Convention Notebook
FENTRESS, CALVIN
CARTERIZING THE DEMOCRATS Convention Notebook BY CALVIN FENTRESS Shhhhh. Soft-spoken Jimmy Carter is soft-speaking Meet the Press on convention eve, 1976. Even old Larry Spivak, who has heard...
...In his wrap-up, John Chancellor calls it "an extraordinary convention...
...Inflation is skimmed over...
...He steps out to talk to the press for a moment...
...The delegation applauds...
...Where would NBC find sponsors for anything less...
...I, on the other hand, am entering the darkened "ballroom" of a seedy West 43rd Street hotel where something called "Counter-Convention '76" is in progress...
...First-class manager...
...Every question has been answered save the only one that matters: Is this man putting us on...
...But for a change, Strauss' instincts fail him, and he goes ahead with a scheduled 15-minute film on Carter...
...Speakers come and go...
...McGovern is given a 20-minute slot for the sake of history?but like Humphrey, like Kennedy, he is utterly inconsequential at this convention...
...Daley is going to work hard for Carter (and vice versa), and so are George McGovern and George Wallace and George Meany in the end...
...We are meeting tonight to carry on the American Revolution...
...the crowd goes wild...
...Assuming Walter lets him in...
...I don't know if he'll come down the chimney or what," says the Senator...
...He recognizes the difficulty of making government efficient, he says, "but if I'm elected, it's going to be done, and you can depend on it...
...For the first time this week the huge crowd quiets to listen to the count of history...
...All one is left with at the end, really, is the sharp memory of a man seemingly intelligent, reasonable and compassionate—a man, in his own words, of calm determination and quiet strength...
...The Ohio primary clinched the nomination for Carter, and now Ohio puts him over the top...
...A commercial interruption...
...Take that, Jerry Ford...
...Carter is saying that he is a first-class manager, and who is to argue...
...That's the idea anyway...
...Mondale would win the votes of the majority...
...Four years too late and two days too early, McGovern is introduced to make a speech in prime time...
...The Garden hasn't been this high since the Knicks' last championship season...
...The economics are not explained in detail...
...Carter looks like she will survive the blow...
...On the podium, Bob Strauss follows the nominee's progress through a sea of newly-devoted Democrats, his outstretched arm dramatically pointing the way...
...And that smile, just right...
...What does anybody know about Carter...
...How do you expect to get the word from Carter, he is asked...
...And then the thousands of us are on our feet (it's the only way to see...
...The press is forever criticizing politicians for ignoring Issues, yet tonight, when Issues are the business of the convention, much of the Fourth Estate is gathered in a press-only lounge, being treated to free food and drink, courtesy of the railroad industry (a touch of largesse that Jack Anderson has yet to note in his column...
...New York cabbie James J. Peterson considers Jimmy Carter: "He has a very nice way of carrying himself...
...The Way...
...Carter hears a group is being dispatched to ask him if he will accept the nomination...
...At the Garden, Jackie's back...
...He is entering the arena, not backstage, but through the crowd on the floor, close to we the people he says he loves...
...Not so dumb...
...Udall, Brown and Carter are nominated by Archibald Cox, Cesar Chavez and former Nixon de-nominator Peter Rodino, a group that lends class to the Democratic party...
...With Ethel...
...Goldberg was crushed in November...
...Gratifying news...
...Barbara Jordan's co-keynote address is no meatier...
...The roar of political gossip fills the arena...
...The first blistering attacks on the Republicans from the podium are lost in the determined amiability of the occasion...
...Barry Goldwater once confessed that he selected running-mate William Miller in 1964 "because he bugs Johnson so much...
...Way up there on the rim of the Garden, framed by the corporate eye and name that lend him his power, is the most important man in the hall...
...are everywhere...
...You can depend on it," he keeps saying...
...I'd rather sec Reagan than any of them...
...His eyes look very deep—they remind me of John Kennedy...
...Much talk of compassion, although precious little extended to Republican office holders...
...We're going to stay up all night here," the MC tells the 150 remaining counter-conventioneers...
