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He is not yet willing to spell out the details of his proposals, nor does he elaborate on how he will finance them without endangering his goal of working toward a balanced budget by 1980. Indeed, Carter gave congressional leaders the distinct impression last month that he would not be pushing for expensive new programs in his first year, a prospect that cheered the conservatives and dismayed the liberals. After the sessions. House Speaker Tip O'Neill, a liberal who has pledged Carter his support, was already sounding protective toward the new President. Said he: "We'll have to give him time."
Once again, Carter may have confused his listeners—or talked in such general terms that they heard what they wanted to hear.
To woo Congress, Carter is considering setting up an office in the Capitol and dropping by from time to time. And, very politely, he has threatened to go over their heads and put pressure on them back home if they do not cooperate with him. "I can get to your constituents quicker than you can by going on television," he said last month—with a smile, of course.
The split in Carter's basic creed—liberal or conservative?—is causing problems that were foreshadowed months ago. When he begins his presidency, Carter will have "the shortest honeymoon on record," in the view of Henry Graff, professor of American history at Columbia. Explains Graff: "He comes to the White House with more commitments publicly uttered than any recent President. He's going to be attacked for not doing the things he promised."
He has already disappointed many of the constituents to whom he owes the most: the blacks. In particular, they were upset by his appointment of Atlanta's Griffin Bell as Attorney General (see THE NATION). While not as angry, some prominent white liberals were also worried. "I don't see any of the freshness he kept talking about during the campaign," says George Reedy, who was press secretary to L.B.J. "I get the feeling that we're going to get Government as usual." Another liberal critic, Yale Historian C. Vann Woodward, declares: "It is still too early for pessimism, but it is already too late for optimism."
On the other side, moderates and conservatives seemed reassured, pleased by the very acts that unsettled Ralph Nader and Gloria Steinem. Particularly on Wall Street, bankers and businessmen were heartened by Carter's selection of well-known Democratic moderates to the top economic jobs. Says Dallas Oilman Ray Hunt, son of the late archconservative H.L. Hunt: "If Carter is willing to take the flack, he can accomplish more than any Republican on business questions, just like Johnson, the Southerner, accomplished a lot on civil rights, and Nixon, the conservative, accomplished a lot in dealing with the Communists."
The actions of the Democratic President-elect have not alarmed Ronald Reagan. "Sometimes," he concedes, "I've heard some familiar-sounding phrases." But, he adds, "I don't know what to think. I'm just waiting to see which Carter