‘We want Jimmy’

Carter presses flesh at Farmfest appearance

"We want Jimmy" the youngsters pressed up against the barbed wire fence yelled at the end of Jimmy Carter's speech Wednesday at Farmfest.

"You got me," Carter snapped back with a smile, leaning across to the microphone from his multi-person embrace with Minnesota Democrats posed for the audience and national, state and local photographers covering the Carter campaign for President.

HE HAD COME to Farmfest '76near Lake Crystal, scheduled to deliver what aides called a major farm address.

The estimated 80,000 spectators had come to see those famous molars flash, hear that southern drawl, judge the candidate in the flesh even if at a distance of 150 yards.

And the lucky ones, the pushy ones, the yelling, waving enthusiastic ones mashed into the stout chest-high barbed barrier, crying to Carter to come shake their hands. The fence made a square around a stage, camera platform, mobile home office, cars, and open area reserved for the 300 or so media and staff people, secret service men (and one woman) who clustered around Carter and his V-P hopeful, Sen. Walter Mondale of Minnesota, every time they moved.

CARTER PLEASED the fenced-out supplicants by pressing palms before his speech along a short stretch of wire and after his talk along a lengthier portion.

His Secret Service men formed a tight outward-facing U around him as he inched along the wire, protecting him more from the crush of photographers pushing to get the best photo angle than from the crowd facing him across the barbs.

Mondale trailed along behind,his own cluster of Secret Service men intact. Sen. Hubert Humphrey, free of any Secret Service contingent, reached hands across the wires, touched arms, joked and waved.

ADMITTANCE TO this inner square had come to newspeople only after applying Monday for credentials, supplying name, birthdate, birthplace, social security number and employer for a Secret Service check.

Tuesday area newspeople had to go to Farmfest or Mankato to pick up the tan cards labeled "NEWS", hanging from homely pieces of white string. Wednesday it was no card, no admittance.

National and state media people came in a bus and cars with the Carter-Mondale motorcade which drove over from the Mankato airport.

Area newshawks who came alone had to wander around the back of the stage area until they saw the crowd, heard someone shout,"There he goes."

Then it was push through to the fence, waving that tan card, trying not to trip over the hardened muddy ruts as the Secret Service man opened the gate by a 12-inch gap. A hefty deputy on horseback shouted to the crowd, "Get back or I'm coming right through."

AFTER CARTER arrived inside the square he shook a few hands along the fence, invisible a few feet away in the crowd of taller men, then retired to a mobile home with DFL biggies and candidates from around the state.

More Secret Service men stood on the steps of the mobile home, neat suits showing no evidence of anything more lethal than a BIC pen, communication devices looking like discreet hearing aids, small round lapel pins of white and red enamel with a gold star in the center the only sign in common with each other, young-old faces cracking an occasional smile but saying nothing. The Secret Service contingent included a good-looking young woman in a black pants suit, identifiable only by her lapel pin and her place on the steps.

A seventh-grade boy from Minnetonka who had somehow slipped into the inner circle hovered, hoping to get Carter's autograph, finally settling for Gov. Wendell Anderson's.

FINALLY IT was time for the speech. The retinue trooped up to the stage, about eight feet above the ground.

Reporters from the Baltimore Sun and New York Times stood, backs to the platform, eyeing the news people around them, trying for a glimpse of the crowd off in the distance.

The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times sat on park benches, elbow to elbow with farm magazine writers and weekly editors,taking notes and glancing at tiny tape recorders.

AFTER SEVERAL fiery remarks from Humphrey, Carter took the podium and said in this time of disastrous drought in Minnesota Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz had announced 23 counties in the state's worst disaster area wouldn't be eligible for crop insurance next year.

"Is that the way our own government ought to treat farm families who've been hurt?" Carter asked the crowd.

"No," came the scattered response.

Carter said one of his major goals as President would be to have a balanced federal budget before his first term was over.

A farmer, admitted to the inner realm, sat calmly slicing an oval of chewing tobacco with a tiny pocket knife, windcheater zipped up, high muddy boots showing a hole over one ankle.

CARTER TOLD about the time Butz asked him why he always promised his audiences to fire Butz if elected President.

"I told him the first reason is I always tell the truth," Carter intoned."The second reason is it always gets the most applause," he smiled."The third reason is it encourages the farmer who doesn't have much to encourage him this year to know that Butz will be gone next year," he drawled.

Carter ended by criticizing the "tragic lack of leadership in this year of the worst drought since the Hoover administration. The administration has done absolutely nothing to help you."

NEW ULM MAYOR Carl Wyczawski was standing just outside the fence and got to shake hands with Mondale and Humphrey. Herb Halvorson, Hanska farm leader, was one of the favored few inside the square, invited by Rep. Bob Berglund.

After more handshaking the entourage moved out, Secret Service men trotting beside the cars, hands on the back doors. Arrival to departure had lasted about 1.5 hours.

New Ulm Daily Journal

Sept. 16, 1976