2 The Dslly Tar Heel Tuesday, November 25, 1975
by f.!!ks Home
DTH Contributor
Three U.S. Presidents Andrew Jackson,
James Polk and Andrew Johnson were
born in North Carolina.
Now a North Carolinian, Terry Sanford,
is trying to become number four.
Most people give him about the same
chance as a snowball in hell. But Sanford
says he's a serious candidate. Tve got far too
much to do in this world to be out on some
foolish venture," he says.
Who is Terry Sanford, anyway? What
kind of man is he? What makes him tick?
And why in the world does he think he can be
President?
To answer these questions, I flew to New
Hampshire, site of the nation's first
presidential primary and traveled with
Sanford and his staff on a two-day campaign
swing.
1 arrived in the small town of Keene just
after noon Thursday, Oct. 1 6. The only other
passenger on the rickety twin-engine plane
drove me to Keene State College, where
Sanford was scheduled to speak at 2 p.m.
Although Sanford was once governor of
North Carolina (1961-65) and is now
president of Duke University, my driver had
never heard of him and wasn't impressed
when I told him that Sanford is running for
president.
After 1 arrived at the college, the first five
people including a receptionist I spoke
to also hadn't heard of Sanford, much less
knew that he was to speak on campus in an
hour.
A girl at the student union main desk
didn't know about Sanford either, but she
handed me a campus schedule. "Did you
know that President Ford came by here last
week?" she asked as 1 glanced at the
schedule. "He was supposed to stop, but we
were all crowded in the street, and his car
kept going, the bum."
At the bottom of the schedule was a small
notation: "Presidential candidate speaks at 2
p.m. in the Conference Room." There was
no name, not that it mattered since he was
apparently unknown to most students there.
What is there to know about Sanford?
He's not a charismatic, flashy politician who
draws crowds like a magnet. His quiet wit
and Southern charm come across better at
cocktail parties than political rallies.
Born in the watermelon-growing town of
Laurinburg on Aug. 20, 1917, Sanford was
one of four children. His father worked in a
hardware store; his mother taught school.
Later, he worked his way through UNC
first as an undergraduate, then as a law
student delivering the Daily Tar Heel and
waiting on tables in the University cafeteria.
After brief hitches as a U.S. Army
paratrooper and a special agent for the
Federal Bureau of Investigation, Sanford
entered politics. He was president of the
North Carolina Young Democrats Club in
1949-50, a member of the North Carolina
Senate in 1953-54 and director of W. Kerr
Scott's successful candidacy for the U.S.
Senate in 1955.
Then came his governorship and
appointment as Duke University's sixth
president in 1969. . .. . r . . .
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Terry Sanford dictates in his rather cluttered Duke office. Sanford has been
president of Duke University since 1969.
Sanford
speaks
on issues
Unemployment:
"We've never said it was the policy of this
country that we'll manage the economy so
everyone can get a job... We've said we want
to manage the economy so the dollar stays
sound, even if it means throwing millions of
people out of work."
Speech, Keene State College, Keene, N.H.,
Oct. 16
Education:
"The federal government has not
provided its share of the cost of education
and has exceeded its share of interference..
Education is an American hope not fully
realized because it has not been adequately
supported financially. 1 would fight for
additional funds."
Anouncement Speech, Washington, May 29
Military spending:
"We can make an immediate reduction'
totaling at least 15 per cent of our defense
budget. Over the next few years, we should
be able to whittle away at that budget until
we are spending only about half, at most, of
our public expenditures ort military items." .
News Conference, Washington, July 2.
Amnesty:
"I think the time has come to forget all the
details and just wipe the slate clean. I'd let
everybody come home."
Speech, Des Moines, Iowa, June 10
Womens rights:
"I'm credited
with appointing more
can
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"Everything I've done, I've done right," he
says, looking back on his accomplishments.
"There's nobody who could run a state the
way 1 ran one, and there are few who could
run a university like 1 do."
Sanford's only real political defeat came
after he became a Democratic presidential
candidate in March 1972, when George
Wallace trounced him in the North Carolina
primary the only primary Sanford
entered by 107,000 votes.
