The Ithaca Journal from Ithaca, New York • Page 2

2 II HACA JOl'RNAL Aup. 12, 1980 1 ftiMffi 1 'mmmmi is yeo Limj Joseph who he night's Gorman of Pennsylvania shows likes for president at Monday session. Eleanor Reed of Pennsylvania wears a long face after the attempt to unseat President Carter failed. Mrs. Rose Kennedy, 62, of Oregon, despite her name, shows her support for a Carter-Mondale ticket.

Maxine S. Goldstein of Georgia waves a Carter-Mondale poster during the Monday night speeches. Photos by AP Marvin Meek of Texas walks around the convention wearing a variety ol anti-carter buttons and stickers. Democrats end the (Ted) Kennedy myth cians were puzzled over Kennedy's persistence after Carter had won more than enough votes in the primaries By WILLIAM RINGLE Gannett News Service NEW YORK The vote was ostensibly about an "open convention," but it was mainly about Ted Kennedy's career and a lot more. Kennedy publicly acknowledged that, an hour and 23 minutes after the vote Monday night, by proclaiming "I am a realist" and withdrawing his name from the contest for the Democratic presidential nomination.

It ended the myth if the primaries hadn't that had loomed over the last three Democratic conventions: "Ted Kennedy could have it if he'd just raise his finger." The vote also was about the loyalty of the Carter delegates. Kennedy had raised more than his finger in a dump-Carter strategy wrapped in the noble precept of an "open convention." He appeared to stand to gain from an economy that continued to falter, from continuing inflation, from revelations caused by the misdeeds of the president's brother, from growing resentment over U.S. failures overseas, from Republican nominee Ronald Reagan's rise and Carter's slump in the polls Also going for him was an independent "open convention" movement, avowedly not pledged to any candidate. But nowhere during the evening did he show any formidable drawing power. The biggest single group he lured was 30 delegates in Minnesota, a state that had gone to the convention with a batch of 37 uncommitted anyway.

Carter got 45 there. dropped one. The Carter forces said they were seeking conciliation, accomodation and party unity. Yet, even while abandoning his candidacy, Kennedy vowed he'd stick to his plan to speak to the convention tonight, the day it takes up the platform, "about the concerns that have been the heart of my campaign." The core of Kennedy's proposals has been economic a call for a $12 billion jobs program to fight recession, wage and price controls to fight inflation. In addition, he is pushing for a plank calling for a phase-in of national health insurance.

Although the Carter forces have said that the costs of these programs, plus the fact that wage-and-price controls run athwart his policies, make them unacceptable to the president, his aides said that compromises in language may be worked out. But Kennedy's collapse on the "open convention" rule takes much of the steam out of the platform issues. For, as it was outlined months ago, the effort on the dissenting platform planks was to have provided Stage Two in a strategy leading to Wednesday's nominating vote. Stage One was to free the Carter delegates to vote for Kennedy, then the platform issues would be used to pry loose others. But now that whole strategy lies in ruins.

Whether those will be be ruins on which Kennedy can build a campaign for 1984 only the next four years can tell. On the 1,936 delegates said they should support, on the first nominating ballot Wednesday, the presidential candidate under whose banner they ran. Only 1,391 voted, as Kennedy wanted them to, to set the delegates free to "vote their consciences." That meant that Carter, with 1,981 delegate votes, has the nomination locked up. But the vote may have had even deeper meanings. For these delegates are probably more liberal than Democrats generally.

The convention also has a larger percentage of blacks and Hispanics than any past convention. More than half the delegates are women. Yet they turned their back on the candidate whose campaign had trumpeted old-style Democratic liberalism in a nation that, the polls indicate, is becoming more conservative. And they voted in favor of Jimmy Carter, the apostle of an ill-defined, more conservative pragmatism. By his swift pullout, Kennedy kept his own political prospects intact for 1984.

Had he persisted in his drive for the nomination after Monday's vote, and particularly if he had specifically refused to rally around the nominee, he could have been blamed for risking another 1968. In that year, Democratic liberals who held back in supporting the late Hubert Humphrey were accused of ensuring the election of Republican Richard Nixon. Even before the convention, many professional politi to guarantee his hrst-ballot renomination. The "open convention" vote was also about political hype. A few hours before the vote Paul Kirk, one of Kennedy's top strategists, had been predicting a "lot of surprises," advising reporters to watch the roll call and declaring that Kennedy "would win and win big." And on Sunday famed trial lawyer Edward Bennett Williams, who headed the Committee for an Open Convention, had announced that his side was within 25 votes of winning.

