Page 2
Demo Convention: A Mixed Bag
[Editor’s note: The following is the final
part of a behind-the-scenes report on
the recent Democratic convention by
author Loyd Little, composer Bland Simpson
and cartoonist Bruce Strauch ]
“7b Arm who conquers I wUI give
some of the hidden manna, and t
wUI give him a white stone with a
new name written on the stone,
with a new name written on the
stone which no one knows except
him who receives it. ”
—Revelations 1:17
NEW YORK—When Jimmy Carter finally
announced he had selected Walter “Fritz”
Mwuiile as his running mate, some Tar Heel
delegates wondered if the manna was turning
out to be a hard roll instead.
Robert Morgan, North Carolina’s pint-sized
conservative senator, said, “Sen. Mondale is
more liberal than most North Carolinians
would like and more than I would like. But he's
a good man and he's an honest liberal. If I had
been able to choose, I would have chosen a
more states-rights man, but it wasn’t my
choice.
“I served with Sen. Mondale for 14 months
an the same committee and I think he’s an
honest man. With the experience he will get as
vice presidential candidate traveling around
the country, I hope he will come to appreciate
how well local governments work.”
Morgan also said he thought the power of
the South would increase in Congress if Carter
is elected president. “We’re already seeing
this right now,” he said.
Moments before Carter announced his
choice, CBS radio announced over the
intercom system of the New York Hilton that
Maine Sen. Ed Muakie was not Carter’s choice
and many in the Tar Heel delegation cheered.
Few would or could specify why they did not
like Muskie. It seemed that the Carolina
Democrats, like most of the other 4,904
delegates and alternates to the national
Democratic Convention, wanted a fresh,
untainted face in the arena.
H.M. “Michey” Michaux of Durham was one
delegate who applauded the choice of
Mondale. Asked if he was pleased, Michaux
said, “Absolutely. I think people are
extremely pleased with him. Sen. Mondale
brings to the ticket the national experience
that everybody's been talking about.
“Not only that, but he brings a personal
experience that a lot of people can accept. I
think he is going to add more than any of the
other candidates under consideration. I think
be can bring in a lot of people.
“I think Sen. Muskie knocked himself out of
tiie running in his speech the first night. I
think he was going after it (the nomination) a
little bit too hard.
Michaux said he didn't think adding
Mondale would hurt the ticket in the South
because people would realize it takes all kinds
of representation and that Carter himself
would carry the South.
“While Mondale is a liberal, he’s not a
flaming liberal. I don’t think we’ll have any
problem with the ticket.” said Michaux.
After the momentary surge in conversation
that passed for excitement over Mondale’s
selection, the North Carolina delegation
moved swiftly into more pressing matters
such as the absence of coffee at its caucuses.
Jim Sugg, state Democratic chairman,
apologized to the delegation that “nothing
meaningful had happened about getting coffee
r _
Carolina Financial Times
and doughnuts for the morning caucuses.
“It would have cost us SI,OOO to $1,500, and
we thought that the money would be better
spent on the fall campaign,” said Sugg.
Tired of the harrowing pace, the North
Carolina delegation spent the post-Mondale
section of Thursday morning meeting
talking over packing up and going home the
following day. Sugg received a special round of
applause for his work in organizing the affair.
Sugg also delighted in handing out 50 or so
copies of a 45 rpm record by Tar Heel
troubadour Les Waldroop, entitled ‘The
Peanut Farmer,” which Waldroop had been
peddling in the parking lot of the Hilton.
Waldroop had authored “The Watergate Bug”
only two years earlier.
An excited gasp ran through the delegation,
especially the female side, when a dapper male
delegate announced he would be serving
Bloody Marys in his suite from 8-11 the
next morning and that he “hoped to be up by
8."
What was that “hope to be up” business?
Was the twitter from the women an
expression of hope that the Bloody Mary man
would forget to set his alarm or even call the
Hilton wake-up service, and that the early
arrivals to the drinkfest would find the man
STILL IN BED?
And ruin the convention’s pollyanna aura?”
