Ford bounces back in opinion polls

An English friend of mine has sent me a book which has put together a collection of letters written to The Times, the London Times that is, over the past 75 years. My only regret about this hilarious collection which ranges from the informative to the outraged, from the expert to the idiotic, from the serious citizen to the comical busybody, my only wish is that they'd not printed the dates when the letters were written or at least printed them in tiny type upside down at the bottom of the page as they do with those general knowledge quizzes.

My point is that you'd very often guess that a letter, say one about race relations was written in September 1976 and it turns out to have been written in 1948. These surprises abound and many of them only go to prove the thesis of my old Washington chief on that same paper when one day in, I think it was 1940, he suddenly handed me his White House pass, his Senate Gallery pass and his press tickets to the coming Republican convention. Why, I asked him, would he want so suddenly to leave me the plums of the Washington assignment? 'My dear boy,' he said, 'what happens today has happened yesterday and will happen again tomorrow.' I need hardly say that he was nearing the end of his reporting days, for if that isn't the epitaph of a reporter, I never heard one. 

Well, certainly, if you wanted to gather ammunition to prove to yourself that nothing much you do can affect the course of events and that, anyway, they've all happened before, you couldn't do better than read through these published letters written throughout three-quarters of a century. They made me think again about the vanity of commentators, especially when they venture into prophecy. The newspaper columnist is much like the soothsayers and oracles of the ancient world. He hears bad news or he's consulted by anxious people who fear bad news and he stirs the ashes of the fire in front of him or takes a closer look at the eye of a newt and he comes up with some grave prediction. And I don't doubt that by the time he's consoled people or told them the worst, they've forgotten his sage prophecy by the time it didn't come true. 

One of the letters in this book was from an alarmed citizen who had somehow picked up the frightening statistic that four Britons in ten run their practical lives, decide when to sign a cheque or go on a trip or start a flirtation, entirely in obedience to the astrological charts conveniently interpreted for them in the newspapers with people with names like Madiha or Cassandra. This letter ran over the page so I couldn't guess the date of it right away, it could obviously have been written yesterday. It was written in fact some time just after the Second World War. Now I'm not going to start up again explaining my own view that this whole pseudo-science is nonsense if only because the astrological signs on which Mars rising in Jupiter by the light of a new moon referred to a totally different calendar among the ancients who devised this mumbo-jumbo or that their knowledge of the stars was ingenuous but woefully wrong, quite apart from the glaring fact that I know, and you know, people born under your sign who are about as far apart in character and destiny as Mrs Thatcher and W. C. Fields. 

Anyway, I didn’t mean to knock these soothsayers but to sympathise with their trade because it is so much like that of a commentator who has to pretend to be a jump ahead of you. My sympathies with these ladies become intense at the end of each year when they're called on to predict what's going to happen, not today or tomorrow, but next spring and next December. They are faced with a crucial exercise in hedging their bets. Apart from saying confidently that there'll be more trouble in the Middle East, which even I without beads or charts or crystal ball, will predict right now. They have an obligation to prophesy the immediate future of the weather, the intentions of communist China and the love life of Jacqueline Onassis. 

By the way, I forgot now, did I tell you about the British diplomat who was allowed a private interview with Mao Tse-tung a dozen or so years ago, and said, 'Mr Chairman, what do you feel would have happened if Mr Khrushchev had been assassinated and not Mr Kennedy?' Chairman Mao thought long and wisely, not unlike I imagine an astrological lady, and then quietly replied, 'Of only one thing can we be certain, Mr Onassis would not have married Mrs Khrushchev'. 

Well, I was saying... the life of an astrologer must be most painful on the verge of a new year when they have to commit themselves to a range of prophecy knowing they'll be lucky if a tittle of it comes true. I had the privilege of meeting, by chance, one of the most eminent of these soothsayers, two days after the assassination of Bobby Kennedy and she told us with the greatest gravity that the night before the assassination she'd had a dream or vision and saw the whole thing clearly, even down to the serving pantry of the hotel in which it happened. If only we'd called her the following morning, she could have prophesied the whole event with astounding clarity. Well, of course, nobody called her. 