...The words are unmemorable, the ideas unremarkable, the delivery soft as cotton...
...You have to actually attend a national nominating convention to know how much of it you miss by being there...
...On the floor, the Carter platform is swept through by voice vote...
...Now Chairman Strauss, The Impressario: "Ladies and Gentlemen, The Next Vice President of the United States " A roar of approval, and Mondale, rising to the moment, responds with warm, measured waves...
...When the roll call reaches the Ms, the aisle traffic slows...
...The aisles are so crowded that many delegates can neither see nor hear, but few seem to care...
...Everyone must concentrate on checking their sources and their delegations for tips...
...Even old Larry Spivak, who has heard them all, has heard none before so quiet...
...The scent of blood at the love-in...
...When the first session ends, people like Cronkite and Paul Newman and Billy Carter hurry to a party that Rolling Stone is giving to celebrate the coming of Jimmy...
...No one has laid a glove on Carter...
...The Georgia and Minnesota standards are intertwined, an improbable embrace no more...
...A "radical from Queens" is introduced from the stage, a scene of such chaos as to give heart to all rad-fearing men...
...As the Carter vote mounts, Frank Church laughs too hard at a small joke within the Idaho delegation...
...For instance, said Broder then, if the thousand best informed people in Washington could name the next President, they undoubtedly would choose Fritz Mondale...
...Government will follow...
...You can't look back," he tells a reporter...
...During the roll call, delegates mark their tally sheets as carefully as if this were Kansas City...
...If God comes to the convention, he will feel right at home in Walter Cronkite's booth...
...The podium swells with winners and losers and Jerry Brown...
...Now, on the convention's last day, Carter, with infinite poise, announces his selection of Mondale?the best person to lead this country and the most compatible with me...
...Engineer...
...And for tomorrow's Times, James Reston is writing, "If you could take a secret poll of the House and Senate of the best stand-in Democratic President of the United States today, the chances are that Mr...
...Family man...
...Politician...
...Cabbie Joseph Impoco disagrees: "What does anybody know about Mondale...
...Nomination day...
...I need some more power on my microphone," yells the "master" of ceremonies—a misjudgment equal only to Jerry Brown's decision to bypass the early primaries...
...This man looks like somebody entirely different from anybody we've had...
...The arrival, in black, in person, of Jacqueline Onassis is for most delegates and onlookers the peak experience of the convention's second session...
...Most are pleased that they are about to unite behind a single candidate...
...We have just lived through the worst political scandal in American history and are now led by a President who pardoned the person who did it...
...Come January the whole nation...
...The birth of a superstar...
...Who's ahead, who's not, why not??there's the action...
...On the 12th floor of the Gotham Hotel Muskie is telling friends, "the frustrating thing is not knowing...
...Back in January in New Hampshire, David Broder of the Washington Post, probably one of the most respected political reporters in the capital, was arguing that the profusion of primaries had too sharply diminished the nominating role of party officials—the people who actually know the Presidential candidates best...
...The police barricades outside the Garden are almost superfluous...
...That is why many of the best reporters here watch the convention on portable television sets from their seats right over the "action...
...Navy man...
...The warm-up is over...
...From the floor of Madison Square Garden, one must look far above to see the podium, its height determined solely by the requirements of television—which coincide not at all with the viewing ease of the elected delegates...
...The delegation laughs...
...is giving the benediction, and people stand hushed, many weep, as the old black man preaches powerfully of suffering (and he knows), of faith and forgiveness and reconciliation, of love and of Jimmy Carter...
...I'm ready to lay down the burden of race," Andrew Young has said in nominating Carter...
...A good omen in a must state...
...And you know that in the next 100 days millions upon millions will...
...Beside the Illinois standard, Mayor Daley is pleased...
...There is the welcome sense here that a President Carter would end the Civil War once and for all...
...The Republicans are being blamed for everything but Elizabeth Ray...
...On ABC, President Ford is throwing out the ball at the All Star game...
...If you do it breaks your heart...
