Mr. President

JIMMY CARTER played Boston last Wednesday and sold out at both his big gigs. He inspired only a few obligatory standing ovations, but Carter succeeded in re-etching his portrait of Ronald Reagan--last of the reactionary cowboy maniacs--in the minds of many skeptical Democrats. He worked under pressure, with New England deity Ted Kennedy fidgeting on his right and the father-and-son O'Neill act beaming and winking on his left. Carter lived up to his reviews as a first-rate soap-box campaigner as he performed on a back street in the North End; and minutes later and light years away, appeared at an elite fund-raiser before the dukes and barons of Boston Democratic politics.

The master-of-ceremonies at the Christopher Columbus Community Center on Prince Street looked like he was making his last speech and insisted on telling morbid jokes. ("I was in the hospital six weeks, even. With two operations they couldn't kill me.") With the aid of an equally frail assistant, this doddering Johnny Carson finally sputtered Jimmy Carter's name. The President rose to remind 1000 senior citizens that they should be thrilled to be alive and loyal Democrats. He did it brilliantly.

Naturally he evoked the image of spunky Mama Lillian, cackling at her boy over the phone that she couldn't talk "until the ball game was over" on television. "Just as young as ever," according to her proud son, the wrinkled first mother hasn't lost a step in the last 14 years, since she went to India for the Peace Corps at age 68. Next, Carter praised Rose Kennedy, the 90-year-old Massachusetts matriarch, who he said "epitomizes the meaning of a family and the meaning of faith." Nods and smiles all around, from young and old, both in the community center gynmasium and outside in Prince Street and Polcari Playground.

As he moved on to belittle Reagan's tenuous loyalty to federal aid for the poor and elderly, Carter carefully maintained his "golden years" motif. He pointed out that Reagan has dishonored the sacred memories of Democratic heroes, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, and John F. Kennedy by twisting their words of hope and fortitude into justifications for heartless conservatism. These are words that many lower middle class Italians of Prince Street remember clearly; these are the leaders they still worship. Jimmy Carter knew he couldn't climb onto a marble throne next to FDR or JFK, but he also knew his audience would respond to a protest against any trivialization of the progressive ideal.

Alfred Maffei lives down the block from the community center. He is retired and tired, tired of deceptive, middle-of-the-road politicians and the mediocrity they peddle. He neither loves Jimmy Carter, nor admires him very much, but Carter has won him over. "Look," Maffei said after the president finished, there's an old Italian saying: 'You know the devil you got, but you don't know the devil you gonna get.' You know what I mean? Carter will have to do. He knows we can't vote for Reagan."

The offensive line of the Columbus High football team stood shoulder to shoulder with Maffei in the narrow, winding street. Their smooth, helmet-like coifs bobbed several inches above the crowd as they jousted playfully. The young bucks and the slightly older working men and women who stood behind them cared little about Carter's dedication to Social Security or Medicare. In fact, when the presidential entourage emerged into the mid-day sunshine it was Ted Kennedy and not the candidate who received the warmest reception. The most favorite of all New England sons provoked a particularly loud round of cheering by smiling at a banner that admonished, "Ted: Don't Sell Principles For Peanuts."

Unfazed, Carter offers "to make a deal" with the high schoolers--a Presidential day-off-from-class in exchange for the students' support. Fists raised, the entire Friars squadbellowedits approval and led a cheer of "Jim-my...Jim-my!" Only the robed priests who run Columbus High and unwittingly allowed their charges to sell their political souls for a day of hookie looked uncomfortable. Carter began a tirade against third-party candidates (e.g. John Anderson) with an attentive, cheerful audience.

THREE MBTA STOPS and a short walk away a healthy herd of 800 Boston Brahmins munched on dessert and slurped the last of the champagne at Anthony's Pier 4. They were waiting to see why they dropped $500 each for lunch; they wanted to see Carter, and they wanted to hear him say something important.

It was a different Carter who mounted the dais at Anthony's, different from the folksy campaigner who found so much in common in his own pastoral Southern roots and those of the Italians of the North End. When the new Carter mused autobiographically, he omitted stories about his years as a struggling farmhand in Plains, and focused instead on his "background in physics" and his tour of duty aboard one of the nation's first nuclear submarines. He gave a mournful lecture on the power of the megaton--"a lot of explosives"--and gallantly accepted "the most important single responsibility on the shoulders of a president:" preventing nuclear war. More generally, he described himself as "part of a great continuum" of leaders who devote all of their energy to facing "serious matters."

He was also an intellectual, introspective president: "I'm not omniscient. I make mistakes. I'm a human being." There were no boisterous football players to present him with a team jersey; applause was limited to carefully staged breaks in the presentation. Aside from another successful introduction by Kennedy ("Eleven months ago I said I would be campaigning on October 15, and... well, I am...") the only spontaneous cheering was for boxer Marvin Hagler, who shook hands all around dressed in a funky Carter/Mondale-green three-piece suit.

Did Carter accomplish anything? Will the crustiest of Beacon Street continue to surrender their dollars in the final push for a Democratic victory? "I was dubious at first," said one well-dressed matron after the final ovation faded into a post-meal hum. "Everyone had doubts coming into this one, but in person he (Carter) is truly grand. He is an honest man," she added. Her husband nodded in silent agreement as he guided the old woman toward the door.

Outside, the secret service caravan revved up. Blue flashing lights whipped slowly atop wood-paneled Ford station wagons. Carter moved on to his next stop along this Atlantic Coast swing. Kennedy will be travelling with him, and chances are, whether in Brooklyn or Bayonne, the Carter road show will maintain its high level of technical excellence and flexibility. For the next two and a half weeks, barring a return of the hostages from Iran or unexpected Middle East settlements, Jimmy Carter will abandon the White House for the stage, the lights, the crowds. He will certainly need all of his best stunts to overcome Ronald Reagan's stubborn hold on first place.