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Carter is sure to follow his own advice and push the energy issue hard during a two-day, five-state political foray this weekend. On Friday, the President will join representatives of the urban poor at a town-hall meeting in Detroit—and he intends to answer questions about energy even if they are not asked. To help trim the Democratic Party's $2 million campaign deficit, he will attend a $50 per couple dinner in Des Moines, then spend the night with an Iowa family, whose identity has not been revealed for security reasons. It is expected to be a farm family, however, so that Carter can get a firsthand briefing on rural America's gripes about falling prices and low federal supports. On Saturday, he will fly to Strategic Air Command headquarters at Nebraska's Offutt Air Force Base, attend two meetings in Denver, and end the day at another Democratic fund raiser, this one in Los Angeles.
The Los Angeles event is emblematic of the President's bulky catalogue of problems, domestic and foreign. The dinner dance at the Century Plaza Hotel was initially expected to gross a cool $1 million, with 1,000 tickets going for $1,000 apiece. But Los Angeles' normally generous Jewish donors, upset by Carter's Middle East policies, are not expected to show up in their usual numbers. The result: a disappointing turnout, with no more than 700 Democrats expected to attend.
* Said Kennedy at a White House press conference on April 11, 1962: "A tiny handful of steel executives whose pursuit of private power and profit exceeds their sense of public responsibility shows utter contempt for the interest of 185 million Americans." Later he angered even more people when he was quoted as saying: "My father always told me that all businessmen were sons of bitches, but I never realized till now how right he was."