Correspondents' Correspondence Presidential Politics
MORTON, BRUCE
Presidential Politics Washington—Six months ago, President Carter's standing in the polls was abysmal; now it's quite high. He has registered, according to one testing organization, the biggest...
...The question is, where will public opinion wander to next...
...what the big change means is that public opinion switches around more quickly than it used to...
...This does not mean the earlier polls were wrong...
...There isn't necessarily any justice to these ups and downs, New York Times columnist James Reston has suggested, but when the President was down he was getting less credit than he deserved for trying to come to grips with problems like energy and normalizing relations with China...
...Which is why, of course, picking Presidents is more fun than buying groceries.—Bruce Morton...
...Or will some new image of President Carter as a leader linger, so that even if those troubles do come to the front of public attention, he won't be blamed for them...
...If you are fond of Presidential politics, cheer up...
...He has registered, according to one testing organization, the biggest one-month jump in the history of Presidential polling...
...Senator Edward Kennedy has not sunk quite as fast as the President has risen, but clearly the bloom is of f the Kennedy rose somewhat...
...Will the fickle public mind swing at once to other dissatisfactions—such as rising opec prices, rising food prices, rising Social Security taxes...
...Nobody knows...
...But the question really is not whether any of this is fair...
...Will the other candidates begin asking, for instance, why Carter did not heed the ample warnings that the Embassy would be in trouble if he let the Shah into the U.S...
...Months of wonderful uncertainty lie ahead...
...Similarly, Kennedy probably got higher marks than he deserved when he was a noncandidate, the heir to Camelot...
...Today, he may be getting too much credit for not going to war against Iran, a course that would almost surely result in the hostages being killed, and that one therefore hopes all of the Presidential candidates would have avoided...
...he probably got worse reviews than he deserved for suggesting that the former Shah was a dictator and a despot, since the Shah almost certainly was both those things...
...Running against the Ayatollah works for now...
...Or, if the hostages are freed, will that question matter...
Vol. 62 • December 1979 • No. 25