It ended up 275 votes short. By contrast, Robert Strauss, Carter's campaign manager, had been declaring that their surveys showed Carter delegates would hold fast. And they did. Carter was only 45 votes short Monday of the number of delegates pledged to support him. The looming threat of Kennedy's continuing candidacy shaped the party platform and it continues to do so even after Kennedy has withdrawn.

During the platform hearings last June, Kennedy supporters on the committee forced scores of changes that shifted the document leftward. They were turned down on 18 planks, and they could have appealed those rejections to this week's convention. But even before the convention, they won Carter's acceptance of five of the 18 intact (four last Sunday), got agreement on compromise language for three more and delegates see a November Kennedy By PAT ORDOVENSKY Gannett News Service NEW YORK The stunned Kennedy faithful, doubly shocked at their candidate's convention defeat and sudden withdrawal, were hesitantly embracing party unity Monday night while predicting a Democratic disaster in November. Leaders of the Kennedy campaign in four large states essential to President Carter's re-election, said the race against Ronald Reagan will be steeply uphill. "As of right now, Carter could not carry Ohio," said Sen.

Howard M. Metzenbaum, who led his state's Kennedy delegation. Metzenbaum pledged to help Carter try to turn it around, however, saying "in politics, yesterday's enemies can work together." The same sounds were coming from the Kennedy camps in the Pennsylvania, New Jersey and California delegations. disaster leader of the Kennedy campaign in Albany, N.Y. From one strong Carter supporter came the prediction that Kennedy will become very enthusiastic.

"He's going to come out swinging for Jimmy Carter," said Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware. "I don't think he'll take the chance of facing the rest of us" Democrats in the Senate if he's not supporting the party's nominee, Biden said.

Arizona's Rep. Morris K. Udall, who ran against Carter in 1976 but delivered Monday's convention keynote address, echoed Biden's sentiments. "Ted Kennedy is a good Democrat and a good party man," Udall said. "He'll come around." Carter delegates generally praised Kennedy's withdrawal and were less concerned about the prospects for a divided party.

"Once they get accustomed to the fact that Carter is a candidate, they'll support him," said New Jersey Gov. Brendan Byrne. Rep. Vic Fazio, a Los Angeles congressman, said Kennedy's quick withdrawal will "minimize the bad feelings." platform that is morally responsible to the needs of the people." Oregon State Sen. Keith Burbidge of Salem, who headed his state's Kennedy delegation said it's time for Carter to start acting like a Democrat and, particularly on economic matters, "stop trying to out-Republican the Republicans." And Ed Leek, a Kennedy delegate from Portland, said "Carter's going to have to earn my support in the next couple of days." In the New York delegation, Kennedy backers were accepting Carter as their candidate with a noticeable lack of enthusiasm.

"This means we have to rev ourselves up," said New York City Council President Carol Bellamy. "Politics is a matter of caring, and we have to have something to feel strongly about. Right now, it's not a good feeling." Rep. Theodore Weiss said Carter would run third in his congressional district, on Manhattan's West Side, if the election were today. "I'm waiting to see how enthusiastic Ted Kennedy is (about Carter) before I decide how enthusiastic I'll be," said Meg Dallas, NY delegates in no rush to jump on Carter's team THE DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION convention notebook By Gannett News Service NEW YORK The Democrats, believe it or not, may turn out to be the Dry Party of the 1980s at least for this week.

At the Republican do in Detroit last month, beer was sold right along with the soft drinks and hot dogs at concession stands in the convention hall. As the Democrats gathered in Madison Square Garden Monday, word passed that the beer taps would be dry. "The boss told us this morning to keep the beer locked," said one counter clerk. "I don't know why, but I know they sold it here four years ago," at the Democratic convention of 1976. Peter Bommarito, president of the United Rubber Workers and a strong Kennedy supporter, was spotted outside the convention hall Monday night just after the crucial rules vote.

He was both dejected and realistic. "I feel like going and getting drunk, and that's not the sort of thing I do." What do you do? "Well, you cry a little," he said, then added he's already scheduled to attend a meeting of labor leaders to discuss working with the Carter campaign. For a late-night city like New York, early morning caucuses can be tough. The Oklahoma delegation got an early start Monday with an 8:30 a.m. caucus which member's of the city's host committee also were to attend.

