43.4%).

     After acknowledging his victory in Atlanta, Carter and his
family headed for Albany, Ga., aboard "Peanut One." He carried
sleepy Daughter Amy into a car for their return to Plains. Even
at dawn, some 400 townspeople awaited him. "I told you I didn't
intend to lose," Carter said. Then, for the first time during
the up-and-down campaign, his composure broke. He bit his lip,
fought back tears, while most of his family wept. As the crowd
cheered, then grew quiet, Carter conceded: "The only reason it
was close was that I as a candidate was not good enough as a
campaigner. But I'll make up for that as President."

     Thus the born-again Georgian with the ready smile had
become the first Deep Southerner to reach the White House since
Zachary Taylor in 1849. His rocket rise out of relative
obscurity to the Oval Office heights was one of the most
sensational political success stories in U.S. history. Yet he
had done it in such a sometimes brilliant, often halting, and
finally narrow manner as to convey no commanding mandate for his
campaign promises or any demonstrated confidence in his still
disquieting personality.

     In one sense Carter had won in a year in which nearly any
respectable Democrat should have triumphed. While Gerald Ford
could hardly he held accountable, the Republicans had presided
over a lingering end to the Vietnam War, had both produced and
been victimized by the nation's worse political scandal, had
seen their party's President and Vice President resign in
disgrace, and had held office during the deepest postwar
recession. Ford had pardoned the man who appointed him.

     It was thus a tribute to Ford's astonishing persistence,
his own achievements in helping to pull his party out of the
quagmire he had inherited, and his own basic decency that he ran
as close a race as he did. It was also a measure of the nation's
doubts about Carter that the race was so close.

     Carter won because a majority of the voters wanted a
Democrat in the White House after eight years of Republican
Administration. But the election was close largely because so
many voters were worried about taking a chance on Carter. After
all of the national debates, after all the articles about his
life and policies, the people still felt that there was some
unexposed dimension about him. Says Public Opinion Analyst
Daniel Yankelovich: "In the pre-Watergate, pre-Vietnam era, the
people were more willing to take a chance. Now they have indeed
taken that chance, but by the slimmest of margins -- and with
enormous reservations."

     The small majority of voters apparently were ready to
wager on the good qualities they see in Carter, as against the
mysteries they still find in his personality. Clearly, when
they finally made up their minds in one of the most indecisive
voting moods in modern times, they based their choice on the
potential of Carter rather than on the relatively predictable,
limited Ford they know.

     Carter hardly had a mandate for sweeping change. His
victory was very regional and based largely on social and
economic class. He was supported by the blacks, by low-income
earners, by the poorly educated and other who felt that they
were hurting.

     As it turned out, Carter, who said he did not want to be
beholden to any interest groups, has a few debts to pay off.
Labor unions worked feverishly to turn out votes for him, and
could claim that their efforts were critical in Pennsylvania,
Texas and Ohio. If there was any other one group to which
Carter owed a great deal, it was the blacks. Four out of five
blacks voted for the Georgian, and they apparently made the
difference for him in New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland,
Louisiana and Mississippi.

     Despite fears among Democrats that the quixotic
independent candidacy of former Senator Eugene McCarthy might
drain enough votes away from Carter to cost him some key states
-- and perhaps the election -- the Minnesota maverick proved
mostly an irrelevant irritant. His votes in Washington, Ohio,
Oregon and Illinois prolonged the suspense. Overall, McCarthy
marshaled only a minuscule 1%. The would-be spoiler was mostly
a washout.

     In general, Democrats who ran for Congress fared better
than Carter; many of the winners piled up larger majorities in
their states than the man at the top of the ticket. The
Republicans won some seats in both houses, but they still
failed in their all-out drive to whittle the Democrats'
commanding majorities. On Wednesday afternoon, it appeared that
the Senate would have 62 Democrats and 38 Republicans -- the
same as before, and the House would also have close to the same
makeup -- 290 Democrats to 145 Republicans, exactly a 2-to-1
split, as in the last Congress. The continuing huge majority of
Democrats in the House was remarkable, considering that many
party freshmen had been elected in reaction to Watergate two
years ago and seemed vulnerable this time.

