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At least through the next round, Mondale and Hart face continuing competition from one potentially formidable candidate: John Glenn. Last fall's poll favorite to give Mondale a close race, Glenn recovered a bit from his disastrous showing in the Iowa precinct caucuses Feb. 20. He went from fifth place, with less than 4% of the vote, in Iowa to third, with 11.9%, in New Hampshire. The former astronaut and his aides claim some credit for derailing Mondale's bandwagon. Their incessant attacks on the former Vice President as a candidate of special interests and party bosses, they say, finally got through to the voters, though in New Hampshire the beneficiary was Hart's campaign rather than theirs. Glenn has organized and filed full delegate slates in all primary states to retain a chance of capitalizing himself, notably in the South, where many voters may find both Mondale and Hart too liberal. But his resources are coming under strain. In order to switch money and effort into the Super Tuesday primaries in Florida, Georgia and Alabama on March 13 and the March 17 caucuses in Mississippi, where he must run strongly to survive, Glenn last week had to put his campaigns in Texas and Michigan on hold, temporarily closing offices and stopping pay for staffers in those states.
Glenn nonetheless spiritedly called Mondale's talk of a two-man race between himself and Hart "folly." Said Glenn: "I think he's in for a big surprise across the South. On Super Tuesday there are going to be some messages sent that this thing has opened up and it's sure more than any two-man race." Colonel Floyd Man, Glenn's campaign chairman in Alabama, said of Hart's win in New Hampshire: "Anything that takes votes away from Mondale has got to help us." But Pollster Darden doubted that Glenn could exploit the opportunity. Darden's view: "He has been so inept up to now. He punts on the first down quite often."
The other two remaining candidates merely complicate the state-by-state problems of the top three.
Jesse Jackson could become the first candidate to run out of money. He finished fourth in New Hampshire, with 5.3% of the vote; if he falls below 10% again in Vermont's nonbinding "beauty contest" primary on Tuesday, his federal matching funds by law would be cut off 30 days later. That date is distant enough to permit Jackson to continue campaigning full-tilt through the important March primaries and caucuses in Southern states where blacks constitute a large proportion of the Democratic turnout. He might win enough delegates to hurt Mondale, Glenn, or both, and possibly even bag the 20% of the vote he would need to get in at least one primary to requalify for federal cash. Nonetheless, the threat of a money cutoff puts his campaign under a cloud.