A DECISION MADE IN PRIVATE

By Hugh Sidey

Only about one-tenth of the American voters will have seen Gerald Ford or Jimmy Carter in the flesh when the polls open. In most minds, the two men are special creations from the flickering, two-dimensional electronic screen and the printed page. They are light and shadow, fragments of sound.

Yet they are probably better known than any other pair of presidential contenders in our history, their profiles easily traceable by schoolchildren, their voices familiar fare from morning traffic jam to football halftime.

Political scientists have a feeling that future research on this election will reveal new records of information and understanding. Whether or not this has produced apathy, disappointment or hostility remains to be seen in the balloting. But more and more of the experts are beginning to believe that the campaign process has forced its way into the American consciousness as never before, been debated and mulled beyond any election of the past.

More public opinion sampling has been conducted. More reporters have traveled the campaign byroads, written and broadcast more. More special sections have been printed, more special programs produced. It is entirely possible that we know more about the Carter family now than we did about the Kennedys after their three years in the White House, that we have psychoanalyzed both Ford and Carter more than we had Nixon when he walked out of the White House after nearly six years, that we have examined the two reasonably healthy men more closely than we did Dwight Eisenhower and Lyndon Johnson, who had health problems.

Those who are asked about it by the pollsters talk about the pervasiveness of the presidential contest, of the two major candidates "pressing in on us." Some object, but most seem intrigued. The regular evening newscasts, Pollster Louis Harris believes, are the basic ingredient in forming a presidential aspirant's image. That image is shaped further by the viewer's own prejudices and background, enlarged by his reading and talking with friends.

CBS Vice President William Small, who has taken note of all of the claims about a disillusioned nation, points out that the 85 million or so viewers came back each time for the presidential debates and, says Small, "they stayed until the end--there was no audience tail-off." Obviously they wanted to know, good or bad. Harris insists that, as never before in political history, the smiles, the thoughts, bad words, verbal goofs have penetrated to darkest ghetto and most remote hamlet.

In these final hours, unless unforetold events intervene, the voters who have decided will harden their positions as they absorb additional glimpses and reports on the men. The undecided will pile up all the pieces of information gathered through these weeks and see which way the scale tips--if it does tip either way. With them, a small item might make the difference. The Washington Post's Ben Bradlee figures that the ingredients will be "seven or eight parts TV, three or four parts reading, one part wife or husband, one part drugstore, one part religion and one part geography."

One thing is sure. The final determinant will be the small events of everyday life. The frantic caravans of Ford and Carter, no matter how fast and how far they go, will touch directly only a minuscule number of people. The rest of the voters will watch calmly from their living rooms and dens. The morning coffee groups in Wichita and The Bronx may be the most important political forums in the country right now, says one expert. Listen to the Catholic sermons this Sunday, advises Harris. They could be crucial.

When that is all done, those who select the next President will turn to the most private corners of their own lives, where they will fit their traditions and family histories and interests with what they have learned. Right then they will be a long distance from the prying eyes of the pollsters and the people at the top. That, of course, is what makes Ford and Carter so nervous--and the American democratic process so eternally fascinating.

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