THE CONVENTION: ONWARD TO NOVEMBER

• Share

One could almost hear shouts of "Hallelujah!"

The Democratic National Convention last week resembled nothing so much as a revivalist camp meeting, slickly managed, free of controversy and filled with love and compassion. More than 5,000 delegates and alternates milled around the crowded floor of New York's Madison Square Garden in a festive and forgiving mood. They even cheered Chicago Mayor Richard Daley and the memory of President Lyndon Johnson, both of whom not long ago were reviled symbols of the party's crippling dissensions in 1968 and 1972. Then, in a genuine spirit of unity, the delegates garlanded Jimmy Carter with the Democratic presidential nomination. While proclaimed dull because of its lack of suspense, the convention was highly significant. In Carter's now famous metaphor of faith, it saw the Democratic Party reborn. For the first time in more than a decade, it seemed possible that the old coalition of labor, the South and the blacks could be reconstituted.

Exulted Democratic National Committee Chairman Robert Strauss: "The state of our party is very good—organized, vibrant, forward-looking and hell-bent on victory." Said Douglas Fraser, a liberal United Auto Workers vice president who originally backed Morris Udall for the nomination: "It's a thirst for victory that we have, and we don't want to put that possibility in jeopardy." Added Daley: "We've been fighting too long and losing too long. Now we've got a great candidate who can win."

For Carter, the convention marked a new climax in a remarkable political ascent (just three years ago, when he was Governor of Georgia, panelists had failed to recognize him on What's My Line?). It also served to position him, more sharply than he had been perceived before, as a liberal. He did so by choosing Minnesota Senator Walter ("Fritz") Mondale as his running mate and by using the themes he struck in his acceptance speech.

Delivered in the soft and soothing Carter manner, the speech contained nothing of substance that he had not said before, but the wording was more emphatic and the setting, of course, national. Thus he struck many as a bit further to the left than he had been, though he is still some way from the party's McGovern wing. He promised the poor that he would seek jobs for "anyone able to work"—a traditional enough Democratic pledge. Carter also sounded several populist notes that jolted many voters and undoubtedly will change their perceptions of him. He spoke of a "political and economic elite" that can "always manage to occupy niches of special influence and privilege." He decried "unholy, self-perpetuating alliances [that] have been formed between money and politics." And he declared that he could "see no reason why big-shot crooks should go free and the poor ones go to jail." By way of balance he asserted that "Democrats believe that competition is preferable to regulation," called for "minimal intrusions of government in our free economic system" and urged "swift arrest and trial" for lawbreakers.