Trickster techniques for Carter campaigners

Press, 12 October 1976, Page 8

Trickster techniques for Carter campaigners

NZPA Miami A Knight Newspapers column published in the “Miami Herald” says that Mr Carter’s campaign workers are being advised to use tricks and misrepresentation to make the Democratic Party candidate look good. The 111-page manual for Carter worker* advises press aides to dribble out information to reporters to ensure maximum publicity. “Never tell people more than they need to know to perform their function,” it advises. “By restricting knowledge you will be better able to control what ha. ens.”

Along with standard political organisational methods, the handbook tells how to create a crowd by stalling cars in traffic, obstructing hecklers, and arranging television lighting to create a radiant circle over Mr Carter’s head.

“These techniques will enable you to draw a sub-

stantial crowd through organisation in a relatively invisible manner which will lead the press to infer that the candidate drew the crowd,” says the manual, quoted by a Knight Washington writer.

Workers who must plan week-end campaign rallies are told how to use a telephone survey to estimate how many of a city’s residents will be out of town. “Invent a fictitious name, like ‘Resort Marketing, Inc.’ to use in the calls,” the book says.

It also touts Mr Carter’s hair: “To take advantage of it when he is on television, the light should come from a low angle through a fibreglass filter, with an overhead beam to highlight the hair and make the nimbus,” it says. “Whoever appears on the stage with Carter should be middle American in appearance and balanced by race! and sex.”

NZPA-Reuter reports from New York that according to a survey made by the magazine “Time,” Mr Carter holds a 2-1 edge over Mr Ford in electoral votes at this stage of their race for the White House.

Under America’s complicated system of choosing a [President, each state is allocated a certain number of electoral votes on the basis of population, a total of 270 being needed to select a President. j The survey by “Time” correspondents found Mr Carter ahead in 21 states and the District of Columbia, with a total of 273 electoral votes —three more than needed for election. President Ford was judged ahead in 17 states, with 113 electoral votes, and the race was considered too close to call in 12 states with 152 electoral votes. President Ford has, however, won resounding endorsement from one of the 1

most influential members of the Southern Baptist Church revered by Mr Carter.

Th? support has come from the Rev. \V. A. Criswell, pastor of the Dallas First Baptist Church, which, with 19.000 members, is one of ith' largest Baptist churches in the United States. I Mr Criswell, one of the (most Conservative and controversial preachers in the South, praised Mr Ford warmly during a sermon attended by the President at the end of a six-day campaign tour of California, Oklahoma, and Texas.

Talking to reporters later, the pastor said that he would vote fo. the President, and that he hoped Mr Ford would win his election battle against Mr Carter.

President Ford is an Episcopalian: Mr Carter preaches in the local Baptist Church's Sunday school, calling himself "a born again Christian.”