National Politics: Democratic Primaries and Convention 1976

NATIONAL POLITICS: DEMOCRATIC PRIMARIES AND CONVENTION 1976

A Party in Search of Itself

As the 1976 political season opened, the Democratic party seemed to be suffering from an identity crisis. The polarization of the liberal and conservative wings of the party remained; the air of defeat in 1972 lingered. Liberals looked unenthusiastically to Humphrey or Massachusetts senator Edward M. Kennedy for leadership; conservatives, equally glum, turned toward Wallace. These venerable party leaders appeared exhausted: Wallace still struggled to regain the vitality stolen from him by the assassination attempt in 1972, and Humphrey, tired of perennial candidacy, declined to run. Kennedy, young and able, carrying the glamorous name of his brothers, was the potential front-runner. As he had in 1972, however, Kennedy also declined to run. He cited family problems; but there was also the likely prospect of an attempt on his life and the lingering scandal associated with a 1969 automobile accident at Chappaquiddick Island, Massachusetts, which had claimed the life of a young woman, Mary Jo Kopechne. The field was wide open for a new standard-bearer to assert himself.

An Unlikely Prospect

Carter was by far the longshot among prospective Democratic candidates. A peanut farmer who attended the Naval Academy and became a nuclear engineer, Carter's only political experience was a brief stint as a Georgia state senator and one term as Georgia's governor. Most of the other candidates seemed more qualified: Sen. Henry M. Jackson of Washington had spent thirty-five years in Congress and had been a candidate for president in 1972; former Sen. Fred R. Harris of Oklahoma had a good following for his version of midwestern populism; Sen. Birch E. Bayh, Jr.

The Representative of the New South

In 1976 Carter's anonymity turned out to be an asset. After Watergate, voter discontent with politics was high. Carter, with greater credibility than the others, presented himself as the Washington outsider, ready to represent the middle class and return honesty to government. Wallace had introduced that image to Democratic politics, but he carried the taint of segregation, and his health remained an issue. Wallace nonetheless ran, and the beneficiary of his effort was Carter. Carter presented himself as a candidate of the "New South"—one as committed as Wallace to southern values and blue-collar populism but liberal on race and less committed to revolutionizing American politics than reforming it. Wallace excoriated "pointy-headed bureaucrats" in Washington; Carter simply urged a paring of governmental agencies. Wallace was dead-set opposed to busing; Carter favored voluntary desegregation but pledged to uphold court orders. Carter thus sold himself to conservatives as a Wallace capable of winning a general election; to liberals he presented himself as an alternative to the much-feared Wallace. Carter reinforced his ideological ambiguity by stressing his personal character rather than programs. "I will never lie to you," he promised voters. With his earnest character, his down-home conviviality, and solid moral background (he was a Baptist Sunday school teacher), Carter seemed the perfect representative of a new honesty in politics.

Primary Victories

Carter also mounted a highly organized, personal campaign. His entire family joined him on the stump; troops of enthusiastic Georgians, nick-named the "Peanut Brigade," rang doorbells for him in primary states. Carter also made terrific use of the media; after Nixon, Carter's openness with the press earned him sympathetic coverage. His organization, his cultivation of the media, and his ideological ambiguity worked. In New Hampshire he presented himself as a conservative and won 30 percent of the ballot, while four liberal candidates split the remainder, the nearest winning only 24 percent of the vote. In Florida, two weeks later, Carter ran as a liberal version of Wallace and beat the Alabaman by 3.7 percent of ballots cast. In Illinois he crushed Wallace by twenty percentage points; in North Carolina he prevailed by almost nineteen points, and the Wallace candidacy was over. Rep. Morris Udall of Arizona, Carter's closest remaining competition on the left, fell to him in Wisconsin. Senator Jackson, Carter's closest competition on the right, was defeated in Pennsylvania. By May polls showed Carter outranking not only the remaining Democrats but also leading President Ford. Carter romped through the remaining southern primaries, but last-minute challenges by Idaho senator Frank Church and California governor Brown set Carter back in the west. Nonetheless, Carter continued to accumulate delegate votes even in states where he lost. By June the opposition to him had crumbled, and Carter entered the convention with the backing of almost all of his former opponents.

A United Convention

With the nomination in the bag, Carter turned the 1976 Democratic convention into an exercise in coalition building. Carter used the search for a vice-presidential candidate, which McGovern had so spectacularly botched, as an opportunity to solicit opinion and flatter every interest group within the party. Sen. Walter Mondale of Minnesota, a liberal with strong labor support, got the nod. Platform differences were papered over, and the convention, anticipating the general election, stressed Carter's character rather than the issues. Following his acceptance speech, Carter's former opponents joined him on the convention podium. The display gave the appearance of unity, but the fissures that split the party in 1968 and 1972 remained. The Democrats were not ideologically reunified, but they did share the desire to put a Democrat—the dark horse candidate from Georgia—in the White House.