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Funnily enough, the candidates' political pratfalls were expected a lot sooner. Ford and Carter came into the campaign like Herblock caricatures. The Hard-Nosed Bumbler ("We must either shorten our Presidents or lengthen our helicopter doors," said Bill Vaughan) was opposed by the Born-Again Peanut Farmer ("I pray 25 times a day," Carter was misquoted by Mort Sahl, "but I've never asked God to make me President because I didn't want to take advantage of the relationship"), with teeth like Bugs Bunny ("That man can eat a pineapple through a tennis racket," observed Comedian Pat Paulsen). But Ford's maladroitness as a topic was short-lived, and as Planters and Mimic Rich Little discovered, "There is only so much you could do with peanuts."
Not surprisingly, the candidates' families began to receive more attention —the Fords with their confessions about premarital pot and clandestine sex. And as for the Carters: "There's a mother who was in the Peace Corps, a sister who's a faith healer, another sister who rides motorcycles, a brother who runs a gas station and another who wants to be President," says Russell Baker. "Sounds like a situation comedy."
Many exasperated humorists still find that the primary also-rans offered them richer fare than the winners. Ronald Reagan captured the Texas primary, concluded Mark Russell, because he promised to extend the state's borders southward to Panama and install an exact-change lane in the canal. (Reagan's Panama hat is now worn by California Senatorial Candidate S.I. Hayakawa, who insists: "We should keep the canal. We stole it fair and square.") Chevy Chase on NBC's Saturday Night rather sickly reported that George Wallace, "aiming to set the record straight" about his physical qualifications for the presidency, "demonstrated his strength at a luncheon today by crushing a small child with his bare hands."
Little Town. In the absence of comedy from their leaders, the vice-presidential candidates make small jabs —and oversized targets. Jimmy Carter announced during the Democratic Convention that the Lord would make his preference for running mate known to Carter in a vision, spoofs Mark Russell, and Walter Mondale "snuck into Carter's bedroom at 3 o'clock in the morning covered with luminous paint." The Minnesota Senator, who complains that people used to think Mondale was "a little town near Pasadena," said recently that "if Ford is going to talk to us about jobs, inflation and housing, then we ought to have Idi Amin come over here and talk to us about airport security." Republican Robert Dole recalls a Democrat petitioning his audience: "Gentlemen, let me tax your memories." Another leaped to his feet shouting "Why haven't we thought of that before?"