For the Record

How do the Democratic candidates stand just five weeks before New Hampshire? Evans & Novak rank them in order of strength in the early primaries: 1) Birch Bayh, 2) Henry Jackson, 3) Jimmy Carter, 4) Sargent Shriver, 5) Morris Udall, explaining that Shriver figures that high because he is the only Catholic, and Massachusetts and New Hampshire are Catholic-heavy . . . But E & N are not discounting the Wallace threat; they believe he’ll come into the convention with more delegates than anyone else . . . Democratic state chairmen, in a UPI poll, are still leery of the entire crop of announced candidates, say they would favor Hubert Humphrey as the nominee . . . The ADA has checked in with its liberal litmus rating of the candidates. Mo Udall places first (81 per cent pure), followed by: Birch Bayh (79), Fred Harris (73), Henry Jackson (63), Lloyd Bentsen (40), and way down there, in the troglodyte area, Republican Gerald Ford (8). (Wallace, Reagan, Sanford, and Carter, not having been in Congress or the Senate, did not figure.) . . Numbers of those 75 liberal House freshmen wafted in a year ago in the Watergate backlash are running scared. So scared they’ve asked the ADA not to publish ratings on their voting record first year out. Says ADA staffer Sam Field: “A lot of the freshmen see [ADA ratings] as a cross to bear this year, particularly if they won in a normally conservative Republican district.”

What about the Republicans? The newest Christian Science Monitor poll of Republican state chairmen and national committeemen shows 72 believe Reagan won’t take the nomination from Ford, 14 believe he will, six “don’t know.” . . . Sen. Henry Bellmon (Oklahoma) says he is increasingly convinced that Ford will not get the nomination; Bellmon himself tends toward fellow Southwesterner John Connally of Texas.

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Presidential Election

How do the Democratic candidates stand just five weeks before New Hampshire? Evans & Novak rank them in order of strength in the early primaries: 1) Birch Bayh, 2) Henry Jackson, 3) Jimmy Carter, 4) Sargent Shriver, 5) Morris Udall, explaining that Shriver figures that high because he is the only Catholic, and Massachusetts and New Hampshire are Catholic-heavy . . . But E & N are not discounting the Wallace threat; they believe he’ll come into the convention with more delegates than anyone else . . . Democratic state chairmen, in a UPI poll, are still leery of the entire crop of announced candidates, say they would favor Hubert Humphrey as the nominee . . . The ADA has checked in with its liberal litmus rating of the candidates. Mo Udall places first (81 per cent pure), followed by: Birch Bayh (79), Fred Harris (73), Henry Jackson (63), Lloyd Bentsen (40), and way down there, in the troglodyte area, Republican Gerald Ford (8). (Wallace, Reagan, Sanford, and Carter, not having been in Congress or the Senate, did not figure.) . . Numbers of those 75 liberal House freshmen wafted in a year ago in the Watergate backlash are running scared. So scared they’ve asked the ADA not to publish ratings on their voting record first year out. Says ADA staffer Sam Field: “A lot of the freshmen see [ADA ratings] as a cross to bear this year, particularly if they won in a normally conservative Republican district.”

What about the Republicans? The newest Christian Science Monitor poll of Republican state chairmen and national committeemen shows 72 believe Reagan won’t take the nomination from Ford, 14 believe he will, six “don’t know.” . . . Sen. Henry Bellmon (Oklahoma) says he is increasingly convinced that Ford will not get the nomination; Bellmon himself tends toward fellow Southwesterner John Connally of Texas.