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It is precisely this kind of change in mood and tone that Carter regards as his most important accomplishment so far as President. In an interview with four TV reporters on the eve of his departure, he acknowledged that his biggest mistake was "inadvertently building up expectations too high," partly by underestimating the difficulty of getting legislation through Congress. His chief weakness, he said, is that he still finds it difficult to compromise. "But I am learning," declared Carter. He intends to apply this lesson to his top priorities for 1978: 1) getting Congress to complete work on the energy package; 2) winning passage of a $25 billion tax cut to improve the economy (though he conceded that he might not be able to balance the federal budget by the end of his four-year term); and 3) persuading the Senate to ratify the Panama Canal treaty.
But Carter insisted that he has succeeded in "having our nation and its Government more accurately reflect the hopes and dreams of the American people." He expressed some bewilderment over the swelling criticism from labor leaders, businessmen, blacks and feminists. "Who is happy?" asked ABC'S Barbara Walters. In reply, Carter maintained that his critics have been given too much attention. Said he: "The threat to our country is that we might, in grasping for advantage or in emphasizing differences, lose that sense of common commitment and common purpose and a common future that binds us together and makes us great."
Then, his voice thick with emotion, he echoed one of his most familiar campaign themes. He had tried, he said, to make the Government as "good and decent and idealistic" as Americans are themselves. He added: "If I have achieved anything, it has been to restore a tone to our nation's life and an attitude that most accurately exemplifies what we stand for." After almost a year of the high-pressure realities of the Oval Office, the man from Plains, Ga., appears to have lost little of the optimism and almost naive idealism that he exhibited as a candidate-and that he took with him overseas last week. —
* Carter provided a jarring note of his own by using the imperial "we" a number of times-something he has rarely done in the past.