■ Some summings-up of the year just ended; some expectations of the years ahead. A U.S. News poll shows that 54 per cent of the people think Jerry Brown is Jimmy Carter’s most likely Democratic rival in 1980, with every other Democrat on the list way down: Edward Kennedy 5 per cent, Daniel Moynihan 4 per cent, Frank Church 2 per cent. . . . Among likely Republican contenders Howard Baker leads a more closely packed field, with 25 per cent, followed by Gerald Ford 15 per cent, Ronald Reagan 12 per cent, and, bringing up the rear, Gov. Jim Thompson (Ill.) 6 per cent, John Connally 3 per cent, Sen. Robert Dole 2 per cent. . . . A Republican National Committee mailing to 1.2 million of the faithful (nearly 600,000 responded) shows Republicans seriously displeased with a number of Carter initiatives: 84 per cent opposed the South Korea troop withdrawals; 84 per cent opposed cancellation of B-1 bomber production; 96 per cent opposed any kind of U.S. assistance to Cambodia, Vietnam, or Cuba. . . . Who were the men most admired by Americans at year’s end? Jimmy Carter, 1; Anwar Sadat, 2; and Hubert Humphrey, 3. Tied at ninth place were Bob Hope and Pope Paul VI. . . . Among the women, the big three were: Rosalynn Carter, Golda Meir, and Anita Bryant.
■ Ronald Reagan’s running-mate, Richard Schweiker, is losing friends on the Left. His ADA rating in 1977 dropped from 80 to 15 per cent. . . . And Ralph Nader’s (consumerist) Public Citizen reports that Schweiker voted Nader’s way only 35 per cent of the time last year, as against 75 per cent a year earlier. . . . Other Public Citizen ratings: Four Democrats, Sens. Kennedy (Mass.), Clark (Iowa), Hart (Colo.), and Sarbanes (Md.) got the top consumerist ratings; four Republicans, Sens. Tower (Tex.), Curtis (Neb.), and Hansen and Wallop (Wyo.), the lowest.
Comments