Hi Gary,

I wonder about the battery going dead. Get a voltmeter on it and see that you get]
14VDC with the car running. If the red piggyback lead at the battery is loose or
off, you wont get proper charging.

Cleaning the battery terminals isn't enough. The crimpon terminal ends can go west
with aging. Carefully examine each battery terminal end. You can use your ohm meter to do a quick check for really lossy or broken off cables.
There's twin ground wires and twin pos wires.
If there's a problem with bad cables, it will raise hell all different ways.

The running rough may indicate that it's time for a major tuneup.
What do your plugs look like? If they're platinum, switch to NGK copper.
Pull your distributor cap and see how nasty it is.

Post back, Bill