After listening to Mr. Ford, Polish Communist Party Chief Edward Gierek died.
How did he die? Of laughter.
That not very funny Polish joke is even less of a laughing matter for Jerry Ford. It echoes his troubles among Polish Americans and other people of Eastern European descent who make up 10% or more of the population in such pivotal states as New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Michigan, Illinois and Wisconsin. A loss of a relatively few ethnic votes in those battlegrounds could cost Ford dearly, and many of these voters were surprised and offended by his celebrated gaffe in the second debate with Jimmy Carter. "There is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe," said the President ingenuously, adding that Poland is "independent and autonomous."
Wounded Feelings. Ford obviously did not mean what he said. But his remark wounded the feelings of many Polish Americans and others of Eastern European extraction. The postwar immigrants in particular are bitter about the oppression of Communism, and they are inclined to regard their homelands with much the same fervor that American Jews feel for Israel. While people now living in Eastern Europe have generally made their accommodation with the regimes, the immigrants—and many first-and second-generation Americans — remain unalterably opposed to Communism and await, however forlornly, its overthrow.
Until Ford committed his slip, the ethnics had been moving into the Republican column. They are mostly Roman Catholics, who live in big cities, often hold blue-collar jobs—and are basically registered Democrats. In 1912, distrustful of George McGovern's far-out liberalism, a majority voted for Richard Nixon. More recently, they have been antagonized by Democratic positions on some key issues. Living in close-knit communities with a strong sense of family, ethnics generally take a hard line on crime, drugs, pornography and amnesty. They are increasingly uneasy with one other group in the Democratic coalition: blacks, who are competing with ethnics for declining jobs and services in the hard-pressed big cities of the Northeast and Midwest.
The ethnics are perhaps most dissatisfied with the Democratic Party for its position on abortion. While Ford supports a constitutional amendment to allow the states to outlaw abortion. Carter does not, though he personally is against abortion. Moreover, Carter is a Southern Baptist, and ethnics view that denomination suspiciously because of its anti-Catholicism in years past. Ford is also a devout Protestant (Episcopalian), but many ethnics feel more comfortable with him than with Carter because the President does not appear to make his religion so paramount.