Time Is Running Thin

By Hugh Sidey

The Presidency

It all may have started with the blue jeans and the cardigan sweater. Then came the town meetings with hand-carried suit bag, a glass of milk and a bed with local folks. The afternoon of the national call-in with Walter Cronkite at his side was another part of being Jimmy on the spot, the man of the people.

The President took the idea with him to the London economic summit meeting and halfway round the world to India. Members of Congress began to notice that they could call up Carter more easily and quickly than Hamilton Jordan, his chief aide. They did. Reporters wanted firsthand conversations with him. Special interests, like the blacks, no longer found satisfaction in complaining to Cabinet officers. They sought the President and they found him.

Like a stream growing into a mighty river, Jimmy Carter's presidency has become very personal. His face-to-face success at Camp David gave the demand for his presence an immeasurable stimulus. Now almost every issue and dispute that is not routine is carried to the White House in search of Carter's healing touch. It may be the best or the worst thing that has happened to him--no one is sure just yet. Last week he was hurrying around Washington in his limousine, jumping in and out of his tuxedo, shuffling speech texts and telephone receivers in a dramatic display of personal political management.

Part of the reason is that at midterm, time is running thin for many of Carter's hopes. All the appeals have been made to lesser authorities, and he has allowed himself to be the final judge.

The Israelis want to come back for another summit with the President to iron out the Middle East problems. As SALT moves toward completion, a meeting must be arranged between Brezhnev and Carter. This is even more urgent now that China and the U.S. are normalizing relations and Teng Hsiao-p'ing will be coming here to see Carter in January.

Carter went to the mid-term Democratic convention in Memphis to raise the party's consciousness about budget cutting. Teddy Kennedy went out to oppose Carter. Next day back in Washington, Kennedy was scheduled to share the presidential box at the benefit for the Special Olympics, a Kennedy family project. It might have been one of those times that a President, just slightly irritated over Kennedy's divisive tactics, could have called in with a cold. But too many people were watching. Carter put on his tux and his grin and went.

Former President Jerry Ford dropped by for a visit. The Presidents' Club always honors its members. Carter yielded another half an hour of his precious time.

All the big issues growing so pregnant demanded a press conference, so the President held one. The Business Council, meeting up the street at the Mayflower Hotel and stuffed with such luminaries as Du Font's Irving Shapiro and Chase Manhattan's David Rockefeller, required equal wattage from the White House. After a long, tough day, Carter took the podium at nearly 9 p.m. with a smile and a confession: "Your own influence at times might be even underestimated by you." He talked and answered questions for nearly an hour, a worthwhile effort, as he calculated it, for his anti-inflation campaign.

The President could not ignore Christmas, so he walked down to the Ellipse, shouted "Merry Christmas!" to the chilled crowd, threw the switch for the lights on the national Christmas tree and went back to work. These days that work includes White House receptions for more than 4,000 people in and around the Government. Carter intends to shake the hands of all of them. With luck he will get a chance to nibble a bit of Chef Henry Haller's pumpkin bread and try a sip of the spiced cider. But there is no guarantee, not in a world where almost everyone wants to talk to the top man--and does.

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