DEMOCRATS: Jimmy Carter's Big Breakthrough

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The 1976 script called for the longest, most grueling run of Democratic primaries and caucuses in U.S. history. In an effort to make the selection system more open, the Democrats had rewritten their ground rules for campaigning and Congress drastically tightened the laws on financing. Nearly a dozen serious candidates, some household names and others almost unknown, had formally entered the fray. On the sidelines hovered two of the party's most formidable figures. According to all the conventional wisdom, the process was going to be a marathon shambles, producing nearly five months of furious activity but probably settling nothing.

Suddenly, only a third of the way through the obstacle course, the race was all but over. Starting out 17 months ago with no national political base, name recognition or backing from powerful interest groups, onetime Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter had carved out on his own a broad constituency of smalltown and rural voters, blue-collar ethnics, white-collar suburbanites, inner-city blacks. Week after week, winning primaries in the North, South and Midwest, he steadily thinned the ranks of his rivals. Last week by triumphing decisively and against formidable odds in Pennsylvania's pivotal primary, he all but crushed his remaining opposition, including Democratic Senior Statesman Hubert Humphrey.

The votes had hardly been counted when James Earl Carter Jr., one of the most phenomenal politicians to rise on the American political scene in this century, was talking about what kind of a President he would be. In an interview last week, he mused to TIME Correspondent Dean E. Fischer: "Most of my attitude toward Government is very aggressive. I wouldn't be a quiescent or a timid President."

Then he talked about his heroes. "My favorite modern President is Harry Truman. He exemplified the kind of Administration I would like to have." Carter said that he admired Truman's honesty, vision in foreign policy and "closeness with the American people." He also has a high regard for John Kennedy as a "much more inspirational President" than Truman, and for Lyndon Johnson's deep concern for the poor and the weak and his skill in pushing legislation through Congress. He spoke of Winston Churchill as the pre-eminent leader of our time, of Charles de Gaulle as uniquely expressing "the ideals and hopes and pride of the French," and of Mohandas Gandhi as the embodiment of "quiet courage."

Obviously no mortal can hope to exhibit all of these qualities, though some of Carter's detractors wonder whether he knows that. No matter; in the euphoria of last week, most things must have seemed possible to Jimmy Carter, as he rode the crest of his campaign for the presidency. So certain was he, with good reason, of winning the Democratic nomination at Madison Square Garden in July that he began making a list of whom he might choose as a running mate. He says that his most important considerations are to pick someone who is qualified to step up as President if necessary, a person "compatible with me on basic issues and general philosophy" and offering "some sort of geographical or other balance on the ticket." According to insiders at the Democratic National Committee, Carter's list includes two liberal U.S. Senators: Minnesota's