Now, the Republican Rumble
In just seven startling days.
Campaign 1976 gyrated wildly. The breakaway surge of Jimmy Carter had transformed the crowded Democratic race into what looked to be a one-man romp the rest of the way. Then an astonishing string of four straight primary victories suddenly revived the near hopeless candidacy of Ronald Reagan, throwing the fight for the Republican nomination into a bruising, free-swinging rumble.
Reversing roles, the party that likes to think of itself as the more orderly and dignified was now in chaos. Would the battered Gerald Ford and the newly confident Reagan cut each other up so badly that Democrat Carter could breeze to the presidency in November? Sensing that possibility, would Republicans eventually reject both men and nominate somebody else, a healer and more likely winner, in Kansas City in July?
The prospect of a convention deadlock was savored by former Texas Governor John Connally, a spellbinding speaker who hankers to be President. But it still seemed unlikely that the Republican delegates, basically the same kind of conservatives who nominated Barry Goldwater in 1964 and only grudgingly accepted Richard Nixon in 1968, would give their nomination to a Democratic turncoat. It seemed far more unlikely that the Republican Convention would move to Vice President Nelson Rockefeller, still a pariah to the party's dominant right wing. Yet Rockefeller will control most of the huge New York delegation (154 delegates, making up 7% of the convention's votes), and he might even be able to determine the outcome. No one knows what he might ask for in return.
Reagan, helped by the ballots of frustrated former voters for George Wallace, moved ahead of President Ford last week in firm delegates to the convention, 365 to 294. Sixteen tough primaries lay ahead, including nine in Southern and Western states where Reagan would normally be strong. Ford, though still a shaky favorite to win the nomination in the end, could not even be sure of carrying his home state of Michigan on May 18.
The Reagan rebound inspired a most unusual scene in the Cabinet Room of the White House on the agonizing morning after last week's primaries. Ford's face was drawn and haggard as he walked into his regular weekly meeting with Republican congressional leaders. "He's been up late watching the returns," mused one of them. Indeed he had--and the news from Indiana, Georgia and Alabama had all been bad. The legislators rose as they always do, but this time did something unusual: they broke into applause. At a moment when the President was down, they wanted to show their support and affection. Delighted, Ford grinned through his unaccustomed role as a loser.
The session at first seemed to be a mutual pep rally. "Anybody who gets the impression that we're going to quit is crazy as hell," declared Ford. Sounding like Knute Rockne at half time in a Reagan movie, he added: "We're coming out fighting. We'll be there in Kansas City to the end. And we're going to win!" The leaders applauded again.
Spontaneously, Illinois Congressman John Anderson moved "that the joint Senate-House Republican leadership of the Congress stand unswervingly and unstintingly behind the President and in firm support of his bid for nomination." Texas Senator John Tower seconded the motion. Republican Senate Leader Hugh Scott declared it carried unanimously. No one openly admitted that a President who requires a vote of confidence from his own party's key legislators is in deep trouble. "We all sensed he was a little down in the dumps," Anderson explained later. "We wanted to pick his spirits up."
But the concern of the G.O.P. leaders over Ford's campaign could not be quelled by cheerleading, and soon the discussion turned more serious. "It seems to me that we have to talk rather plainly," said House Republican Leader John Rhodes, who will preside over the G.O.P. National Convention. "I don't relish the idea of the U.S. having the choice of Jimmy Carter or Ronald Reagan." He went on: "There are issues being bandied around--like the Panama Canal. It didn't help any to have the negotiations resumed three days before the Texas primary.-It didn't do any good having [Secretary of State Henry] Kissinger in Africa a week before. We have to develop a new and more responsive strategy." Although Rhodes did not say so at the meeting, he wants Kissinger to announce that he would not be part of a second Ford Administration.