Sanford announced his second
presidential bid on May 29. A life-long
Democrat and a liberal, he wants basic
changes in U.S. government and society.
More money should be spent on education
and the environment, he says, and the
government should guarantee jobs and
medical care for everyone. Sanford also
thinks military spending should be cut
drastically.
But few of the New Hampshire college
student knew any of this about Sanford
when arrived at the Keene State College
conference room.
When I approached, he automatically
grabbed my hand and shook it
enthusiastically. Then, recognizing a fellow
North Carolinian, he released the firm grip,
and his campaign grin vanished. -
Sanford's grin makes most everyone
smile. Perfect strangers says he's got a kind
of charisma and maybe a hometown-boy
look. But only when you've been around him
a while do you realize it's all in his grin.
He spoke to approximately 35 students in
the conference room for only a few
minutes just long enough to plug his
campaign motto "I think it's time to
reinstate the American revolution then-
women to boards and commissions and jobs
than any governor. I did appoint a woman
for the first time to the (N.C.) Supreme
Court... I am and always have been for ERA
(Equal Right Admendment)."
Panel Discussion, New York, May 17
Israel:
"I support Israel not because it is in the
best interest of the United States which it
is... The United States can be friends with the
Arab States, and in my opinion we must be
friends with the Arab States but not at the
expense of Israel's life."
Speech, Miami, June 7
Foreign aid:
"Far better that we give food to hungry
people than that we give military materials to
the rulers of those hungry people in order to
keep them down."
Speech, Nebraska City, June 9
Gun Control:
"I don't think it's possible to have a gun
control law in this country that's going to
satisfy anything near a majority of the
people. I would take action on two levels,
national and state."
Speech, Bedford, N.H., Oct. 16
Welfare:
"It locks people up into a welfare type of
life and doesn't let them make anything of
their lives."
Speech, Exeter, N.H., Oct. 17
Government housing:
"We build our own ghettos; we're not
satisfied to let them spring up by
themselves."
Speech, Bedford, N.H. Oct. 16
Socialized medicine:
"I don't think much of socialized medicine,
because it takes away too much of the
initiative. I do believe in changing our
medical program so that medical care is a
right and not a privilege for those who can
pay for it."
Speech, Bedford, N.H., Oct. 16
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At left, Sanford chats with Prime Minister Pierre
Trudeau of Canada. Above, he walks in his yard. Right,
he holds football at the UNC-Duke football game last
Saturday. Sanford is an avid fan of the Duke Blue
Devils.
called for questions.
He's far from being a dynamic speaker.
His slow Southern drawl often lulled the
New Hampshire audiences, who may have
expected a footstomping, podium
slamming, shouting politician. George
Wallace once commented about Sanford:
"Have vou ever heard him make a speech?
He'll bore your ass off."
Aware of this weakness, Sanford seldom
spoke for more than 15 minutes at one time
in New Hampshire. He preferred to answer
questions, on a one-to-one basis, directly
and quietly.
Likewise, he began a quiet conversation
with several students when he finished his
talk at Keene. "I don't want to bore you with
what I think," he said. "I'd lots rather hear
what you young people are thinking."
College students provide much of
Sanford's support. Most of his campaign
members are in their middle 20s.
His youthful backers exhibit the same
kind of gritty determination as their
candidate. Many of them, like Bill Bost, New
Hampshire campaign coordinator and
deputy New England coordinator, were
among a group of Duke and UNC students
who drafted Sanford into the 1972
presidential campaign.
"I've never been as sick as the night of the
North Carolina primary," Bost said,
referring to Sanford's loss to Wallace.
Now Bost and two . other aides were
rushing Sanford out of Keene for a 30
minute drive to the isolated village of
Rindge, home of Franklin Pierce College.
An extremely large speakers' platform was
set up in the school's field house. The
platform was draped with American flags
1
Or how
Four years ago, a former North Carolina
governor and current Duke University
president decided he had as much ability to
be president of the U nited States as any other
presidential candidate, so he announced to a
disinterested nation his own candidacy for
that high office.
But before he could be humiliated by the
entire country, his effort was killed in his
home state's primary by another Southern
candidate, George Wallace.