And I've been reminded of this whole, weird business by the shock given to us last week by the public opinion polls. Just when everybody was saying that though the president had delivered to the Republican convention the best speech of his life – not in itself an immense achievement – he was still 33 percentage points behind Jimmy Carter in popularity among the voters. Just then a new Gallup poll came out came out showing the president to be lagging not by 33 per cent but only by ten per cent. Thirty-nine per cent of the voters were now for President Ford and 49 per cent for Carter. And if 39 and 49 don't add up to a hundred that's because there remain 12 per cent who haven't made up their minds and if they all went for Ford, by golly he could win! 

Well, the panic button sounded among the soothsayers of the press, the pundits whose whole profession has to do with explaining surprising things as nothing surprising at all. The results were beautiful to behold. A magazine that had given the election to Carter and was practically calling for his inauguration now, acted like an art expert suddenly caught with a Rembrandt that turns out to have been painted by Fred Rembrandt. Whatever panic they had originally felt was nicely overcome by the time they settled to their typewriters and there has issued this week a ream of splendid columns for all the world like a lecture given by a very patient and gentle maths teacher to a bright pupil who had failed to spot the exception to the rule. Never mind that they'd been saying a month ago that Carter would take every state but two. Never mind that they'd been recalling the immortal amendment to an old folk saying coined by Franklin Roosevelt's first campaign manager, Jim Farley. 

Before 1936, one of the sacred axioms of American politics which was based on the results of many presidential elections in which the result from the state of Maine tended to come in first and was always an uncanny foretaste of what was going to happen to the whole country. The axiom was 'As Maine goes, so goes the nation.' Well, in 1936, Maine came in and had gone for the Republican nominee and a little later the returns came in from Vermont and Vermont had followed suit. And then the other, in those days, 46 States came in and 46 States went for Roosevelt. Old Jim Farley asked for his interpretation of the Roosevelt landslide said gravely, 'As Maine goes, so goes Vermont.' 

Well, no sooner had our pundits recalled this and similar jocosities at the expense of Mr Ford than that stunning poll came in. Ford so lately trailing by the colossal gap of 33 points was now only ten points behind. Why? Why? Well, on Friday morning, the mature, bright explanation was to hand. It came from a New York Times' columnist who at all times battles bravely to disguise his preference for the Democrats and his despair over the mediocrity of Mr Ford. You know why Ford bounded back in popular esteem? Well, very briefly, this man says the president's rebound is without precedent in presidential polling but not without an explanation. Mr Carter, it says here, is a new face. The polls registered the wonder of his meteoric rise but... but his success could only go so far. Hesitations developed, he says. Not on his part but apparently on ours. The novelty has worn thin, if not off. 

The American public knows next to nothing about Carter. On the other hand, Ford has advertised all his weaknesses, his physical and verbal slips, his political choppings and changings, but the economy has recovered. There is peace. There is a revival of trust. Quote, 'His call for television debates rang loud and clear. Hence,' it concludes, 'the abnormal spurt.' Well, I hope that convinces you more than it convinces me. 

I must confess that I was on the verge of finding some explanation myself. The rebound did seem more than was warranted by Ford's exposure at the Republican circus and the glow of his triumph over Ronald Reagan who, by the way, is going back to his first job as a radio commentator – poor fellow! Now he's going to have to find explanations for sudden shocks. 

Well, I didn't have to explain anything because in the same newspaper, in a column adjacent to this learned explanation of Ford's rising popularity, was printed the result of the very latest poll. Carter has now surged ahead from a ten per cent lead to 15. So now 52 per cent want Carter and only 37 per cent want Ford. Thank you Dr Gallup. I'm not going to explain this because by the time you hear this talk it may be time for another explanation of another shock. 

Also, I'm... I'm treading carefully this weekend, under my astrological sign in last night's paper, it says: 'Tomorrow, (that's today), don't pin too much faith on the successful practice of your profession.'

This transcript was typed from a recording of the original BBC broadcast (© BBC) and not copied from an original script. Because of the risk of mishearing, the BBC cannot vouch for its complete accuracy.

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