The leaders agreed that the question of future U.S. control over the Panama Canal was a phony issue, no more valid than the argument in the John Kennedy-Richard Nixon race in 1960 over whether the U.S. should have defended the Nationalist Chinese islands of Quemoy and Matsu. Rhodes told Ford to stop "chasing this goddam rainbow of the Panama Canal." He meant Ford should stop talking about it.
The legislators urged him to be more "presidential," to stop responding to each Reagan attack and take an "affirmative" and "statesmanlike" stance, emphasizing--as they felt he had failed to do so far--his best issues: peace, economic recovery and the restoration of integrity to the White House. They hinted that he had a lot of lightweights among his aides, that he needs new speechwriters and stronger staff support. Gently, they warned that he should not shift too far to the right, since there was no way to "out-Reagan Reagan."
With a touch of self-pity, Ford told the leaders: "You'd think we'd get some benefit from what we've done to improve the economy. But people are happy about the economy, and they've got time to talk about these non-issues." Ford was appalled at the possibility of a Reagan presidency. Said a White House aide of Ford: "He is convinced that it would not be good for the party or the country. So he is going to fight."
In the shaken White House, however, the old talk of a first-ballot nomination was replaced by cold fear that the nomination might be lost. By contrast, Reagan, who had seemed almost embarrassed in victory and downplayed his successes at first, switched tactics. A day after his triple wins, he held a post-midnight meeting with his campaign advisers in a hotel room at Shreveport, La. Explained one of the group: "Reagan decided it was time to start sounding like a winner. We don't want our modest public expectations to get in the way of what's happening." At planeside in Shreveport the next morning, Reagan for the first time predicted that he may well have "enough delegates to win on the first ballot."
That is a long way from happening.
But if it did, Ford would suffer the ignominy of becoming the first President since Republican Chester Alan Arthur in 1884 to seek his party's nomination for a new term and fail to get it. Already he has become the first President to lose multiple primary elections since Republican William Howard Taft lost twelve such contests, nine of them to Theodore Roosevelt, in 1912--yet Taft fought on to win the nomination.
Open, decent and in some ways politically courageous, Ford does not seem to deserve such treatment. He has pursued detente, an agreement on strategic nuclear weapons and the Panama Canal negotiations--all basically sound positions--in the face of Reagan's harsh attacks. Last month Ford, an advocate of free trade, refused to give special protection to the domestic shoe industry against foreign competition, despite heavy pressure from the industry's political friends on Capitol Hill.
The rise of Reagan, the spectacular triumph of Carter and the unpredictability of so many of the primaries have undermined the confidence of the political professionals in detecting just what is happening in this volatile election year. Clearly, the voters are in an independent, anti-Washington mood, and they are voting for "outsiders" who are not tainted by "politics as usual." Endorsements by top political leaders have meant little. Labor leaders have failed to deliver their rank-and-file votes. The winning candidates are sweeping across voting blocs whether by age, income or ethnic background. Voters, it seems, are rebelling against something.
Carter in a big way and Reagan with increasing skill seem to have found a means to ride the currents running in the land. To be sure, the Reagan surge has largely taken place on congenial, conservative territory. Yet in the May 1 Texas primary, his smashing shutout of Ford (96 delegates to 0) defied any simple ideological analysis. Normally, Ford should have been able to win at least some of the state's more liberal districts in Dallas and Austin. Reagan's three victories last week were also impressive. Summaries:
INDIANA. A surprising 624,032 voters cast ballots in the Republican primary--the highest G.O.P. total ever in that state. They gave Reagan an upset 51%-to-49% victory and 45 delegates to Ford's nine. This was despite the fact that nearly all of the state's well-organized Republican machine was behind Ford, including Governor Otis Bowen and 95% of all the county chairmen. Ford workers made more than 150,000 telephone calls to get out votes for the President; on the basis of these calls, his organization had expected that Ford would net about 59% of the total.
GEORGIA. Ford had virtually conceded the state to Reagan, since Georgia's Republicans are attuned to Reagan's brand of conservatism. The President made only one half-day trip to Atlanta suburbs. Reagan spent two days in the state. Yet Reagan's 68%-to-32% swamping of Ford and his capture of all 48 delegates proved a worse drubbing than the White House had foreseen.