     Now, with both the White House and the Congress in control
of the same party, there will be a new opportunity for the two
branches of Government to work together. But since so few
Senators or Congressmen rode on Carter's coattails -- indeed,
in some cases it was the other way around -- the new
President's traditional honeymoon with Congress may be fairly
brief and subdued.

     Whether Carter's promise of a highly productive first term
will be  realized may well hinge on his still unknown facility
for compromise when his own proposals meet inevitable
resistance, even from a legislature dominated by his own party.
A President determined to exert strong leadership could have
difficulties with an essentially disparate and unmanageable
Congress of 535 legislators.

     In his moment of victory, Carter seemed well aware of the
need to reach out to unify all political elements in the
nation. He was gracious to his defeated foe. Despite the
sometimes bitter flavor of the campaign, right down to its
closing moments, Carter told a joyous crowd of some 35,000
celebrating supporters in Atlanta's World Congress Center that
Ford had been "the toughest and most formidable opponent anyone
could possibly have." He praised the President for a "thoroughly
organized and hard- fought" campaign and reiterated that Gerald
Ford is a "good and decent man." Pledging to "unify our nation,"
Carter symbolically clenched his fist and held it high. "I pray
that I can always live up to your confidence and never
disappoint you," he said near the conclusion of his arduous
campaign. Since the nation had exhibited a divided and tentative
confidence in Carter and its expectations are not notably high,
his prayer may not be all too difficult to fulfill.

     The final hours were exhilarating for Carter. After
sinking so fast in the polls, he would have faced political
oblivion -- and an embittered Democratic Party -- if he had
lost. Instead, Carter seemed to pull his erratic campaign
together in its closing days.

     Even as the Gallup poll taken last weekend showed his lead
had evaporated and Ford had edged ahead by a statistically
insignificant 1%, Carter's final appearances as he raced to Los
Angeles, Fort Worth, Dallas, San Francisco and Flint, Mich.,
drew rousing, cheering crowds. He responded with some of his
most effective, eloquent oratory since the campaign had begun.
Even some last- minute Ford campaign ads attacking Carter's
record as Governor of Georgia and misrepresenting his position
on taxes failed to maintain the momentum that the President had
been building.

     Ford, too, reached new heights of spirit and crowd appeal
in the last days of the long campaign, though he had to nurse
his ailing throat with everything from cough lozenges to hot
chicken soup. As he pleaded with a large audience in
Philadelphia to "confirm me with your votes now just as you
confirmed me with your prayers in August of 1974," Ford visibly
impressed his listeners. On election eve, the President flew
back to Grand Rapids to vote. Perhaps it was the emotion welling
up from the huge welcoming throng, perhaps it was the memories
of his youth, but when he spoke to the crowd about his parents,
he was near tears and his voice cracked. "Everything I have,"
said he, "I owe to Gerald R. Ford Sr. [long pause] and Dorothy
Ford."

     The next night, back in the White House, the President
kept his emotions in check and his thoughts closely guarded. He
watched the returns from the second-floor living room and den,
sipping drinks and dining on a buffet of beef stroganoff,
seafood creole, fresh fruit and pastries. Surrounded by his
family and a few friends, he exhibited outer confidence. Yet
the mood of the gathering was apprehensive. After 3. a.m.,
before the latest return had gone sour and Carter had
congratulated him for a superb campaign, the man who had come
so breathtakingly close went to sleep without conceding to his
loss. His aides insisted he still thought he had a chance to
win. The concession was to come the next day.

     Given his own limitations plus the heavy baggage that the
Republicans have had to carry since Watergate, Jerry Ford could
hardly have done better. He will turn over to Carter the
leadership of a nation that is far, far stronger politically
and economically than when Ford inherited a discredited
presidency from Nixon. Carter begins not only with that
advantage but also, as an outsider, he is free of many heavy
obligations to special groups. He is fettered only by the
growing awareness of the limitations of Government, and he
promises to make it more "efficient" and "compassionate."

     More than Ford, Carter is open to new ideas, to taking a
fresh look at old problems. The President-elect has often said
that he holds a conservative respect for personal initiative
and fiscal prudence, as well as a liberal dedication to helping
those left behind in a competitive society. In an election
characterized less by apathy than by indecision, that may well
be what the voters are saying they want in a President.