...That's two decisions I've got to make tonight," he says...
...It is Jordan herself, a symbol of divisions healed with her voice of gold, who, completely overshadows the astronaut this night...
...He applauds...
...A moment that stings...
...Mark this night...
...At the Americana, the new nominee watches himself being televised watching himself being televised...
...A winner...
...A Carterized convention to the last...
...A warm if unsustained welcome...
...the tide of rhetoric rises, drowning thought in all directions...
...Martin Luther King Sr...
...Carter stands before us, peanut farmer no more...
...My name is Jimmy Carter and I'm running for President...
...You will wait a long time in the Railroad Lounge before you hear mention of the B-l or tax reform...
...At the Garden, the Democrats are dancing in the aisles as the final session starts...
...In the VIP seats, Rosalynn Carter is warmly congratulated by Ethel Kennedy and ignored—as she has been all night—by Jackie O. Mrs...
...Carter is his kind of Democrat...
...I pledge allegiance to the bag of marijuana made in Mexico,'" he intones...
...The primary system may have changed, but convention oratory has not...
...Three days of "great Americans" have taken their toll...
...Tonight a hymn...
...About his evolving positions on Vietnam, Carter tells panelist Bill Monroe, "I think I was compatible with most of the American people...
...Two men's opinions...
...It showed Rockefeller's ideological profile to be almost identical to the self-image of the people interviewed: Conservatives saw him as conservative, liberals as liberal, etc...
...Everyone here is family tonight...
...He usually is...
...The Carter colors—green (fresh...
...On the UPI bulletin board at the Garden, marching orders have gone out to all hands: "Today is vital for the Vice Presidency...
...Let's make sure that when the veep choice is broken, UPI breaks it...
...It is all pretty childish, reminding one that the Revolution of the '60s, whatever it was, is dead...
...The crowd is still at last, and Mondale pours it on...
...after '68 and '72, that's all that finally matters to the majority of these people...
...When asked early in the week what process he is using to pick his running mate, Carter replied, "The thought process...
...Exciting, dull, significant, perfunctory—the 37th Democratic convention will be whatever the networks say it is...
...What matters not at all is whatever it is that John Glenn is telling them...
...On the floor, the crowds grow impossibly thick in the aisles...
...indeed, the content is as instantly forgettable as Glenn's...
...The photographers are apoplectic...
...And I just love his smile...
...McLuhan's revenge...
...The platform calls for guaranteed jobs for all who wish to work, a comprehensive national health insurance system, "a massive effort" to help New York and other older oities solve their fiscal problems...
...Every two minutes, someone shouts "testing testing" into a microphone that is working all too well...
...Suddenly, spotlit and smiling...
...In 1976, the Democratic party is going to do its thing...
...Trust me—that is what Jimmy Carter is asking voters...
...Ditto the suit, the child, the place, the moment...
...Across 8th Avenue from the Garden, the International Committee Against Racism marches and chants 300 strong, its pale yellow banners fluttering in the Manhattan dusk, its message and existence—like that of every protest group this week—universally ignored...
...His gestures up there are not the gestures of a man likely to stumble from the Presidential helicopter...
...and white (pure...
...His acceptance speech is vintage Carter...
...He really wants this job, and he'll do it right...
...A final Carter touch...
...All the talk is of politics, straight up...
...The speech of his lifetime, more liberal perhaps than any Jimmy Carter ever gave, but then presumably that's one of the reasons Mondale is here...
...I am reminded of a poll taken during Nelson Rockefeller's 1970 gubernatorial race against Arthur Goldberg...
...All things, more to some men than to others...
...All are equally ignored...
...The Democrats are singing "We Shall Overcome," not tonight a song of bitter protest as at Chicago in 1968...
...Where's the hot-dog stand...
...Meet the Press is over...
...The galleries are half empty...
...Party platforms can do that...
...Farmer...
...He laughs...
...It's the political game that has hooked the news industry...
...Bring on the star...
...So what...
Vol. 59 • August 1976 • No. 16
