Pleasures-and Perils-of Populism

In 1934, Franklin D. Roosevelt raced through the streets in an open touring car on his way to someplace else, and in 1952 Harry Truman actually stopped off to campaign for Adlai Stevenson. But nothing like this had ever happened before to Clinton, Mass., and the residents of the old factory town 36 miles west of Boston were doing their best to get ready for the momentous day. They swept the streets, hosed down the red brick storefronts, and slapped a coat of paint on the interior of the town hall, where the great event would take place.

The occasion was the first-ever coming of Jimmy Carter, scheduled to visit Clinton (pop. 13,300) to answer questions from the audience at a simulated New England town meeting. He planned to spend the night not at a hotel but in a private home. The visit to Clinton is the latest event in the extraordinary meet-the-people program that Carter is conducting so successfully so far--although it poses special problems, and possible dangers, for his presidency.

The President is going to the people so earnestly for a number of reasons. It is, first of all, his natural style. Carter's entire campaign to reach the White House was built on the strategy of persuading the public to trust him. Without the solid backing of the Democratic Party's traditional power blocs, like the labor unions, Carter believes that he must function as a kind of political guerrilla, building a base at the grass roots. Says one White House aide: "In effect. Carter has to keep on campaigning." He also needs to get widespread backing to put pressure on Congress if it balks at passing his programs.

Early Returns. To date, the President has clearly been able to achieve a kind of personal relationship with many Americans--including a number who voted for him with trepidation or even backed Gerald Ford. After the President's celebrated phone-in, when some 9.5 million people tried to get his ear, a telephone survey of 1,184 people by Pollster Albert Sindlinger found that 73% liked what they heard, while only 22% did not care for the show (5% had no opinion).

Pollster George Gallup Jr. feels that Carter is managing to get across the idea that he is "the people's President." Adds a colleague. Burns Roper: "I expect his people-to-people campaign will be highly successful. Historically, all polls show that the No. 1 attribute people seek in a President is honesty and openness. That was true before Johnson and Nixon, but it is even more true now."

TIME correspondents around the nation turned up more indications that for the time being, at least, Americans are taken with Carter's downhome, cardigan style. Even the West, which went overwhelmingly for Ford last November, is now warming to the President. Says Karen Stone, a housewife active in Democratic Party politics in Pacific Palisades, Calif: "There is something I'm beginning to like about Carter. The low-keyed, anti-folderol approach. I still mistrust his Baptist fundamentalist upbringing and the whole thing about his being a Southerner. But I must admit the accent is bothering me less than it did."

A small minority of Americans fear that Carter is being too informal. Says Mrs. Myrtle Word, a housewife in Indianola, Miss.: "He should be more like, not exactly Ford, but maybe Kennedy. He should be more dignified and more formal in his dress."

Political Gimmickry. The most serious potential problem for Carter is an undercurrent of feeling--particularly strong in the still skeptical Midwest --that the President is relying too much on style. The conservative Omaha World-Herald (circ. 235,700) blasted Carter's phone-in as "a first-class put-on ... one of the slickest public relations promotions to come out of Washington in a long time." Texas Republican John Connally, whose eye is still on the White House, is hardly an unprejudiced witness, but his views were echoed by Carter critics in the Midwest and elsewhere. Says he: "In terms of political imagery. Carter has done a magnificent job. I regret, though, that he's not dealing with substance. I hope in time that he'll show us what his policies are and take action on the pressing problems and not just give us political gimmickry."

Ironically, the very success of Carter's populist appeal may cause him special backlash problems. Says John Staples, who runs public opinion surveys in Texas and Louisiana: "If you don't give people some hard stuff and keep giving them the impression that you can come through, even when you know that you can't deliver, there is going to be a letdown. I'd be very concerned if I were [Carter]."

By appealing directly to the voters, Carter also risks worsening his relations with Congress, which are already uneasy enough. Senate Majority Leader Robert C. Byrd has taken the unusual step of writing Carter that the Democratic Senators were angry and frustrated because they felt they were being overlooked by the White House. The main cause of the Senators' ire was the President's suspension of the funding for 19 water projects in the budget for fiscal 1978, a decision he made without consulting anyone on the Hill. Last week 35 Democratic Senators joined with 30 Republicans to approve, 65 to 24, a measure aimed at preventing Carter from cutting off money for the projects.

The dangers implicit in the people program are on the mind of Greg Schneiders, 29, the White House aide who is running the operation. During the campaign", he began as a kind of glorified baggagemaster and rose so rapidly in Carter's esteem that he was chosen for the key position of appointments secretary. Then a report surfaced that he might have received some unemployment insurance payments that he was not entitled to. Although Schneiders was subsequently cleared of any wrongdoing, he lost his chance for the original job and ended up as the director of White House projects.

First Person. Discussing the people program, Schneiders says: "I think it has to be pursued judiciously--and it will be. If Carter tried to do these things as a substitute for substance, he wouldn't get away with it." Schneiders argues that some of the events will be "entirely substance." He plans to invite citizens with widely diverse points of view to "miniconferences" with Carter on special topics, such as crime or inflation. This week and next, the White House intends to hold 20 meetings of this kind on energy policy. They will be attended by experts ranging from auto manufacturers to environmentalists. Schneiders also wants to increase the effectiveness of 37 Federal Information Centers scattered around the country that answer questions about Government services.

Conducting his people program at a private level, Carter last week breakfasted with John Shanklin, 71, an employee of Washington's Sheraton Carlton Hotel. On Dec. 12, 1974, Shanklin became the first person to be told by Carter that he was running for the presidency. When Shanklin said he would vote for the Georgian, Carter promised to ask him around for breakfast when he got to the White House. Accompanied by Daughter Amy, Carter also listened appreciatively to the National Children's Choir during the dedication of Children's Hospital in Washington.

Carter intends to repeat the fireside chat and the phone-in, and he is considering a scheme to make sure that 5% to 10% of the guests at official White House lunches or dinners are "average Americans." The President plans to make other brief forays around the country, settling down for the night in the homes of private citizens. After his visit to Clinton this week, Carter will travel to Charleston, W. Va., for a conference on energy and coal, and then hop up to New York City to deliver a U.N. address that will outline his general views on foreign policy.

As Carter tries to get his programs going in the months ahead, he will inevitably have to make choices that just as inevitably will alienate many groups of Americans. It remains to be seen whether the people program can thrive when people start taking sides on the merits of the Carter Administration.

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