ALABAMA. In George Wallace's home state, no profound analysis of Reagan's victory was necessary. He captured all 37 delegates. The Alabama G.O.P. is even more conservative than are Wallace's Democrats. Cross-over voting of such Democrats aided Reagan, although Ford had no chance anyway.
More than just cross-over voting upset the politicians' calculations in these primaries. Thousands of independents, who usually shun the primaries of both parties, jumped into the Republican battle, since that suddenly was where the action was. Yet the voting by Democrats in the G.O.P. contests posed a more difficult problem for Ford's strategists. Indeed, there is no effective way to stop it from happening elsewhere.
Reagan and his workers have openly courted this vote, angering regular Republican leaders and other Ford backers. The huge Indiana G.O.P. vote indicated that as many as 53,000 Democrats and independents may have opted for the more exciting Republican race. Without crossovers, Reagan would not have carried Indiana, and this vote was also decisive for him in Georgia. Democrats in the state who had given Wallace a whopping 535,550 votes in the 1968 general election, for example, this year cast only 60,000 votes for George; many of those former Wallace voters went to Reagan.
Reagan's pitch to disenchanted Democrats has been sophisticated. He says he is seeking to forge "a new majority" of Republicans, Democrats and independents and wants to give Wallace-leaning Democrats "something to vote for, not against." In Parkersburg, W. Va., last week, several posters at a Reagan rally urged: VOTE REPUBLI-CRATS--WALLACE AND REAGAN. In now critical Michigan, Ford has never run for statewide office, and Reagan's campaign director, State Senator John Welborn, is appealing openly for Democratic votes. Michigan Republican Chairman William McLaughlin is "shocked, stunned and damned angry" by this pitch for crossovers, adding: "It's going to destroy the two-party system, and it will destroy the Republican Party if this continues to happen."
Rogers Morton, Ford's national campaign director, blamed cross-over voting for the President's loss in Indiana but admitted he did not know what to do about it in future primaries. The more suspicious presidential aides claimed that not only were Wallace workers giving voting lists to Reagan's staff, but in some caucus states, liberal Democrats were even packing G.O.P. meetings to back Reagan, who they think will be easier to beat than Ford in November. Citing busloads of new faces at precinct meetings in New Mexico, a White House aide asked: "Is it an effort to ensure that Reagan is the Democrats' opponent?" Reagan's aides denied chicanery.
Many Democrats, of course, were chuckling over the Ford quandary. For years, Republicans had crossed over to vote for Wallace in Democratic primaries and thus embarrass the regular Democratic candidates. Now, since Carter had knocked out Wallace, the nettlesome Alabama Governor had become a migraine for Ford.
To credit Wallaceite Democrats with Reagan's new-found success, however, would be a gross exaggeration. With a few exceptions, Reagan had been pushing the unelected President hard all along the primary trail. If the former California Governor's aides had not forecast a substantial victory over Ford in the opening New Hampshire primary, Reagan's 49% of the vote would have seemed a real jolt to the President. Unsure of the issues and on the defensive because of his promise to cut the federal budget by $90 billion and his ill-defined proposals for reforming Social Security financing, Reagan failed at first to attack Ford effectively. He took an expected trouncing in Massachusetts, a potentially fatal one in Florida, and was overpowered in Illinois.
Reagan aides now concede privately that despite his repeated vow to plunge on right through to the convention, he seriously considered folding up his candidacy before the North Carolina primary on March 23. Ford's strategists had none too subtly urged him to do so. That was a mistake; it served only to stiffen Reagan's resolve. The North Carolina election is now viewed by the Reagan staff as the most critical point in his campaign. Ford's aides admit that they goofed by not working hard enough there. But Reagan fought on, dropping the "Eleventh Commandment" (Thou shalt not smite a fellow Republican) and assailing Ford sharply on foreign policy. And he won, 52% to 46%, stemming the tide of losses.
