The Nation: Carter Faces the 'Fuzziness' Issue

The best jokes coming out of a campaign notably lacking in humor center on Jimmy Carter's alleged fuzziness on the issues. Samples:

> In a bridge game, after an opponent has raised the contract to three spades, Jimmy says, "Well, then I'll bid four." Four what? "I'll tell you after the convention."

> When his father asked young Jimmy if he chopped down the family's beloved peach tree, the lad responded, "Well, perhaps."

> Then there's Comic Pat Paulsen's line, "They wanted to put Carter on Mount Rushmore — but they didn't have room for two more faces."

Some people may be getting laughs out of the situation, but there is no doubt that the candidate has a serious problem with fuzziness. TIME Correspondent Stanley Cloud, who has covered Carter since late last year reports:

In the weeks leading up to last Tuesday's primary, Michigan voters saw TV commercials purporting to show the two faces of Carter. Caricatures, alternately smiling and scowling, were flashed on a split screen while an announcer reported that Carter has persistently taken different positions on various issues — from abortion to breaking up the oil companies. The commercials exhorted people to vote for Carter's leading liberal opponent, Udall. His narrow loss to the heavily favored Carter suggests that Udall's ads may have hit home.

Meanwhile, in Maryland, Jerry Brown had also accused Carter of straddling the issues. Post-election polls showed that even people who voted for Carter were not certain about his stands. Soundings over the past several months indicate that liberals who support Carter tend to see him as a liberal, while conservatives view him as a conservative. For Carter's opponents, that means the Georgian has misled the voters.

Higher Standard. The problem is far from new. Critics recalled last week that after First Lieut. William Galley Jr. was convicted in the spring of 1971 of murdering at least 22 South Vietnamese civilians at My Lai, Carter warned that "the ruling will seriously demoralize our troops." He described the conviction as a message to American soldiers that "we don't approve of your actions if you carry out orders." The next day, he proclaimed American Fighting Men's Day in Georgia to honor U.S. servicemen in Viet Nam. A month or so later, Carter modified his stand. He explained that he had "merely tried to escalate the Calley reaction into support for our fighting men, not just Calley." Said he: "I could never condone murder or the acts of Calley" — and suggested that his superior officers should have been held culpable too.

Now even some of Carter's severest critics concede that he is probably as specific on most issues as any of his Democratic opponents. But they insist, too, that he should be held to a higher standard because he is the clear front runner and because he has promised "never to lie" to the voters.