"We have a host committee to make us feel welcome here in New York City," Oklahoma Gov. George Nigh told the delegation, "but they are still asleep." Mark Russell, a Washington cabaret satirist, took his measure of both parties Monday with lines like these: "The Democrats are so nervous" about losing to the Republicans this fall, "they're starting to stab each other in the front." "You know who ought to give the keynote? Blackstone the magician." For Udall's keynoter, Russell offered this: "Udall? What can he say? fellow delegates, when you entered the hall tonight, you were each given a cynanide Or he might say, 'My fellow so he made a few mistakes?" legislator from El Paso, who is a paraplegic. He was so unhappy when Kennedy lost the crucial rules fight that he had his wife push him in his wheelchair 21 blocks from Madison Square Garden to the New York Hilton Hotel." "I was so damn disgusted I just got the hell out of there," Moreno said. Many Kennedy delegates were withholding promises to work for Carter until the outcome of Tuesday's battles over the platform. The Massachusetts senator, in ending his presidential campaign, said he'll still seek to change several platform sections to reflect his viewpoints.

If Carter "is willing to give on the platform I can support him over Ronald Reagan," said Susan Guerrero of Marion, vice chair of her state's Kennedy delegation. Nelson Lancione, a veteran Ohio Democratic leader, said he can't support Carter "if we don't get a not ready to make any decisions," he said. But State Senate Minority Leader Ohrenstein who earlier had said he hoped Kennedy wouldn't withdraw later said he "expected" to support the nominee of the party. Rep. Theodore Weiss, D-Manhat-tan, one of several New York congressmen who had endorsed Kennedy, also demurred.

"I really haven't thought about that yet; I haven't had to confront it," Weiss said when asked whether he would vote for and support Carter in November. But Weiss, one of Congress' most liberal members, later said it is "not likely" he would support Anderson. Virtually all the Kennedy supporters had dire predictions on how Carter would fare in their areas this fall. Weiss said that Carter would probably run third in his district on Manhattan's West Side if the election were held today with Anderson winning. Murphy said that Carter won less than 40 percent of the vote in the 25th congressional district including Dutchess County in 1976, and would probably do worse this year.

And Eric Wollman, a Kennedy delegate from Sheepshead Bay in Brooklyn, expects Reagan to carry his area this fall. "The feeling is let's give the guy (Reagan) a chance he can't be any worse than Carter," Wollman said. "It's the Carter delegates who have condemned the Democratic Party to defeat in November," he complained bitterly. Even more bitter was Kennedy delegate Dan Mahoney of Utica, who said he would "absolutely not" support Jimmy Carter this fall. "Anyone who would work to work to deny me the right to vote I could not support," Mahoney said, referring to the rule pushed through by Carter supporters that requires delegates to vote for the candidate they were elected to represent in the primaries.

Mahoney said he might vote for Anderson. "If (John) Anderson's on the ballot, Carter will be buried right now" in Pennsylvania, said Edward Rendell, Philadelphia's district attorney and a Kennedy delegate. New Jersey State Assemblywoman Barbara McConnell said she's worried about whether "the bitterness and divisiveness" in her state will heal in time to unify Democrats behind Carter. From California came voices like that of Marva Smith, a Kennedy delegate from Los Angeles, who said: "People are going to be mad and I really don't think Carter has a chance in November." Several Cali-fornians predicted many abstentions when the roll is called for Carter's nomination Wednesday night. Marilyn Huthmacher, Democratic national committeewoman from Delaware, said simply: "This means we're going to lose in November." The most dramatic reaction came from Paul Moreno, a Texas state the opponent of Ronald Reagan," said Jeffrey Bloom, an alternate Kennedy delegate from Long Island.

Added Michael Murphy, a Kennedy supporter from Dutchess County: "I'm concerned that, in the final analysis, an Anderson vote is a pro-Reagan vote." But Murphy, while planning to vote for Carter this fall, said he won't actively campaign for the president's re-election. His lack of enthusiasm was echoed by several better-known Kennedy supporters. "This means we have to rev ourselves up," said New York City Council President Carol Bellamy. "Politics is a matter of caring, and we have to have something to feel strongly about. Right now, it's not a good feeling." A stunned Manfred Ohrenstein the co-chairman of the Kennedy-controlled New York delegation declined to comment immediately on his future plans.

