Carter: Entering the Lists

Georgia's Governor Jimmy Carter last week became the second Democrat, following Arizona Representative Morris Udall, to announce his candidacy for the presidency in 1976. A blue-eyed big-time peanut farmer noted for his folksy charm, Carter, 50, bears a slight physical resemblance to John F. Kennedy. He was one of the major formulators of party strategy this year as chairman of the Democrats' National Campaign Committee. One of the chief political figures to show concern about erasing the remaining gap between black and white in the modern South, Carter as Governor has become a symbol of the moderate shift in Southern politics.

Sunshine Law. As a budget-slashing, reform-minded Governor, he consolidated some 300 state agencies into a more manageable 22, creating a mammoth department of human resources that handles everything from food-stamp certification and mental health to vocational rehabilitation and disability insurance. He intends to bring such cost-cutting measures to the Federal Government if he reaches the White House in 1977. As Georgia's Governor, he oversaw the passage of a "sunshine law," which permits more public access to legislative committees and executive agencies, another reform he hopes to bring to Washington.

In his first race for public office, in 1962, a re-count won Carter a seat in the state senate. After two terms there, he entered the state Democratic gubernatorial primary. Despite an impressive showing by Carter, the winner was Lester Maddox, and Carter returned to supervising his family's 2,500-acre peanut farm.

But in four years he also made 1,800 speeches throughout the state. He captured the Georgia governorship on his second try, in 1970. He won election by appealing to the downhome, antibusiness inclinations of his rural constituents and to the antibusing sentiments that they share with Georgia's urban working-class whites. Only 7% of the state's blacks voted for him in the primary, but 61% supported him in the general election. He set the tone for his governorship in his inaugural speech to Georgians: "I say to you quite frankly that the time for racial discrimination is over."

Courtly Charm. Carter faces an uphill fight for the White House, since he lacks both foreign-policy experience and an active political base (his tenure as Governor ends next month). Although he has cultivated a reformer's image by declining campaign contributions larger than $1,000 and has dutifully stumped for fellow Democrats in 32 states this year as campaign committee chairman, Carter will have hard work to make his name recognized by more voters and to build support for himself in Democratic organizations outside Georgia. "I intend to campaign with the same political techniques I used in the 1970 Governor's race," says Carter, "a minimum of expenditures and a maximum of contact with voters." He plans on 250 days of campaigning next year, during which he will rely on a savvy brand of political toughness underneath his populist, courtly charm. When a Washington reporter asked him last week if, considering the odds against him, he was not really running for Vice President, Carter replied evenly: "I'm not interested in the vice presidency, but I am very interested in the selection process. I intend to be the one making the selection."

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