Freedom in Picking the Veep

As he deliberated over the choice of a running mate, Jimmy Carter enjoyed two rare luxuries. Certain of his own nomination, he had plenty of time to probe and ponder each prospective nominee. Comfortably ahead in the polls over both Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan, he could base his decision on who might best be capable of running the country if need be, rather than on who might help him carry a particular state. Said Carter: "I feel remarkable freedom about the choice."

Methodical as always, he consulted about 40 Democratic public figures and found a surprising consensus on the names to be considered. He had his top political adviser, Atlanta Lawyer Charles Kirbo, invite six prospects to friendly but intensive cross-examinations on their personal backgrounds and finances (see story page 16). After the Kirbo interviews, Carter revealed that he had pared the list to "two or three." He would not say who they were but speculation centered on Senators Walter Mondale, Frank Church and John Glenn. Carter intends to question each of the finalists personally this week in three or four more hours of intensive talks. "I want to be sure to be acquainted with them," he said in understatement. He could still spring a surprise, but the three other Senators not publicly ruled out of the running were Adlai Stevenson, Edmund Muskie and Henry Jackson. The assets and drawbacks of all six included:

MINNESOTA'S MONDALE, 48. Cited by some Carter intimates as the most likely choice, the articulate Mondale is viewed as having the intellectual capacity to handle the presidency, if needed. He would strengthen Carter's fragile ties to labor and reassure the party's still doubting Northern liberals. But some of Carter's industrious workers consider Mondale, who gave up his own presidential campaign as too great an ordeal, a shade on the lazy side.

IDAHO'S CHURCH, 52. Found by the TIME/Yankelovich poll to possess surprising national popularity as a possible veep (see story page 17), Church has wide experience in Washington and in foreign affairs, both of which Carter lacks. He is in his fourth term as Senator and is the third ranking Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee. Church also proved strong in the West in the late primaries. As the zealous chairman of the committee that exposed abuses of the CIA and FBI, however, he has offended many conservatives in both parties.

OHIO'S GLENN, 55. The former astronaut-hero is rated by Carter's pollster, Pat Caddell, as the most popular of the contenders. Yet Carter concedes this may be based mainly on the fact that his is the best-known name. Though Glenn has proved industrious in Washington, displaying expertise on energy and antinuclear-proliferation legislation, he has held public office only since 1975, and seems the least adequately prepared of the group to move into the White House.

ILLINOIS' STEVENSON III, 46. Son of one of the party's most beloved figures,

Stevenson is a hardworking, able Senator whose popularity in an industrial Northern state would balance Carter's rural Southern background. Elected to the Senate in 1970, Stevenson is less experienced than some of the other prospects and lacks his late father's wit and verbal flair.

MAINE'S MUSKIE, 62. A bruised veteran of presidential politics, Muskie sparkled as Hubert Humphrey's 1968 running mate, but stumbled in his own reach for the top in 1972. The former Governor has served 17 competent years in the Senate, and could well rise to the demands of any succession to the White House. His past losses, however, are a handicap.

WASHINGTON'S JACKSON, 64. After 23 years in the Senate, Jackson's legislative experience surpasses the other five, and Carter's aides consider him well equipped to handle the presidency. A liberal on the economy and most social issues, a conservative on defense and foreign affairs, he is almost as hard to tag ideologically as is Carter.

While the search for a vice-presidential candidate provided the one remaining element of preconvention suspense, Carter found time for less solemn chores. He jumped from a leisurely fish fry in Plains (see color facing page) to a busy round of highly successful fund-raising affairs. They included a $1,000-per-couple lawn buffet in a tent in Asheville, N.C.; a $250-per-plate breakfast in Milwaukee; a $100-per-person cocktail party in New York's Waldorf-Astoria. He made similar stops in Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Washington, Houston and Chicago. The net result: Carter wiped out his remaining $400,000 primary campaign deficit and expects to go into the convention with an extra $400,000 to cover expenses there.

He might well need the cash. His campaign staff has taken over three floors of the Americana Hotel, where Carter, his many relatives and growing staff will occupy 250 rooms. Another 200 rooms have been rented by the Carter organization elsewhere in the city; it will be the first time that all of his 300 full-time paid workers will have assembled anywhere. Carter and Wife Rosalynn will arrive on Saturday and will give a huge party for some 5,000 delegates and alternates at a Hudson River pier the next day.

Even though he has the nomination knocked, Carter expects to visit as many state delegations as he can to ensure their support. His aides are even planning the usual elaborate communications network to keep in touch with delegations as voting begins on the convention floor in Madison Square Garden. Press Secretary Jody Powell laughingly explained: "This is what everybody traditionally does at conventions--so we want to do it too."

Carter is expected to follow the tradition of staying away from the convention hall until he becomes the nominee Wednesday night. His acceptance speech the following evening will elaborate on his now familiar vision of a government "as good, as compassionate, as full of love as the American people." The first drafts are being fashioned by Speechwriter Patrick Anderson, a former newsman and author of the recent, faintly scandalous The President's Mistress.

Carter was already thinking beyond his nomination. His staff and party strategists were dividing up the nation into 13 "A" states, which will get maximum effort as critical to his election, and an undisclosed number of states in three other categories: "B," requiring slightly less attention; "C," considered hopelessly lost, and "D," rated as relatively safe. The latter include much of the South, as well as Massachusetts and Minnesota.

The Facts. With typical boldness, Carter has already asked President Ford that he be briefed after his nomination on sensitive foreign policy issues, as is traditional--not by the State Department, but solely by the CIA. Explained Carter: "The State Department is a political arm of the Administration, and I don't want to be briefed on policy--I want the facts."

Was Carter getting too confident of victory in November? At the moment, that was his most obvious hazard. He seemed susceptible to what Washington Post Columnist David Broder termed "Deweyitis." Some Republican strategists also argue that Carter's following, though broad, is shaky, and that if the G.O.P. candidate forces Carter to get specific enough on key issues, his coalition will fracture.

Unlike the aloof Tom Dewey, who blew the 1948 election to fighting Underdog Harry Truman, however, Carter seems fully aware of the dangers. "I'm sure that a lot of people around the country still have doubts about me," he conceded to reporters last week, "but I'm doing all I can to address those doubts." More important, to party leaders in Washington, Carter signaled the same kind of warning against developing "a sense of arrogance." He said that either Ford, "an incumbent President," or Reagan, "an accomplished television performer with fervent supporters," can be "very, very strong."

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