In Bourbon and Coal Country

If it's Tuesday, this must be Bardstown

Jimmy Carter cannot proclaim, as Stephen Foster once did, that Bardstown is My Old Kentucky Home. But after his warm and noisy welcome there last week, the President might well consider the small (pop. 7,000) town in Kentucky's bourbon and coal country a refreshing spiritual haven where Washington's incessant pressures can be, if only fleetingly, forgotten.

As the presidential limousine drove down Bardstown's main street, it was engulfed by people stretching out their hands and shouting, "Jimmy! Jimmy! Jimmy!" Carter impulsively climbed onto the car's roof. As the auto moved slowly ahead, the President sprawled on its top, his legs dangling awkwardly over the windshield, a nervous Secret Service agent reaching up to grab his arm and keep him from falling. Through it all, Carter grinned delightedly. From his perilous perch, he reached out to the people. At least from his viewpoint, Carter's post-Camp David drive to get back in touch with grass-roots America was off to a successful start. This week he is making a similar foray into Baltimore.

Though Carter's critics saw an element of escapism in his new zest for domestic travel, he used the trip to address nationwide concerns, notably the need to reduce the heavy U.S. dependence on foreign oil. On his way to Bardstown, he stopped off at the Cane Run electric power plant on the outskirts of Louisville. It was chosen because it is a model of what the President wants: a power plant that burns coal instead of oil and uses expensive "scrubbers" to keep even high-sulfur coal from polluting the air. Facing a crowd of workers in yellow, orange and green hard hats, Carter declared: "I would rather burn another ton of Kentucky coal than see our nation become dependent on another barrel of OPEC oil."

The President made one other side trip, helicoptering without advance notice across the border to English, Ind., where the Little Blue River had caused enough flood damage to qualify the area for federal disaster relief. Standing ankle deep in mud, Carter told some 40 grateful residents of the town: "I just wanted to see if everything is all right with you all and to let you know we'll have some help in here very shortly." Replied one enthusiastic woman: "You've restored our faith in Government."

Carter was at his best in the forum he seems to like most: a "town meeting," in the sweltering Bardstown high school gym, which was jammed with 2,100 people who had waited up to three hours for good seats. Shedding his jacket and rolling up his sleeves, Carter was as folksy as the victorious campaigner of 1976. When one youth found that his microphone would not work, the President graciously called him to the podium to use his. When a rural woman complained about the telephone rates in her neighborhood, Carter promised to call the head of the state public utilities commission, admitting with a smile: "I'm not guaranteeing you any results, but I'll guarantee you I'll call them."

(Carter did call, but discovered that the telephone tolls were tied up in a complex court action beyond his influence.) To a resident worried about environmental damage from increased coal production, Carter conceded that many people fear that "coal is dirty and will lower the quality of our life." But, the President insisted, "that is not true" and "we can burn twice as much coal in this nation and not lower our environmental standards at all . . . that's what I'm determined to do." He did not, however, discuss the difficult economics of preventing pollution.

Can Bardstown-style trips increase Jimmy Carter's record-low popularity ratings and revive his presidency? Obviously not, unless he achieves positive results in producing energy legislation, fighting inflation and preventing a deep recession.

His critics insist he ought to stay in Washington to give full time to doing just that.

Clearly, Carter is gambling that he can best sell both himself and his ideas by reverting to the style, themes and footwork that carried him to the presidency in the first place.

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