* * *
Chapel Hill land developer Wallace
Kaufman, an alternate and also a columnist for
the Financial Times, summed up the
convention this way: “It has been the most
boring political affair I've been to in a long
time, but possibly the most useful.”
* * *
North Carolina Attorney General Rufus
Edmisten was neither a delegate nor an
alternate to the convention, but he was among
a large party of guests and friends of the Tar
Heel delegation which drifted in, out and
around the New York Hilton delegation
headquarters.
Rufus has been mentioned by some
observers as a potential gubernatorial
candidate in the future. And “I’m for Rufus”
buttons were indeed circulating around the
convention.
But when correspondent Strauch saw Rufus
wandering alone down Seventh Ave. outside
the Garden, he just shrugged off the whole
“I’m For Rufus” affair.
“I don’t really see myself running for
governor of North Carolina as the office is
presently constituted,” Rufus said. “You have
no veto power and you can’t succeed yourself.
You spend the first two years making
appointments and the next two making
enemies.
“Run for Congress? Not after spending 10
years in Washington working for Sam Ervin.”
Rufus looked exceedingly relaxed as he
tucked the newspaper he was carrying
under his arm and strolled on up Seventh Ave.
A man without political ambition can always
be relaxed, unlike grasping and power-hungry
swine like these desperate reporters.
* * *
At the Thursday morning caucus, Little
noticed one of the delegates, a big beefy fellow
who looked like a Midwestern farmer,
carrying a square package, out of which he
pulled a record album. The album jacket was
an enormous pair of red lips with the name
“RUFUS” screaming across the top.
The guy whom the beefy delegate showed it
to cracked up at the reference to the state’s
fighting attorney general. The first guy
handed the other a pen and said, “Here. Sign
this. We gon’ give it to Rufus.” Still laughing
and giggling, the second man obliged.
Later, the beefy delegate showed the record
to Sugg and by that time the album had many
signatures on it. Little was across the room
and as he turned away he thought he saw Sugg
tenderly kiss the lips and snake his head,
laughing.
* * *
Could it be that the “I’m For Rufus” buttons
were actually an advertising gimmick for some
hot-shot rock ’n roll singer?
"After this I looked, and, behold,
a door was opened in heaven: and
the first voice which I heard was
as it were of a trumpet talking
with me; which said, Come up
hither, and I will shew thee things
which must be hereafter. ”
—Revelation 1:1
Later Thursday afternoon, Strauch got
through to Ruth Stapleton of Fayetteville,
Jimmy Carter’s now-famous sister, at the
Americana Hotel.
She had come a long way from her start as a
lay Baptist preacher and this week her
interviews were screened by a press
committee. But Strauch’s grandmother was
best buddies with her from the old days and
had even appeared on “Sixty Minutes” with
her, so Ruth did not hesitate to give an
interview over the phone.
Ruth Stapleton believes we are on the verge
of becoming a Christian country again to the
point that people will be able to talk of their
belief in God without feeling the least shame
or embarrassment. She thinks a change will
occur very shortly and is happening
independently of her brother’s surge toward
the White House.
She intensely believes in miracles and
described an event in which she and a group of
friends prayed intently with their eyes closed
for 20 minutes over a small boy with a
withered arm. At the end of that time, they
opened their eyes to find that the boy’s arm
had become strong and grown six inches.
‘The boy’s father is a doctor and there were
three other doctors in the group,” she said. “If
anyone ought to know about these things, it’s
doctors.”
In fact, at least 35 doctors in North Carolina
either believe in or at least are sufficiently
intrigued by the power of prayer that they
have formed an association to investigate the
phenomenon.
Meanwhile, Ruth intends to continue her
Christian work and perhaps get more involved
in politics.
* * *
Is Carter what he seems?
He seems to be. He may be, in the opinion of
many delegates, an authentic good guy. If
there are any skeletons in his closet, he has
failed to make enemies who will reveal them.
He may also be as liberal as George
McGovern —after all, his platform includes
national health insurance—but his issue was
integrity of government, not the Vietnam
(Continued on page 14)
July 26,1976