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JIMMY CARTER: I would never ask anybody in my entire political career to endorse me. I think in general, it's counterproductive. My own style of campaigning for the Georgia State Senate and for governorships twice has been to go directly to the voter to avoid any sort of dependence on big shot of politicians, even if they were very popular, and to create an accurate impression in the minds of the voter that there was no intermediary between me and them.

SPEAKER: This is another question in connection with your status as a newcomer right now. That same Nation article, if I remember, started out saying that you had three strikes against you. And that was Georgia, underfinancing, and OK, lack of political experience. Does that strike you as being very fair or very accurate?

JIMMY CARTER: Well, I think every newcomer to the national political scene does have three strikes against them. Lack of political experience, underfinancing, and whatever one's origins might have been coming from too large a city, too small a city, and so forth. I ran the national campaign effort last year. I worked with more than 1,000 candidates who ran for Congress, governor, US Senate. I've been in every state in the nation in the last two years, except three-- Montana and the two Dakotas.

We are meeting our budget. We have a $650,000 budget this year. We've raised more than half of it already. We've had 5,000 contributions that average about $70. So we are doing well on the financing. And I don't think it's a handicap to be from Georgia or to be from Minnesota or to be from any other single state. I believe that the time for sectional prejudice in this country is over.

Quite often in the past, we have had a prejudice against people because of their being Black or white or from the South or from the North, or being Catholic or Protestant or Jewish. I remember when John Kennedy began to run 15 years ago, a lot of people said he couldn't do anything in Georgia because he was from New England. He was very liberal. He was Catholic. Georgia was mostly Protestant.

But when the returns came in in 1960, John Kennedy got his biggest margin of victory, not in Massachusetts, but in Georgia. And I think that if we in the South have been able to overcome our prejudice against New Englanders who are liberal and who are Catholic, and against people who might have been Black, I believe the rest of the country can overcome its prejudice against me because I happen to be from the South.

SPEAKER: How is your stomach for presidential campaigning? How do you like it?

JIMMY CARTER: I like it. This is my sixth month of full-time campaigning. I have scheduled in 1975, 250 days to campaign outside of Georgia. And I've already been in, as I said, this year, 42 different states to campaign. And so far, I'm getting along fine. I enjoy it.

I've learned a lot about this country. Although I'm a farmer, I've learned a lot about agriculture. Although I'm a scientist, I've learned a lot about energy and transportation matters. I'm an engineer. I've learned a lot about engineering. I've been in politics a good bit. I've learned an awful lot about politics.

SPEAKER: It's been said by so many people that our presidential campaign process is a very grueling and very unnecessary experience. Perhaps, if you're learning so much, it's a good training ground for being president.

JIMMY CARTER: I like the tough testing. I'll be in 30 to 35 primaries. And I'm working at least five and a half days a week outside my own state this whole year, and I'm thankful for it. I want my own character to be tested in the most severe possible way.

And if I can measure up to what the American people want our nation to be as exemplified by the president, then I'll be elected. If I can't measure up to those standards-- and I hope the standards are very high-- I don't deserve to be president. So I think the testing of a candidate is a very good ordeal to go through. And for me, it's a pleasant experience.

SPEAKER: Now suppose by some quirk of fate you do lose, how do you expect this experience to affect future political plans?

JIMMY CARTER: I don't know. I've got a good life at home. My wife and I live in the same town where we were both born. Her people and my people have lived in that town since the early 1800s. The town has a total population of 583. All our relatives are there. And I've got a good life as a farmer, as a seed producer. So whether or not I'm in politics after this campaign, and either eight years as president or as a defeated candidate, I have a good life to go back to. So I don't have any qualms about that in the future. I think, though, that I will win.