Another Loss For the Gipper

In his most famous movie role, Ronald Reagan, as the strep-stricken Notre Dame halfback George Gipp, insisted on going to Illinois to play the Big Game against Northwestern. He made the do-or-die try, and sure enough--in a scene worth three wet handkerchiefs--he died soon afterward.

Something of the sort happened last week in Illinois to Reagan's candidacy. Its health had been severely taxed by four primary losses to President Ford, yet Reagan gamely pushed on to Illinois and suffered his worst defeat so far. Score: Ford 59%, Reagan 40%. (Ford got the news in his second-floor White House study, while he was working through some papers and listening to Angie Dickinson's Police Woman on a TV set that was turned down low.)

But Reagan refused--for now--to let his candidacy expire. From his Pacific Palisades aerie overlooking smog-bound Los Angeles, he claimed that "we appear to have met our goal." For 1976's hard-pressed Gipper, 40% constitutes a victory. Next day he jetted to North Carolina for five days of campaigning in a feverish run to overcome Ford's lead among the Tarheels.

Reagan's hang-on insistence was all the more puzzling because of his lackadaisical campaigning style in Illinois. Reported TIME Midwest Bureau Chief Ben Gate: "He wasted hours of valuable time going from one obscure town to another by motorcade. He sometimes slipped into motels and hotels through back doors, then begged off working the crowds waiting outside with a lame excuse: Tm sorry, but I'm running behind schedule.' He did not go after the suburban straphangers until it was too late. By contrast, Ford worked the fences and the police barricades as if he were L.B.J. in his prime. He deftly handled questions about everything from the Nixon pardon to the problems of Lock and Dam 26 on the Mississippi River at Alton, Ill., to civil rights for homosexuals ('I have always tried to be an understanding person as far as people are concerned who are different from myself). He played very well in Peoria--by 63%--and just about everywhere else."

Out of Gas. After Illinois, Reagan trailed Ford by at least 54 delegates to 174. To give him even a remote chance of winning, his supporters had to concoct some farfetched scenarios. Noting that he had a 54%-to-37% lead in the latest poll in California, taken just before his loss in New Hampshire, California G.O.P. Vice Chairman Mike Montgomery doggedly maintained: "Take what delegates he has now, add California , and he's ahead." After

North Carolina, however, Reagan has no expectation of winning a primary before Texas on May 1. If he blows that one, concludes his campaign manager, John Sears, "he's out."

The pressures will mount on him to withdraw much sooner for the sake of party unity. Said a White House assistant, indelicately: "Even Rommel gave up when his tanks ran out of gas." For fear of antagonizing conservatives whose enthusiasm Ford will need in November, the President's aides have not directly assailed Reagan as a spoiler. Instead, they have encouraged Ford loyalists to speak out. Rogers Morton, who was tapped to succeed Bo Callaway as campaign manager (see story page 19), has asked Texas Senator John Tower, House Minority Leader John Rhodes and Republican Whip Robert Michel to "open a dialogue" with such Reagan partisans as North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms and Illinois Republican Congressman Philip Crane. Nine Republican Governors advised Reagan to quit.

"The President," says a Ford confidant, "is increasingly moving into a position where he can afford to be magnanimous. But Reagan is moving into a position where he's going to have to become an s.o.b. That's a dangerous situation."

So far, however, the Reagan challenge has been a bracing spring training for Ford. Reports TIME Washington Correspondent Dean Fischer: "Reagan's bid is viewed as a plus because it enabled Ford to develop an effective campaign organization early, improve his own campaigning ability through practice, appear to the public as a comparative moderate and get a lot of publicity. Until now, in the words of one facetious White House aide: 'It looks as if Reagan is a Ford plant.' " Campaigning at week's end in North Carolina, Ford declared that he will win the G.O.P. nomination whether Reagan withdraws his candidacy or not, and flatly denied that he had authorized anyone on his staff to "suggest to my opponent that he ought to get out of the race." Ford did avow, however, that Reagan's continued efforts could have a divisive effect on the party.

On Track. Of course, the President benefited even more from the economy's rebound. Until about six weeks ago, surveys showed that Republicans were gloomy about the future; now most of them believe that the U.S. is back on the tracks. As a result, even conservatives are voting for Ford by top-heavy majorities. Since his State of the Union address in January, Ford has not been forced to make a decision that would offend any bloc of voters--an almost incredible run of luck that Hollywood's game Gipper had no way of overcoming.

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