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Whatever the cause, there's now a decided imbalance in Washington columnists' attitudes toward Carter. Normally, that should matter in an election year. Kraft thinks he and his colleagues have so far failed to give Ronald Reagan the "warts-and-all media scrutiny" they applied successively to Connally, Kennedy, Bush and Anderson. The New York Times's James Reston doesn't fault Reagan if at this point he fends off potentially unfriendly interviewers, like Reston, but thinks Reagan won't be able to duck so easily once the nomination is his and 200 reporters begin following him around.
Washington's "opinion molders" may also have a nagging feeling that their influence over candidates has declined now that politics has become such an exercise in TV merchandising. William J. Casey, Reagan's campaign manager, says that the ex-movie star will be projected this fall as an "adaptable, flexible Chief Executive," and "something of an intellectual." It's no longer what the candidate thinks or says that counts; it's how he's projected and perceived. No wonder McGrory believes that the comic strip Doonesbury has captured better than old-fashioned reporting "the essential nuttiness of this year's campaign."