Presidential candidate Jimmy Carter discusses President Ford, agriculture, and elections. Carter also states that a presidential popularity is not necessarily an indicator of their effectiveness. Carter states that although Ford is ineffective, Ford's strength has been in energy…Carter believes the energy plans have been created by the oil companies.
JIMMY CARTER: That's very reassuring to me. Knowing Secretary Butz's record in agriculture, I hope that his political prognostications are equally as accurate as his guesses have been in agriculture. I think he's been almost uniformly wrong in the decisions he's made as Secretary of Agriculture, and I think he's wrong in this instance.
I think that, at this moment, President Ford is increasing in his public acceptance and popularity. I think his public approval is now up around 50%, and it's increasing. The reason for it is that President Ford is being compared with Congress. And Congress has always been abominably low in public approval ratings.
Even at the bottom of President Nixon's popularity in the midst of Watergate. Congress still rated lower than Nixon did. So it's not a good indication of ultimate election potential to have Ford look better than a predominantly Democratic Congress. I might hasten to add that individual members of Congress within their own districts show up to be quite popular.
President Ford has been a completely inept president. The only comprehensible proposal that he's made in any major area of American life has been in energy. And the plan was obviously prepared for him by the oil companies. He's a very effective spokesman for the oil companies. He's done exactly what they want.
And with that one exception, there has been nothing forthcoming from the White House that would terminate or alleviate the problems that face this country. In the absence of leadership from the White House, of course, the Congress has tried to deal with crucial problems like housing, unemployment, or agriculture, energy, environment. In every instance, Ford has vetoed the bills that Congress put forward, some of them with obvious major or minor imperfections.
And then, Ford has enjoyed the appearance of being victorious when the Congress could not override his veto. This is a temporary victory. I think, in the long run, that people will realize that there was no victory, that the nation loses when there is no leadership from the White House and when there's no cooperation between the White House and the Congress.
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