President to declare bid for new term

Press, 5 December 1979, Page 8

President to declare bid for new term

NZPA-Reuter Washington President Carter, enjoying widespread popular support for his handling of the crisis in Iran, planned to declare today that he would stand for re-election next year.

His formal announcement will confirm what has long been known — that Mr Carter will rely heavily on his presidential record in seeking a second four-year term lin the White House. Mr Carter has won praise, even from his Republican opponents for the presidency, for his efforts to bring :about the release of 50 Americans held hostage in Teheran for a month. In domestic political terms, his response to Iran’s revolutionary leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeiny, is considered as firm but patient and has vastly improved his image which previously was that of an amateur in whose leadership Americans had little faith. Mr Carter received solid support from Republicans yesterday after Senator Edward Kennedy, his main challenger for the Democratic presidential nomination, sail the deposed Shah of Iran’s regime was “one of the most violent regimes in the history of mankind.” The President refused to! ;get involved in a political! debate over the Shah, now recovering in Texas after cancer treatment, and left it to the State Department to say that Senator Kennedy’s remarks were unfortunate and unhelpful. An American Broadcasting Company News-Lou Harris poll said yesterday that President Carter, who had been trailing Senator Kennedy badly, had performed a political miracle by drawing level with him in popularity.

It said the President led 42 to 40 per cent in a poll of Democratic and independent voters last week, compared to Senator Kennedy’s lead of 46 to 32 per cent a Tew weeks earlier. An Associated PressA.B.C. News poll said last week the President had gained six points in an assessment of his performance, although only 30 per cent of the voters thought he was doing an excellent or good job. But the same poll said 67 per cent supported his handling of the Iranian crisis, which has been marked so far by an insistence on settling; it by peaceful means.