That win gave Reagan new confidence--and brought him a mysterious telegram that read: "Congratulations. You certainly fooled the pollsters. Dick." No one knew whether it was from the former President or a prank, but Reagan quickly crumpled it to keep anyone from asking. He then made such a fuss over not being allowed to buy prime television time that NBC yielded, and Reagan's nationwide half-hour speech on March 31 laid out his new themes of attacking Secretary Kissinger, detente and U.S. military preparedness (see following stories). The speech netted $1 million in contributions.
Reagan also exploited what hardly had been a burning issue until he picked it up: U.S. control of the Panama Canal. He started blasting the fact that both the Nixon and Ford Administrations had been negotiating a new treaty with Panama on the canal and its tenmile-wide zone, which the U.S. secured under gunboat pressure in 1903. Sensibly, Ford is willing to yield outright domination of the canal, but the move would be gradual and not completed until the next century (TIME, April 26). Even then, according to the Ford-Kissinger position, the U.S. would retain passage rights, share operational duties, and help defend the canal.
Repeatedly and erroneously, Reagan has insisted that the Canal Zone is "just as much sovereign U.S. territory as Alaska." In fact, no treaty ever granted the U.S. complete sovereignty. Washington has been paying an annual user fee of $2.3 million to Panama, and that country's General Omar Torrijos Herrera, a military dictator, has been maneuvering to restrain outraged Panamanians from rioting over this vestige of Yankee imperialism. Wrong-headed as it is, Reagan's jingoism on the canal has apparently struck a nerve among parts of the electorate, arousing post-Viet Nam sentiments that the U.S. should not be pushed around in its own hemisphere by, in Reagan's words, "a tinhorn dictator." Insists Reagan: "The Latin American countries have a respect for macho. I think if the United States reacts with firmness and fairness, we might not earn their love, but we would earn their respect."
Despite his lack of experience in foreign affairs, Reagan feels capable of bringing similar toughness into effective dealings with the Soviet Union. He concedes that "it may sound rather ridiculous as a comparison," but claims that his experience as negotiator for the Screen Actors Guild in Hollywood's earlier days ("I sat opposite some rather opinionated figures there, the old robber barons who created the picture business") prepares him for bargaining with world leaders.
As he hammered at his issues, Reagan's following grew. His acting experience served him well. He was punchier, funnier, more dramatic than Ford, yet at the same time he seemed cooler, more professional and dignified than the President. Unlike Ford, he usually refused to kiss babies or buss baton twirlers. Last week in Nebraska and Louisiana, he stood back as enthusiasts held up infants for a smooch, explaining: "I come in contact with so many people in the course of a day, and there are so many strange bugs going around." Groused a disappointed father in Shreveport: "Damn. The kid has already had all those bugs, but he's never been kissed by a presidential candidate."
The often aloof Reagan also passes up many waiting crowds. In Fort Wayne, Ind., he rushed past a cheering group of well-wishers. "We've been waiting 20 minutes in the freezing cold," complained one woman. Reagan pointed to his wristwatch to indicate he was running late--but he actually was on schedule. In his chartered yellow Hughes Airwest DC-9 (nicknamed the Big Banana), he rarely loosens his necktie or takes off his suit coat.
Once the houselights go on and Reagan faces a crowd, however, he is all charm and good humor. Given an old football helmet last week at the University of Notre Dame (where red, white and blue banners proclaimed WELCOME BACK GIPPER), Reagan turned the event into a neat jab at his opponent: "When I played football, I wore one." He disarmed an audience there hostile to his stand against legalizing marijuana, arguing that marijuana is the successor to alcohol as "the crutch" of the younger generation, adding: "But wouldn't it be nice if some time there was a generation that didn't need any crutch at all." His young audience burst into cheers. Reagan can twist even a flub into a recovering quip. Asked if a President's term should be limited, he stumbled:
"There has been talk about a single six-year sentence--er, term." When the laughter died down, he said: "You can see I have no illusions about the job."
