Never in 19 Years

"I think this country is going to collapse," wailed a Michigan dairy farmer. If House Minority Leader Gerald Ford were not an optimist--and an ambitious Republican to boot--he might have thought so too, after four days of listening to dysphoric constituents in Michigan's Fifth District. "Never in my 19 years in Congress," said Jerry Ford at the end of a pulse-taking tour last week, "have I seen people so disturbed."

From Byron Center to Kent City, Saranac to Rockford, the voters seemed overwhelmingly unhappy. "It's nothing but taxes, taxes, taxes," growled a Cedar Springs man. "Negroes don't want equality," said a Kent City nurse. "They want superiority." "People want the hell out of that war," declared a Rockford constituent. "When I see L.B.J. on TV," groaned a Caledonia woman, "I almost break my tube--there's no sincerity there."

As for Republican hopes, the voters favored Nixon and Rockefeller over Romney for the presidential nomination. "What about Reagan?" some constituents asked Ford. "He's coming up fast," he replied diplomatically. Ford consistently defended such targets as President Johnson, the Supreme Court, Negroes and the poverty program against abusive attacks from extremist supporters. He even refused to capitalize on the pervasive disaffection with the Viet Nam war, insisting: "It is no longer an issue. We're in it deep. What is at issue is the conduct of the war." His prescription for victory: more effective bombing.

Ford can afford such candor, of course, since he has the solid support of a heavily Republican district that has sent him to the House in ten consecutive elections. Moreover, last week's soundings back home supported his own nerve-end feeling, and that of many other G.O.P. leaders, that the Republicans have a fighting chance of recapturing the White House next year--and of winning enough seats in the House to elevate Jerry Ford from minority leader to speaker.

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