So went the brief 1972 presidential
candidacy of Terry Sanford. But after
licking the wounds of that defeat, Sanford
has crept back into the 1976 presidential
dogfight.
This time things are different, Sanford
says. "I wasn't a serious candidate in '72; I'm
a serious candidate now."
Sanford entered the 1972 presidential race
less than a month before the March North
Carolina primary, after students from Duke
and UNC collected 25,000 signatures two
and a half times the number required on a
presidential petition urging him to run for
president.
Although Sanford campaigned hard
across North Carolina during the three and a
half weeks before the primary, state voters
hardly took his efforts seriously. Wallace
received 51 per cent of the votes while
Sanford got only 39 per cent.
Since then he has had little doubt that he
would run for president in 1976.
"This time 1 wasn't going to be late getting
into the campaign," he says.
On May 29, he became the sixth candidate
for the Democratic presidential nomination.
Since that time, the field of Democratic
contenders has grown to 1 1: Rep. Morris K.
Udall, D-Ariz.; former Georgia Gov. Jimmy
Carter; former Sen. Fred R. Harris, D
Okla.; Sen. Henry M. Jackson, D-Wash.;
Sen. Lloyd Bentsen, D-Tex ; Sen. Birch
Bayh, D-Ind.; Pennsylvania Gov. Milton J.
Shapp; R. Sargent Shriver; Alabama Gov.
George Wallace; and Sen. Hubert
Humphrey, D-Minn., who won't run in the
primaries but says he would accept the
party's nomination.
All of the candidates are more seasoned
politicians than Sanford, and more have
money and support.
Sanford hasn't held a public office in 10
years, and his North Carolina governorship
gained him relatively little national
attention. Only 14 per cent of the nation
recognized his name in a Gallup Poll in late
1974.
But Sanford is quick to note that 1972
Democratic nominee George McGovern was
known by only 5 per cent of the public, at a
All stories on this page were
written by DTH contributor Mike
Home, who travelled with Terry
Sanford in New Hampshire Oct.
16 and 17.
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and seemed too elaborate for Sanford
Democratic president hopeful and former
governor of Georgia, Jimmy Carter, spoke
from the same platform the week before, and
several other candidates were scheduled to
visit the college.
Again Sanford spoke only briefly before
calling for questions. His voice carried
poorly in the drafty building, and he seemed
irritated when he couldn't hear some
questions. Several students shuffled in their
seats and finally walked out, clomping over
the wooden floor.
No one said much in the car as we left
Franklin Pierce. No one except Sanford,
who seemed determined to keep everyone's
spirits high. As we passed a lake below the
college, Bill asked him, "Do you think you
could get a lake like that built at Duke?"
"I've already got one," Sanford said,
pausing. "At Camp David."
Sanford and his three aides in the car
began talking excitedly about the next
stop the opening banquet of the New
Hampshire Educators Association
convention. The stop hadn't been scheduled,
but an office of the association suggested
that Sanford stop by. Sanford was slated as
the main speaker for the award banquet the
next day.
He thought the group would be receptive,
since he is known as a strong supporter of
education.
But those at the convention weren't
waiting with open arms. As Sanford entered
the motel "banquet room, a man asked him
which school board he belonged to.
The reception inside the banquet room
was hardly better. At least 350 people were
crowded into the room, some standing and
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to run when everyone else is running too
similar point in his presidential campaign.
Although Sanford's campaign is only
getting started, he doesn't think he is behind
the other candidates. "And if 1 am, so what?
We've got plenty of time to get our
organization into play. That's better than
having spent time and money spinning our
wheels."
Sanford had originally planned a personal
presidential campaign, with handshaking
and baby-kissing, but he has altered his
campaigning some since a New Hampshire
visit in J une. One afternoon he stood outside
an insurance company in Portsmouth to
shake hands with the employees leaving
work. Of approximately 300 workers who
passed him, only 30 bothered to shake his
hand.
So there'll be no more visits to
supermarkets and sidewalks to shake hands,
Sanford says. "1 just can't believe that a
person would vote for me just because he
shook my hand. And if he would, well, I
don't deserve that vote anyway."
