Self-Righteous Trait Mars Carter's Style
 
"By his stunning victory here in the Pennsylvania primary, Jimmy Carter has virtually assured his nomination as Democratic candidate for president He has wiped out, after the fashion of Mao Tse-tung's guerrilla strategy, all opponents in their home base.

So why, on my part and I think many others who have watched Carter campaign, the uneasy feeling?  Part of it is inexperience.  Carter and his inner circle are not versed in the great problems of national and international affairs, and no set of store-bought advisers can remedy that weakness.  Joined with inexperience is the candidate's self-righteousness.  He looks on himself as the vessel of God, asks to be taken on faith and is ungracious in dealing with those he has defeated to the point of being a sore winner.

So if it comes, as now seem likely, to a choice between Carter and President Ford, it will be a hard one. 

A difficult corner of national life needs to be turned.  My instinct says that the slow and steady man, however bumbling, may do better than the knight who seeks the Holy Grail."

By Joseph Kraft   - Denver Post  Fri., April 30, 1976