"At this hour of the night, after this dramatic day, I'm convention gate to the candidate they were elected to repesent reflected the delegation's split between Sen. Edward Kennedy's 164 delegates, who opposed it and President Carter's 118 delegates who favored it. The paper ballots had been passed out to the delegates at the start of the roll call and were returned almost immediately. The delay appeared to come in the counting. Other large states also were unready when their names were first called from the podium, but even California, the only delegation larger than New York's, soon finished its count.

"Our method just didn't work out as efficiently as he planned," said Rep. Shirley Chisholm, co-chairwoman of the delegation. A lobbyist who asked not to be identified was less charitable: "Those guys couldn't run a one-car funeral," she said. Networks learned to play it safe By TONY MAURO Gannett News Service NEW YORK None of the television networks scored any big exclusives on Ted Kennedy's withdrawal from the presidential race Monday night. And none of them overdramatized the other big story of the night, the "open convention" rule fight.

All of which adds up to a sharp contrast with the networks' coverage last month of the Republican National Convention, at which networks were accused of overplaying and overreaching on the story of the Reagan-Ford negotiations for the vice-presidential nomination. Chastened by the criticism, the networks were playing it safe this time. "Everyone just played it straight, nothing fancy, no great scoops," said one NBC official late Monday night. No one beat Kennedy on his own announcement, although ABC's Frank Reynolds reported that some discussions about withdrawing were taking place inside the Kennedy camp. And on the convention rule fight, so conscious was the caution that at one point early Monday evening, when NBC's Tom Brokaw ventured a guess that Kennedy would lose the battle, he added, "That's what I've been able to tell, at this point in time, but I could be dead wrong." The abundance of caution did not prevent some network hyping of the various rumors of walkouts and rebellions on the convention floor during the convention rule debate.

Dan Rather excitedly probed a trial balloon in the Maine delegation aimed at propelling Edmund Muskie into the nomination, and NBC's Tom Pettit made much of a threatened walkout by black delegates. As in Detroit, NBC was the network to watch for the most faithful airing of events on the convention floor, staying with the Democrats even when they called a brief recess. That led to considerable stalling and filling, which often produced gems of trivial television reporting. Sure enough, to fill time, NBC's Judy Woodruff breathlessly asked Carter campaign chief Robert Strauss what kind of sandwich he was eating for dinner. (It was turkey.) The cautious approach by the networks also didn't keep some Democratic partisans from trying to use the electronic media to advance their cause, as many said happened in the Reagan-Ford incident.

Kennedy operatives were clearly trying to keep their failing campaign alive by confiding to floor reporters (on the air) that considerable defections from Carter were taking place. Several times, -the floor reporters came on the air telling viewers with exasperation that they had just spent time trying unsuccessfully to track down the defectors. By the time the roll call was about half through, the networks began feeling safe in predicting that Kennedy had, after all, lost. By LOUIS PECK Gannett News Service NEW YORK New York delegates pledged to Sen. Edward M.

Kennedy reacted with a combination of bitterness, disappointment and resignation to the senator's withdrawal Monday from the presidential race. Several New Yorkers said they will still vote for Kennedy during Wednesday's roll call on the Democratic presidential nomination. And a majority of delegates interviewed indicated they are withholding judgment on whether to vote for President Carter after they leave this week's Democratic National Convention. There appeared to be little inclination among the delegates to support the independent candidacy of John Anderson, with some expressing the sentiment that Anderson's candidacy would do little but help Repubican Ronald Reagan. "I have no choice but to support NY holds up NEW YORK (AP) An em-harassed New York delegation held up the Democratic National Convention for nearly an hour Monday night as it struggled to count noses for a crucial roll call.

"Our abacus broke," quipped Attorney General Robert Abrams, adding, "this proves how shortchanged New York is on federal aid for remedial education." State Sen. Manfred Ohrenstein, co-chairman of delegation could provide no more serious explanation for why New York had to be called four times before it reported its vote. Ohrenstein said the state was using a method of paper ballots designed to provide an "especially accurate" count. However, after the vote, Ohrenstein's count was not so accurate that he could say who was the lone New York delegate unaccounted for in the 163-118 tally. The vote on the rule to bind dele.