Now or Never for Anderson

By GEORGE J. CHURCH

With a running mate and a platform, the third man revs up

For Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan the campaign is only beginning, but for Independent John Anderson it has already reached a crisis stage. Over the summer, the white-thatched Congressman passed his first vital test: getting on enough state ballots to be considered a serious candidate. But that victory was bought at a heavy price. While Anderson was preoccupied with collecting signatures on petitions, his ratings in the polls dropped, the flow of money to his cause dwindled, and his image blurred as the man who faced tough issues unflinchingly.

Anderson must move immediately. Improving his poll percentages enough by the end of next week to be included in the debates staged by the League of Women Voters is only the most pressing challenge. Anderson has to develop themes and strategy quickly to convince voters that he offers a positive alternative, not just a name that is neither Carter nor Reagan. Says John Sears, Reagan's former campaign manager: "You have to give people positive reasons to stick with you. Anderson has not done that very well."

The Congressman from Illinois knows all too well the fix he is in. "We are getting into a critical phase of the campaign," he says. He tried his best to perk up his showing by performing the tasks that party candidates accomplish at conventions: choosing a running mate and issuing a platform. His vice presidential selection, Democrat Patrick J. Lucey, former Governor of Wisconsin (see box), is hardly likely to give Anderson a major boost. Lucey is a skilled campaign planner and organizer, and has close ties to labor leaders, who have been very suspicious of Ander son. Still, Lucey has neither a widely recognized name nor a national constituency.

The 300-page platform released by Anderson promises "an untraditional program that responds to new challenges in new ways." Among them: a set of tax rewards for businesses and workers that obey wage-price guidelines, and tax penalties for those who break them; exempting newly hired workers and their bosses from Social Security taxes for several months in order to boost employment.

For the most part, the platform illustrates Anderson's eclectic mix of conservative and liberal positions. For conservatives, it promises only programs "small enough" to be paid for out of the normal growth in tax collections "associated with an expanding economy" and opposes large cuts in personal income taxes before the budget is balanced. For liberals, the platform advocates a ban on construction of nuclear power plants until work begins on a permanent site for the disposal of atomic wastes. It also calls for ratification of the SALT II treaty, with some "supplementary measures" to be proposed to Moscow that, Anderson hopes, would allay some Senators' doubts that the Soviets' observance of the treaty can be verified.

Hammering together a platform begins--but only begins--to accomplish what many of Anderson's followers see as a vital task: re-establishing his reputation as the candidate who takes forthright stands on troublesome issues, e.g., calling for a new 50-c--per-gal. tax on gasoline to encourage conservation, and using the money to reduce Social Security taxes. Lately Anderson's speeches have become platitudinous. In explanation, he told TIME last week, "You cannot continue to spin out new ideas and new theories and new acts of derring-do week after week. The press gets bored--the public gets bored." Anderson stirs his audiences the most when he turns acerbic, e.g., noting that "Carter's slogan used to be, 'Why not the best?' Now it's become, 'Well, he isn't the worst.' "

Anderson had deliberately downplayed issues during the summer on the advice of David Garth, his principal strategist, who urged him to concentrate on getting on the ballot. That effort, at least, has been remarkably successful. He has met the filing requirements to be on the ballots in 40 states, including five states where he won court decisions allowing him to file even though the deadline had passed, and he may well end up running in all 50 states.

As time went on, Anderson listened to Garth more and more--and paid a price. Last week the Congressman named Garth his campaign manager, only to have three top aides--Deputy Campaign Manager Edward Coyle, Treasurer Francis Sheehan, Scheduler Michael Fernandez--quit simultaneously. Officially they resigned for personal reasons, but all have had run-ins over strategy with the domineering Garth.

The resignations hurt because Anderson's campaign organization is for the most part young, amateurish and badly in need of competent central direction. In the state of Washington, for instance, his campaign was run until three weeks ago by Ted Bristol, 24, who graduated from George Washington University only last year. In Texas, Anderson's state headquarters in Houston last week abruptly closed the office in Dallas, charging that its volunteer workers were inept. Movers stormed in unannounced, changed the locks and hauled out the furniture.

The disorganization among the young volunteers is especially painful because they are about all that the Anderson campaign has to count on. He is woefully short of money. So far he has raised about $5.5 million and may take in only some $10 million by Election Day. That would be short of his goal of $15 million, and little more than a third of the federal cash that Reagan and Carter can each spend (Anderson is suing to overturn a federal ruling that bars him from collecting U.S. campaign cash). Some Anderson offices are having to choose between paying the rent and paying phone bills. Says one Anderson aide in Washington: "It is a cashflow style of operation. We go to the post office box every morning, see what is there, and spend what we take in during the day." Mainly because of a lack of funds, Anderson last week had to cancel a train tour of 13 Midwestern cities to win desperately needed blue-collar votes and national press attention.

The lack of money rules out the media blitz Anderson once hoped to mount. Garth admits that the campaign will depend heavily on the enthusiasm of college students willing to ring doorbells for Anderson. Says Garth: "If they don't want to do it, then we are in big trouble."

As the campaign quickens, the Congressman is not leading in any state. On the other hand, an ABC News-Louis Harris poll indicates that if voters thought Anderson had a genuine chance to win, enough would choose him to give him the lead in eight key states: California, New York, Illinois, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Ohio, New Jersey and Massachusetts--a group that would produce 216 of the 270 electoral votes he would need to win. But since most voters think he has no chance, he fares badly in the surveys. His best big-state performance is in California, where the last Mervin Field poll shows him ahead of Carter 23% to 20% (Reagan has 51%). The independent also has a sizable following in New York and some big Northeastern and Midwestern states, but is woefully weak in the South and the Rocky Mountain West.

Still, Anderson is determined to stay in the race until the end, hoping that by October, as he says, "Carter will have declined, once again, to the point that the only alternative to Reagan is myself."

As for Carter's campaigners, they expect Anderson to be scoring only 10% or less by election time, still high enough to tip some states--possibly New York, Connecticut, Pennsylvania--into Reagan's column and perhaps give him the election. From the beginning, Anderson pledged that he was not entering the race to be a "spoiler." But, barring an unforeseen change, that is the role he seems destined to play.

With reporting by Douglas Brew, Eileen Shields, Anderson

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