"He Wasn't in Touch"

Voters explain why they abandoned Kennedy for Carter

Before he announced his presidential candidacy. Senator Edward Kennedy led President Carter by 2-to-1 in a poll conducted for TIME by the public opinion research firm of Yankelovich, Shelly and White, Inc. But in the latest survey, taken in late January, that ranking was stunningly reversed. To find out what caused so many people to change their minds, TIME correspondents across the nation interviewed a sampling of the ex-Kennedy supporters who had been polled by Yankelovich. Most of them now lean toward Carter.

The Kennedy name. The remembrance of things past, of Jack and Bobby, not as they were but as they now seem to have been. That was Ted Kennedy's biggest political asset when he started his campaign in November. Explained Pharmacist Ken Dockter, 23, in Grafton, N.D.: "Right away you think of John Kennedy and Robert Kennedy and you kind of get pulled into it." Said Leroy Allen, 52, a black steelworker in Gary, Ind., who voted for John Kennedy in 1960: "Who can lead us to the promised land? Everybody's looking for Moses." Boston University Political Science Major Robert Aleknas, 21, thought Kennedy was the ideal man "to turn things around economically at home and with other countries abroad."

Now Aleknas, like many other voters, is asking: "Why did I think that?" Indeed, the Camelot legacy is turning out to be one of Kennedy's biggest handicaps, as many voters learn that he is not living up to their mythic memories of his brothers. Said Aleknas: "I was looking at the name and not the man. I realize that now." Said Steelworker Allen: "Strength is what we're seeking, and you have to ask, 'How much strength does the man have?' " Tren Miller, 30, a high school science teacher in La Vista, Neb., had hoped that the "Kennedy excitement would come forth again. It didn't, and I've been disappointed. For someone who's been in politics as long as he has, he should be more articulate." Others were surprised at how ill-prepared Kennedy seemed at many appearances. Said Glenn Kinduell, 27, an industrial-cleanser salesman in Fort Wayne, Ind.: "He seems more mortal now."

Many Kennedy backers began switching to Carter during the Iranian crisis. Said Detroit Air Traffic Clerk Betsy McCamman, 29: "It's not what Carter did, it's what he didn't do. He didn't overreact." Then Kennedy dismayed still other backers by attacking deposed Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi. To James Schroeder, 33, a hotel bellman in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., this was "dirty pool." Said he: "If anything, Kennedy should have attacked the militants. He should have supported the President." Complained Richard Maynard, 30, a high school social studies teacher in Philadelphia: "There was a move for national unity, and Kennedy wasn't in touch with that at all."

After the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the shift to Carter turned into a rout. Said Postal Clerk Ray Blalock, 39, of Charlotte, N.C.: "If the election were today, most likely I'd vote for Carter, because I feel we need some continuity in foreign affairs in this crisis right now." Said David Hopkins, 36, a forklift operator in Auburn, N.Y.: "Carter seems to be getting a little more tough with the Soviets, more forceful and dynamic. I don't turn off the TV now when Carter is talking."

Voters in Kennedy's native Boston have done similar soul-searching, and many of them have stopped backing him for much the same reasons as people elsewhere in the country. The wrench is particularly painful for Massachusetts voters who have strongly supported Kennedy in all of his previous campaigns, as TIME'S national political correspondent, John Stacks, learned last week. His report on three typical voters who have abandoned the Senator:

When Ted Kennedy first ran for the Senate in 1962, Italian-born Vinnie DeRienzo, now 56, eagerly handed out campaign leaflets at the clothing factory in East Boston where he has been a pattern cutter for 18 years. DeRienzo was delighted when the Senator announced that he would seek the presidency. Said he: "I wasn't happy with Carter. He's let inflation get the best of us. And the more it costs me, the more I have to work." To cut energy costs, DeRienzo and his wife Mary have turned down the thermostat at their ranch-style house in Danvers, shut off two rooms and installed aluminum siding. But other expenses cannot be trimmed: his daily 26-mile commute has become more costly, and his daughter--the middle of three children--is still running up education bills as she works for her doctorate in psychology at Syracuse University.

By Christmastime, DeRienzo began to change his mind about Ted Kennedy. Said DeRienzo: "I felt let down, a little bit disillusioned." He feels a strong duty to support the President, even on draft registration, which would directly affect his 19-year-old son. Said DeRienzo: "If it's necessary, my boy will want to go. He'll go or I'll break his leg."

As his doubts about Kennedy began to grow ("He seems to be running confused," said DeRienzo), so did his old qualms about Chappaquiddick. Said Vinnie: "There are just too many unanswered questions. I tried to put it out of my mind. Anybody can make mistakes. But when you start reading about the details--you hear about the party, you hear this guy likes to drink--maybe you don't want him up there."

Herbert J. Levine, 51, is a research cardiologist at Tufts-New England Medical Center in Boston. He is Harvard-educated, well-traveled (he and his wife Sandy spent two weeks in China last fall) and considers himself a liberal. The Levines live in upper-middle-class West Newton, a few miles outside Boston, and vacation every August on Martha's Vineyard.

Said Levine: "I really wanted to find someone like Kennedy, an instinctive liberal. I wanted to embrace him."

But within a few weeks, Levine started losing faith in Kennedy. Said he:

"I found myself increasingly distrustful of him. I began to question his intellectual honesty about things. More and more his remarks seemed motivated by political aims and not by true convictions. I got the feeling that he felt he had to make a big splash, that he was looking for that one vibrant chord or else he was going to crash and burn.

And I feel he never found that chord. Each month he's more and more pathetic. When I see him, I get the sense of an 'agonal gasp.' "

Levine has always thought of himself as more dovish than most people. Because of his opposition to the Viet Nam War, he was among the majority of voters in Massachusetts --the only state that George McGovern carried--who supported McGovern in 1972. Nonetheless, said Levine, "I found myself reassured by Carter's reaction to the Soviets. I support his stand and I don't share Kennedy's position that Carter has been saber rattling."

Gloria Nickerson, 31, lives in a small, neatly kept row house in Maiden, north of Boston. She is separated from her husband and works at three jobs to make ends meet: housekeeper, part-time accountant and weekend waitress at the Hilltop Steak House. She did not pay much attention to politics and public affairs until she concluded that her nine-year-old daughter Janine was getting an unsatisfactory education. Said Nickerson: "Last year I began worrying about the schools, about energy, about the economy, all of it."

She voted for Carter in 1976 but supported Kennedy last fall. Said she: "I was for Kennedy, especially because of national health care. He's really trying to help people like me. Medical costs are way out of line. He was for the underdog and still is --more so than Carter." But the President's policy on Iran changed her opinion of him as a leader. Said Nickerson: "I hadn't thought that Carter was aggressive enough. But now he's stood up and said we won't be pushed around. He's handled himself very well." She rejected Kennedy's contention that Carter had overreacted to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Her view: "Let's face it, it's out there and it's real."

She fully approves of Carter's call for a boycott of the Summer Olympics in Moscow. Said she: "The Olympics shouldn't be involved in politics, but you have to draw the line somewhere." And she supports the registration and the drafting of women. Said she: "It's my country too. In Israel, women are just as good soldiers as the men." Chappaquiddick, she insisted, did not influence her opinion. She explained: "What he does with his private life is his own business. Hey, let's face it, everybody fools around. It was a bad accident and he got caught. What's he going to do? He had to cover up."

But even though Nickerson has given up on Kennedy, she is still a long way from deciding whom to back in the Massachusetts primary on March 4 or in the November election. Said she: "I still haven't found the man to be President."

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