Nation: Playing the Florida Game

Carter and Kennedy face off in a quirky contest

Some day it may be a case history in the politics of much ado about nothing; of the latter-day American penchant to be first, even if it is with the least, to launch the presidential sweepstakes; to invent a game if there is no game in town. Welcome, fans, to Florida's theater of the absurd, where on Oct. 13 an unannounced candidate for re-election (Jimmy Carter) is pitted against an unannounced challenger (Edward Kennedy) in a dog-and-pony show without substance beyond what is made of—or made up about—it. A mere 1% of the state's 2.8 million registered Democrats are expected to turn out to vote in 67 county caucuses for slates of people who will have absolutely nothing to say about the delegates that Florida will eventually send to the 1980 Democratic National Convention. No matter. For weeks the money, the press, the cameras, the organizers have been pouring into Florida to blanket this nonevent, ensuring that at the very least one of the contenders will emerge grinning with "momentum" and the other with an Aesopian disclaimer that the outcome was, after all, meaningless. Probably both, alas, will be right. TIME Correspondent Richard Woodbury reports:

In a tiny, windowless office on West Palm Beach's Datura Street, Erica Bennett last week made one phone call after another to musical booking agents. Finally, she lined up the Gwen McCray group for a free performance at Gains Park next Saturday afternoon for 1,000 young people. But this will be disco with a difference: before going to the dance, each guest will be expected to stop by Forest Hill High School and cast a vote of confidence for Jimmy Carter.

While Bennett was making phone calls, three volunteers in a stark union hall eight miles northwest of Datura Street were preparing 3-in. by 5-in. cards for mailing to 1,800 members of the local branch of the machinists' union. The cards urged them to stop by Forest Hill High, but not to vote for Carter. Read the message: "Be there, Kennedy Democrats, October 13th."

From the populous Gold Coast to the rural panhandle, Florida Democrats these days are flushed with a premature case of presidential campaign fever. The cause is the round of caucuses on Oct. 13 at which Democrats will choose 878 delegates to a convention on Nov. 16-18 in St. Petersburg. There they will be joined by 839 other delegates, including party officials and officeholders, and cast a straw vote on their preference for the Democratic presidential nominee in 1980. It is one of the quirkier contests in the history of American politics, since it has a theoretical significance rating of about minus ten. Not until after a primary on March 11 will Florida Democrats select their 100 delegates to the Democratic National Convention.

Nonetheless, the Carter and Kennedy forces are waging an all-out battle over the caucuses, for the real target is not the hearts and minds of Florida's Democrats but the national newspaper headlines.