Sanford's major campaign problem
remains what it was in 1972, letting people
know who he is and that he is serious about
running.
To build recognition, Sanford's campaign
is laid out like dominoes, relying on a good
showing in one state primary to attract
voters in the next. Currently, he's
concentrating on New Hampshire,
Massachusettes and North Carolina, sites of
the first three primaries.
He hopes to compete in 20 of the 33
primaries. If he does not do well in the
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talking, many in the buffet line.
None
seemed to know Sanford.
The candidate stood talking to an aide and
another man as he was ignored by the crowd.
Finally, the man talking to Sanford grabbed
a microphone and told the crowd that
Sanford was attending the banquet. "Maybe
some of you can speak to Mr. Sanford," he
added.
The crowd began talking again. No one
spoke to Sanford, and he left quietly.
Even Sanford seemed discouraged after
that stop. In the car, he sat silently and
nodded off several times, only to awakened
when someone spoke. Once he jerked awake
and blurted, "We've got to know what this
group wants to hear."
He was referring to a Common Cause
group at St. Anselm's College in Bedford,
Thursday's last stop.
At the college, 30 people sat in an
assembly room with space for at least 100.
"Oh, that's really a packed house," Sanford
muttered. Bost tried to console him, saying
that everyone was home watching the World
Series.
Sanford looked weary as he stepped to the
podium before blazing television lights. The
questions lagged, and Sanford's answers
trailed into tangents.
After less than an hour, the audience
began shuffling. "Well, there's a great
baseball game on TV, and it's in the second
inning," Sanford said, sounding relieved.
"So I'd better stop."
As we left, an aide tore a small poster from
a cluttered bulletin board and handed it to
Sanford. He read it silently, then aloud,
barely smiling: "Terry Sanford, former
governor of South Carolina, speaks."
Like most politicians, Sanford's
primaries, he might travel around the
country seeking support from uncommitted
convention delegates. Then if the
Democratic National Convention in July
1976 deadlocks, these delegates might turn
to him.
But he knows better than to count on such
a longshot. Sanford will have to go through
the primaries like the rest of the candidates.
Most important, he has to win the North
Carolina primary. "If I don't win my home
state, I can't compete anywhere else," he
says.
In North Carolina, Sanford will be
Will he accept
the vice-presidency?
Sanford has said repeatedly that
he would rather be president of
Duke University than vice president
of the country. "I think the reasons
are obvious," he explains."At Duke
I'm my own man. A vice president
has to be the willing tool of the
President, and I just don't see any
point in my place in life to take on
that role." Sanford begins a one
year sabbatical from Duke on Jan. 1
to devote his full attentions to his
presidential campaign.
opposed by his old nemesis, George Wallace.
So far, Sanford has attempted to create a
classic confrontation between himself and
Wallace a David and Goliath battle-to-the-finish.
"I think it's a positive campaign against a
negative campaign," he explains.
"Therefore, when Wallace and I meet, it will
be a contest of opposites."
This do-or-die publicity may backfire,
however. If Jimmy Carter enters the North
Carolina primary w hich is likely Sanford
would no longer be the only liberal
alternative to Wallace. He and Carter would
compete for the moderate and liberal votes,
while Wallace swept his standby
conservatives.
But Priscilla Hartle, president of the
North Carolina Young Democrats' Club,
said in a recent interview that she thinks
North Carolina Democrats will turn to
Sanford, even if Carter. enters the primary.
Ben Utley, executive director of the state
campaigning didn't end when the speeches
were over. His Holiday Inn room ,
Manchester Thursday night faced the
educators hospitality suite, and he spent half
the night mingling with laughing, boozing
strangers. .
Thursday's experiences would have
discouraged most people enough to take an
early flight back home, but Sanford beamed
with optimism Friday morning in Exeter at a
breakfast for potential supporters.
He joked with the eight people there-of
20 invited about football. Southern grits
and Gerald Ford. One giggling woman
grabbed Sanford before leaving and
announced that she hadn't heard such
interesting breakfast conversation m her
more than 30 years of marriage. -
The pace picked up even further when
Sanford traveled to Phillips Exeter
Academy, an exclusive prep school for
Harvard University, for a speech. He had
expected an informal talk with a few young
political enthusiasts, but instead,
approximately 700 excited students were
jammed into a modern auditorium.
