Beyond sophistication
Max Egremont
New York Historians may possibly declare that Pennsylvania did for Jimmy Carter in 1976 what West Virginia did for John Kennedy in 1960. Certainly Carter's victory in the Pennsylvania primary election has left his former closest open rival for the Democratic nomination, Senator Henry Jackson, in much the same position as Kennedy's West Virginia victory left Hubert Humphrey. Perhaps Jackson's defeat was different in style and cost to the humiliation of Humphrey in 1960, but it appears to have been as effective. This time we were spared the massive media blitz, the ugly personal smears, the shameless use of a vast personal fortune. But, as Carter made his way from the great steel mills of Pittsburgh through the small industrial towns in the middle of the state—reminiscent of England, with their grey neo-classical municipal buildings and statues of civic worthies—there were reminders of the earlier campaign. Beside him was Franklin Roosevelt Jr, son of the President, causing veterans to remember how in 1960 he had tramped through West Virginia describing Hubert Humphrey's war record as that of 'a slacker.'
But this time there was none of that. At the gates of a steel mill, workers shook Roosevelt's hand as he informed them that, for him, Carter was 'the most exciting candidate since John Kennedy'. When journalists wanted to know how they should describe Carter, Roosevelt answered: 'Farmer and businessman'. This is how Carter describes himself. To be able to emphasise links with an America that is outside Washington, away from the Congress and the Federal government, is desirable this year, in the aftermath of Nixon, Watergate and the crumbling of Dr Kissinger's image as a diplomatic superstar.
Carter is an effective campaigner. 1 heard him address a variety of audiences. The keynote of his approach is simplicity. He speaks slowly, the southern voice enunciating each word with care and spurning detail in favour of an almost evangelical appeal to the emotions. When he tells black audiences that he would rather die than disappoint Andrew Young, a Congressman from Georgia and one of his leading black supporters, and Martin Luther King Sr (the father of the civil rights leader), for a moment it is possible to believe him. Similarly, when he offers his love to voters the offer does not sound ludicrous, for here the simplicity, the out rightness of it, defies cynicism. On the bus afterwards the journalists mock, imitate and make comparisons, the most flattering of which is with Billy Graham. But Carter, like Wallace, has gone over their heads. He has risen above sophistication and political urbanity, sensing that the way to most people's hearts most emphatically does not lie through their heads.
With Carter it is not difficult to dig up the inconsistencies and uncertainties. He declares that he is in favour of returning government to the people and inveighs against the bureaucracy in Washington; yet he is in favour of a national welfare plan, a national health-care policy and Federal aid for education. He declares that he will cut the cost of government, but has not come out with specific proposals how this is to be effected, beyond a few veiled references to military golf courses. His pledges to alter the tax structure `to make sure that the rich pay their taxes' have yet to be enumerated, and his attitude towards détente Ca good concept but we have been too easy with the Russians') attempts to combine Kissinger-bashing with the idea of the man of peace.
Carter's great achievement is that he has managed to transcend detail. His success in the primaries has come about because of what people have reacted against rather than what they have flocked to support. It is, paradoxically, his cloudiness on specific issues that has made it possible for him to benefit from these reactions. Two of his opponents in Pennsylvania, Senator Jackson and Congressman Udall, were both firmly identified with certain sections of the political establishment—Jackson with the labour unions and the machine politics of the likes of Mayor Rizzo of Philadelphia, Udall with the McGoverntype affluent liberals who took the Democrats down the road to disaster in 1972. The only candidate who could in any way challenge Carter's appeal to the disaffected, George Wallace, was already a spent force after his defeats in the south and his physical incapacity. Now it is Carter rather than Wallace who gains from the feeling against Washington and the frustration felt by the individual in the face of a remote and seemingly unyielding Federal government.
Yet Carter's constituency has a broader base than that of Wallace. Many blacks are impressed when he declares that the Civil Rights Act was the best thing that ever happened to the south. They are more ready to accept this from somebody who grew up in a small town in Georgia with black neighbours and who had first-hand experience of the terrible problems of southern integration in the 1960s than front a pontifical liberal shielded by the economic apartheid of some northern suburb. Carter has had a greater success with black voters than any Democratic presidential aspirant
since Robert Kennedy, and he has mart" aged, with this, to avoid offending the white blue-collar workers who make up the majority of the old Wallace support. His famous remark that neighbourhoods should, be allowed to retain their 'ethnic purity assisted him here. Most of his black supporters appear to have accepted his explanation and apology for this, whereas large numbers of the more traditionallr minded whites are pleased to see that he seems to be with them in spirit. Nowhere has Carter's political skill manifested itself to greater advantage than in this controversy. Now it is behind him.
The main dangers to Carter have been as mysterious and uncertain as his own cam' paign. First there was the non-candidaeY of Hubert Humphrey. That may be said to have ended in Philadelphia on 27 April, when Scoop Jackson, looking like a bank" rupt undertaker, admitted that the primarY returns showed he was failing to put his message across to the voters. If either Jackson, who, with his support among the big labour leaders, was thought of as a possible victor in Pennsylvania, or Udall, who was popular with students and the Stevensonian progressives of the suburbs, had defeated Carter the road was still thought to be open for Humphrey t° seize the nomination at a brokered Deril°' cratic convention. They did not, and sorne hours later Humphrey tearfully announced that he would not be a candidate in 1976. The second imponderable is Governor Brown of California. Now he has collie east to launch a late attack on Carter ill Maryland. The Washington professionals are welcoming him, although he seems 01 unlikely addition to their number. A Jest1.1,1 seminarian with an interest in Zen WI'e make an interesting opponent for th,, southern evangelist. But Jimmy Carter delegate strength is unavoidable. The columnists may rant on about the imP°11.. ance of somebody, succeeding in for/ him to clarify his ideas and policies, but the candidate knows that the Democrats ar an unwieldy and varied bunch, rangill from the crypto-socialist to the closes Klansman. There will, after all, be Pl, of time for detail when he leads the against the Republicans in the autumn.
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