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TERRY SANFORD:

. . . There were three things that changed that picture, and we're talking about percentages that voted, not percentages of North Carolina, anyhow. And that's . . . if you'll look at the returns, a distinction in this case. First of all, I assumed that Scott would come immediately and support me. I figured he owed it to me. I figured that it made a lot of sense for me to do this under the circumstances, and I figured he'd have sense enough to see it. But . . . he may have had sense enough to see it, but he was too stubborn to change. And I don't know that I quarrel with him. As he said to me, "But you didn't tell me you were going to run." Well, obviously I didn't, because I didn't know I was going to run. But it was the kind of thing that I should have been able to expect him to rally on me. He didn't. Well, that tremendously damaged my credibility. Here I was, the News & Observer editorialized, simply trying to spoil a sure thing, that Muskie had it sewed up, that we had gained harmony in the party, and I was just a spoil-sport. Well, that destroyed my credibility in a great many places. "What is he after?" even my friends were saying. Now, the other thing that I didn't count on, people had been associated with me and I felt they were and still are very loyal to me, that I thought would just spring forth to this campaign in a joyous way, were all tied up with . . . Skipper had supported me, Hunt had supported me, Taylor had supported me, Sowers had supported me, Margaret Harper had supported me . . . who else is running for governor? Hawkins had supported me. In any event, . . . there was Wilbur Hobby, but that . Everybody was already deeply involved in a statewide campaign, in a way that, even if they wanted to, they could hardly help me. Add Shirley Chisholm to that, and take away probably 15% of the vote that I would have gotten . . . She got about eight, but I would've, I think, under the proper circumstances, would have gotten 15% of the total vote that would've been the black vote. I just misjudged on all three of those things, and I don't really think it proved as much as on the surface it seemed to prove. Though, obviously, it proved Wallace had a tremendous appeal. To the same extent it proved that I didn't have much of an appeal, or at least didn't put it together. I don't think you can interpret the whole trend, though, with that election in mind.