Battling to take on Reagan

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The politicians' endorsements Mondale is able to unveil next week will be far more important in this campaign than in those of the 1970s, because under new party rules that Mondale backers had a hand in writing, 14% of the convention votes will be reserved for elected officials and other Democratic leaders to be chosen independently of the primary and caucus processes (see box). While no candidate can collect binding pledges from this bloc, the endorsements expected in the next few days indicate that it may be filled with Mondale supporters.

Almost five months before the first caucuses in Iowa, in fact, the question already is being asked within the party: Can Mondale be stopped? A tentative answer: Of course, but only with some difficulty, possibly some luck and probably only by one other candidate, Space Hero Glenn. Late in starting, only adequately financed and poorly staffed, Glenn nonetheless projects an aura of independence and old-fashioned virtue that is bringing him up fast in the polls. A new public opinion survey for TIME by Yankelovich, Skelly & White Inc. (see following story) shows him only two percentage points behind Mondale and well ahead of the rest of the field. He is the only Democrat who has held a narrow but consistent lead over Reagan when they are pitted against each other in the polls (Mondale has been up and down), rousing the interest of the many party voters who above all want their candidate to be a winner. And Glenn is the only other candidate who might benefit from that front-loaded delegate-selection schedule. Several of the earliest primaries and caucuses come in such Southern states as Alabama, Georgia, Florida and Mississippi, where Mondale's liberalism turns white voters off and Glenn's patriotic appeal is powerful. The five other avowed contenders so far have not demonstrated enough appeal to do much more than survive that brutal opening round —if they are able to do that.

Predictions, of course, are always hazardous, especially at such an early stage among Democrats. For all of Mondale's fast-starting flash and Glenn's quickening struggle to catch up, few rank-and-file Democrats are even thinking seriously about the nomination yet. Apathy, engendered partly by doubt that anyone can beat President Reagan, is surprisingly widespread even among party pros. Says one party veteran: "There's little interest by our young people, who do the scut work of campaigns, and there's little interest by our politicians, who mastermind the caucuses. These candidates of ours don't excite anybody."

Once delegate selection begins, primary voters are, so notoriously volatile that being the front runner often has held more peril than promise. It is true that apart from a brief stumble in Iowa, Reagan in 1980 kept the lead from earliest speculation to final convention ballot. But otherwise the list of men thought to be leading in the pre-season reads like a roll call of blasted hopes: George Romney, Edmund Muskie, Scoop Jackson, Ted Kennedy. As they discovered, the front runner has to win almost everywhere to maintain his aura of invincibility. Even a small slip in an unimportant early contest can start a dreaded loss of that fickle prize-above-prizes in modern politics, momentum.