She's Running for First Lady

TIME Correspondent Bonnie Angela last week followed Rosalynn Carter on the campaign trail. Her report:

In the 5 o'clock commuter rush of the Chicago and North Western Station, Rosalynn Carter, rustling up votes for her husband, was confronted with a surly question: "Are you running for First Lady?" She looked the man in the eye and retorted, with a trace of defiance, "Yes!" She added, "There are so many things that need to be done in this country--so much in mental health, for the elderly. It excites me to think that I could help." The hostile questioner pressed her to justify why her promises had anything to do with JimmyCarter's campaign. "Because," she said evenly, her gray-green eyes a cold contrast to her warm smile, "I come with him."

Indeed she does. Rosalynn Carter, 49, has earned her place as part of a husband-wife political team by virtue of unparalleled effort. For 18 months she has campaigned almost full time. Last week her minisquadron of two Learjets whistled along for 4,965 miles, touching down in such cities as Jackson, Miss., Chicago, Erie, Pa., Cincinnati and Atlanta. Mayors and Governors welcome her, a phalanx of motorcycle police escorts her on freeways cleared of traffic, audiences in crowded halls give her standing ovations. Bob Armstrong, Carter's campaign manager in Texas, says frankly, "Some people think Rosalynn is a better campaigner than Jimmy."

Rosalynn (pronounced Rose-lun) likes campaigning on her own. She considers it "a waste of my time" to travel with her husband, observing that "it's a big country out there, with so many people to meet." Her days are surrealistic: she is up and away at dawn, and before she crawls into bed, many hours and several states later, she will have made six or eight speeches, given as many as 18 interviews and held three or four open press conferences.

Feet firmly planted in conservative black pumps, she stands before audiences with no notes, her only prop a glass of water. With a spontaneity that makes her long-mastered speech sound newly minted, she hard-sells Jimmy Carter. These two sides of Rosalynn Carter, velvet and steel, have caused a minor quandary: she cannot decide whether to dub her swift little campaign plane Magnolia One or First Person, a women's-lib twitting of the First Lady title.

Increasingly, Rosalynn Carter is indicating that she intends to play a substantive role in a Carter Administration. Asked who would handle the problems of the elderly, she replies emphatically, "I'm going to work with the elderly." She quickly ticks off programs she would work for: hot lunches, transportation for senior citizens, home maintenance.

Her aplomb is born of experience and discipline. "At first I worried about everything I said, how I looked, was I dressed just right. But you cannot do that and be effective, so I learned from Jimmy that you just relax and do the best you can."

On her weekends at home in Plains, she catches up with Amy's life. Mrs. Carter has been criticized for spending these 18 months on the road, with an eight-year-old daughter at home, but she maintains that Amy is happy surrounded by cousins and friends and tended by "Miss Lillian," her grandmother.

It would be impossible for Rosalynn Carter to have worked less than her full measure on the campaign. Hard work is in the marrow of her bones. She does not think it odd that tiny Plains should have produced two such overachievers as Rosalynn and Jimmy Carter. "I believe that anybody could do what I've done. I never dreamed I'd be in the Governor's mansion. I never thought I could make a speech, but you just do it. I believe I was helped by the fact of feeling secure, of having the kind of stability that comes from knowing all those people in Plains care for me."

Serene and determined, Rosalynn is unafraid of controversy "if it's a matter important to me." Her guiding philosophy: "Jimmy tells me that if you do anything, you'll be criticized. Only when you don't do anything will you not be criticized.

"I think he's going to win," she says of her husband. "But if Jimmy loses, I don't think I'd have any regrets about any of it, because I know that every member of my family has done everything they possibly can."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.