H is speech was interrupted with applause
when he said President Ford is w rong for not
aiding New York City. "I think it's
unthinkable that the President is going to let
the financial capital of this country and the
world go down the drain," Sanford said.
The students listened intensely as he
explained his stand on marijuana
legalization: "I think it ought not to be
legalized. But I think small use of it should be
decriminalized. I think young men and
women should not be sent off to jail just
because they smoke it. If so, a lot of young
people in America today would be in jail."
Although exuberant about the Exeter
stop, less than an hour later Sanford paced
nervously outside the New Hampshire
educators' meeting, remembering his cool
reception at their banquet the night before.
His nervousness increased during a languid
lunch and nearly an hour of acceptance
speeches by educators receiving awards.
"I was sore, I was sore as hell with them for
messing around so long," Sanford said later.
"I could have just said, 'I've got to go; I'll see
you later." But instead I said to myself, 'You
just go in there and give 'em hell," and I did."
During his speech, he shouted to the
educators, "We're not talking about
teachers; we're talking about children. We're
not even talking about a profession; we're
talking about the future of America. That's
what I want to talk about; that why 1 believe
in education..."
The 1 50 educators jumped to their feet and
applauded as Sanford left the room.
So the New Hampshire trip ended much
better for Sanford than it began. "1 believe
we've finally got some interest generated in
New Hampshire, something we can build
on," he said flying home.
He sat quietly, sipping a Bloody Mary and
listening to a tape of his speech to the
educators. When the tape ended, he stared
listlessly. His face strained and his usually
bright eyes were clouded and red. After
several moments, he said almost
urgently "You know, sometimes I think 1
really get them. Then other times there's
nothing." -.- -.
Democratic Party, said Sanford needs to
wipe out voters' memories of his North
Carolina defeat by Wallace in 1972.
"We think the more Sanford has a chance
to get before the people, the better is his
chance of making up that difference of
1972."
North Carolina voters have changed since
1972 and will choose Sanford over Wallace
this time, says Peter Gilmore, president of
the North Carolina College Democrats.
"I think people are just seeing how
ludicrous Wallace has been. And people are
thinking about Sanford and what he is
saying," Gilmore said recently.
Wilbur Hobby, state AFL-CIO leader,
said, "I think it's possible for him (Sanford)
to beat Wallace. Sanford is getting more
exposure now than he did in 1972."
Once people find out who Terry Sanford
is, then they'll begin considering w hether he's
a worthy presidential candidate. Hobby
said.
Despite his problems with recognition,
Sanford's campaign has progressed to the
point of qualifying for matching federal
campaign funds, granted on Oct. 22.
To qualify for federal funds, a presidential
candidate must receive $5,000 in individual
contributions of no more than S250 in each
of 20 states. The federal government then
matches contributions of $250 oc less, up to a
total of $5 million.
Other Democratic candidates having
qualified for federal funds are Bentsen,
Carter, Shriver, Udall, Wallace and
Jackson.
The new campaign finance laws limit
individual contributions to $1,000.
Consequently, candidates are forced to
obtain money from a greater number of
people.
"I'll tell you, it's a lot easier to get S20,000
from a person that it is to get $250," Sanford
says. "People like to give really large
amounts because it shows up, but giving the
same amount as everyone is not appealing."
Sanford's platform sounds much like
those of the other Democratic candidates:
full employment, lower inflation and less
military aggression.
"I think it's proper that most Democrats
are talking about Ford and what needs to be
done for changes in the White House,"
Sanford says. "We ought to be talking more
or less the same things."
One point he is stressing that separates
him from the other candidates is his isolation
from Washington politics. After Watergate,
people will turn to any candidate who
doesn't have a Washington address. Sanford
says.
"1 think that's a fatal handicap now," he
says. "I don't think anybody from
Washington can win this election if they hav e
any opposition from anybody outside of
Washington. How can all those people
complain about what the government's
doing when they've been a part of it?"