The last time a Pa. primary mattered

Anybody but Carter.

That was the mantra of establishment Democrats in the spring of 1976 as the presidential primaries moved into Pennsylvania.

Jimmy Carter, former governor of Georgia, peanut farmer, and Baptist Sunday-school teacher, had morphed from complete unknown into the leading contender for his party's nomination.

But Carter still had to prove his strength in the big northern states. The Pennsylvania primary, on April 27, loomed as the last chance for his foes - who included many liberals and pro-union Democrats - to stop him.

That pending battle marked the last time that Pennsylvania primary voters played a pivotal role in picking the nominee of either major party for president.

Political historians point out that the state's 1980 primary was a big chapter in the divisive challenge by Massachusetts Sen. Edward M. Kennedy to President Jimmy Carter, but they say the challenge had little chance of succeeding.

Since 1980, Pennsylvania and its primary have always been too late for the dance. Its voice in selecting presidential nominees? Zilch.

That's why this year's battle over Pennsylvania between Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton makes Lenora Berson a bit nostalgic.

In 1976, Berson was president of the local chapter of Americans for Democratic Action, which nationally was backing Arizona Rep. Morris "Mo" Udall, the favorite of many liberals.

Berson and her husband, State Rep. Norman Berson, hosted a dinner party for Udall at their Center City home. Among the guests was former Pennsylvania U.S. Sen. Joseph S. Clark, a liberal icon.

Clark had not yet endorsed Udall. Berson remembers that Udall screwed up the courage to ask why.

"Because I want to win," Clark told him bluntly.

He felt Carter offered the best chance for Democrats to take back the White House.

In the '76 primary, as now, the eyes of the national media were on the state. But Joseph R. Daughen, then a political reporter for the Philadelphia Bulletin, remembers that it was a far different national media.

This was before 24-hour cable news and long before the Internet. The major media consisted of a few big newspapers and three broadcast TV networks.

The build-up "was much less intense," Daughen said.

Yet, "this was a key primary," said Daughen, now retired from the Daily News.

"This is where the Carter opponents put up their last stand," he said. The preferred candidate of union Democrats was former Vice President Hubert Humphrey, who was in the wings but never entered the race.

That left labor with its second choice, Washington Sen. Henry "Scoop" Jackson. The support was lukewarm.

Daughen, in the Bulletin, wrote of talking to Philadelphia AFL-CIO leader Edward Toohey the day before Toohey was to attend a Jackson rally in the city. Toohey told him that Humphrey was the "most electable" Democrat and the "overwhelming favorite" of labor.

Jules Witcover, who covered the Pennsylvania contest for the Washington Post, recalls that the "stop-Carter movement" never found one candidate to rally around.

Carter opposition was mainly split between Jackson and Udall. But on primary day, almost a fifth of the vote was cast for a half-dozen minor candidates, including Pennsylvania Gov. Milton Shapp, who had withdrawn from the race but whose name was still on the ballot.

Carter got 37 percent of the vote, which was enough to beat Jackson by more than 12 percentage points and Udall by more than 18.

Carter won 64 of the state's 67 counties, but lost Philadelphia to Jackson. That fall, he went on to defeat incumbent Gerald Ford for the presidency.

Witcover later wrote a book, Marathon: The Pursuit of the Presidency, 1972-1976, in which he said that Carter's Pennsylvania victory put him "in good shape" to win the nomination at the party convention that summer in New York.

"It was the last challenge to Carter," he said in a telephone interview.

Come 1980, despite Carter's big Pennsylvania win in 1976, leading Pennsylvania Democrats were not in love with him. His performance in office had raised many more doubts among fellow party leaders.

Rampant inflation and economic stagnation during much of his term were only the half of it. Worse was the national humiliation that came from the capture of 66 Americans by Iranian militants at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran.

Carter said he would not campaign as long as the 53 remaining Americans hostages were in captivity. His opponents called it his "Rose Garden" strategy.

Kennedy, brother of the late Democratic President John F. Kennedy, embodied the hopes of many anti-Carter Democrats for a candidate who could defeat Ronald Reagan that year.

Pennsylvania, which held its primary on April 22, had been the eighth state to vote in '76. This time it was 14th.

Kennedy had won in New York on March 25 but had not articulated a real reason he wanted to be president - except that he wasn't Carter. He would need more than even a Pennsylvania victory to catch Carter, who was way ahead in delegates.

Former Philadelphia Mayor Bill Green, who had just taken office, endorsed Kennedy and campaigned with him in the state.

He recalled that the odds were always against defeating an incumbent president.

"The power of the presidency is enormous," he said. "You'd have to rate [Carter] as the favorite, but the challenge by Ted was real and might have worked."

Democratic fund-raiser Bill Batoff, who was Carter's state finance chairman, said Carter's top allies felt betrayed.

"They didn't like Kennedy; they felt he was a turncoat," Batoff said.

In the end, Kennedy won Pennsylvania with 45.7 percent of the vote to Carter's 45.4 percent. It was enough to keep his campaign alive for a few more weeks, but not enough to make it successful.