For the Record

America’s leading pollsters are not about to put their necks on the line on this one. Two weeks before election, George Gallup was saying: “It’s the most unpredictable election in my forty years of polling.” Daniel Yankelovich: “Voters will tell you one thing today and something else tomorrow.” Louis Harris: “The election is up for grabs.” (Jimmy the Greek: Carter is shading Ford, but just.) … In mid-October, Harris had Carter leading Ford by four points in four-way race including Lester Maddox (has anyone heard from Maddox since his nomination?) and Eugene McCarthy, while Gallup showed Carter leading by six points. . . . Harris pointed out that on the subject of “trust” Ford has moved ahead of Carter (39 to 38 per cent) among voters at large, and that— more important—Ford now leads Carter on the issue of trust among independent voters by 41 to 28 per cent. . . . Richard Scammon, in U.S. News interview, says he doesn’t think McCarthy will get anything like the 6 to 8 per cent of the vote the polls showed him getting in early October. The closer the Ford-Carter race, says Scammon, the worse the Independent Party candidate will do. . . . McCarthy’s candidacy is proving alarming to a former McCarthy Kid—Sam Brown, 1968 McCarthy supporter and organizer of the most successful anti-Vietnam War Moratorium. “Carter,” says Brown, “is a progressive whom we can happily support,” so Brown is placing ads in The New Republic and the Nation in late October urging left-liberals not to vote for McCarthy. Among the signatories of the ads: H. Stuart Hughes, Michael Harrington, Jules Feiffer, and former ADA Chairman Joseph Duffey.

Some campaign incidentals: San Francisco Examiner editor Reg Murphy, who had opposed Governor Jimmy Carter when Murphy was editor of the Atlanta Constitution back when, wasn’t given press credentials by the Carter press chief Jody Powell until the third week in October. . . . An ice cream parlor in southern Michigan that has been taking its own presidential poll reports that Jerry Ford Butter Fudge Sundaes are far outselling the Jimmy Carter Peanut Jubilees. . . . And George Gallup confesses that when he drew up a list of 38 possible Democratic presidential nominees in December 1975, Jimmy Carter’s name was nowhere to be found on the list.

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Presidential Election

America’s leading pollsters are not about to put their necks on the line on this one. Two weeks before election, George Gallup was saying: “It’s the most unpredictable election in my forty years of polling.” Daniel Yankelovich: “Voters will tell you one thing today and something else tomorrow.” Louis Harris: “The election is up for grabs.” (Jimmy the Greek: Carter is shading Ford, but just.) … In mid-October, Harris had Carter leading Ford by four points in four-way race including Lester Maddox (has anyone heard from Maddox since his nomination?) and Eugene McCarthy, while Gallup showed Carter leading by six points. . . . Harris pointed out that on the subject of “trust” Ford has moved ahead of Carter (39 to 38 per cent) among voters at large, and that— more important—Ford now leads Carter on the issue of trust among independent voters by 41 to 28 per cent. . . . Richard Scammon, in U.S. News interview, says he doesn’t think McCarthy will get anything like the 6 to 8 per cent of the vote the polls showed him getting in early October. The closer the Ford-Carter race, says Scammon, the worse the Independent Party candidate will do. . . . McCarthy’s candidacy is proving alarming to a former McCarthy Kid—Sam Brown, 1968 McCarthy supporter and organizer of the most successful anti-Vietnam War Moratorium. “Carter,” says Brown, “is a progressive whom we can happily support,” so Brown is placing ads in The New Republic and the Nation in late October urging left-liberals not to vote for McCarthy. Among the signatories of the ads: H. Stuart Hughes, Michael Harrington, Jules Feiffer, and former ADA Chairman Joseph Duffey.

Some campaign incidentals: San Francisco Examiner editor Reg Murphy, who had opposed Governor Jimmy Carter when Murphy was editor of the Atlanta Constitution back when, wasn’t given press credentials by the Carter press chief Jody Powell until the third week in October. . . . An ice cream parlor in southern Michigan that has been taking its own presidential poll reports that Jerry Ford Butter Fudge Sundaes are far outselling the Jimmy Carter Peanut Jubilees. . . . And George Gallup confesses that when he drew up a list of 38 possible Democratic presidential nominees in December 1975, Jimmy Carter’s name was nowhere to be found on the list.