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JIMMY CARTER:

In Georgia, we have always kind of looked on the Democratic party itself as a necessary evil. We have built individual campaign organizations, predicated exclusively on allegiance to a single candidate, rather than an allegiance to a party mechanism. And I think this is probably going to be the case in the future. I believe that the Democratic party can provide a very useful service, which it hasn't in the past. And this is what I'm trying to do on a nationwide basis. The training of candidates, the uniformity of direct mail lists, the sharing of opinion poll results, the delineation of issues in a clear way so that the candidates themselves can understand them. The attraction to the state of major figures who can enhance the attitudes of the people toward the Democratic party. A strong role in the mechanism of the national Democratic party itself. But with all that said, plus other more minor things like the raising of some funds, and so forth, the essence of the Georgia attitude toward the Democratic party would be, as far as running an election or telling me how to vote, stay out of it. We still prefer to deal directly with a candidate, and I think that the organizations for the winning of elections will still be predicated on allegiance to a particular candidate.