Reagan's more serious formal lines are also delivered with well-timed zip.
ON GOVERNMENT SPENDING: "The Government in Washington is spending some $7 million every minute I talk to you.*There's no connection between my talking and their spending, and if they'll stop spending, I'll stop talking."
ON NATIONAL HEALTH INSURANCE:
"I'm against it. I don't think you can socialize the doctor without socializing the patient."
ON WASHINGTON: "I don't believe Washington is the answer. I think Washington is the problem. Big Government makes small people, and what we need is big people making Government smaller."
The Reagan crowds respond readily to his smooth style. Ford, on the other hand, often gets a rousing reception when introduced as the President, but audiences lose enthusiasm as he reads his speeches--actually more thoughtful and more varied than Reagan's standard pitch. Ford is more effective when he ad-libs or answers questions from reporters or audiences. But that poses a problem. The questions are often on points Reagan has raised--which lets his opponent control much of the campaign dialogue. The current Ford strategy is to curtail such questioning and keep his speeches shorter and sharper; at the urging of his young photographer, David Kennerly, he has even hired Don Penney, a New York show-business gagwriter, to turn out jokes and witty lines. He intends to largely ignore Reagan, while various "advocates"--Cabinet members and friendly Congressmen --take more direct aim at the challenger. They intend to portray Reagan as an extremist on domestic issues and as dangerous in world affairs.
Will a more "presidential" Ford do better? In and out of the party, most analysts still reckon that Ford will recover enough to win the nomination--but they know the fight will continue to be messy, and probably debilitating to the G.O.P. Said a top Colorado Republican official: "After this week's primaries, everybody is either bleeding or smelling blood." California Republican Chairman Paul Haerle recalls waking up at night with the thought: "My God, what did we do to deserve this? Are the fates punishing us for Richard Nixon?" With sadness, one veteran Midwestern Republican leader observes, "What a time we're in. Here we have peace, and the economy is doing very well, and there's the President hanging on the ropes."
Reagan supporters, of course, see it differently. Dr. Dennis J. Nicholas, Reagan's campaign manager in Indiana, says of his success there, "It was an anti-Establishment vote that must have been a terrible blow for the man who comes in on Air Force One." Reagan's Nebraska campaign leader, Milan Bish, tells of asking a friend a few weeks ago, "Are you with me?" Replied the man: "No, I think I'll go with Ford." Adds Bish: "Well, I saw him last night at a Reagan rally, and he told me, 'Boy, we're really rolling now.' "
The biggest Reagan worry at the moment is money. His campaign is running $1 million in debt, although he estimates that $2 million is due him in matching federal funds, and he has been borrowing against that. Reagan has been assailing Ford for his unfair advantage in being able to use Air Force One, a press plane and a cargo plane on campaign trips without having to pay the Government in advance, as commercial carriers require of other candidates. Ford does reimburse the Government after allocating travel and staff expenses between political and official duties. Top Reagan Aide Lyn Nofziger, who is concentrating on the climactic June 8 California primary--another "must" state for Reagan-^-insists: "When I say I ain't got no money, I mean I ain't got no money. Buy me a drink and I'll pocket the tip when you're not looking."
Ford's men, on the other hand, complain that Reagan is getting big-money support from conservatives not officially connected with the Reagan campaign. The Supreme Court ruled that it is unconstitutional to limit spending by individuals or groups who buy advertising or distribute literature without the candidate's consent or coordination The American Conservative Union, for example, spent $33,000 on advertising for Reagan in Texas and $77,000 elsewhere.
While better off than Reagan's, the Ford campaign has spent $8.5 million, and is edging close to the $13.1 million legal limit for all the primaries. The President's delay in deciding whether to sign or veto the new Federal Election Commission law finally passed by Congress last week means there is little chance that additional federal money will reach Reagan or any of the other candidates in time for effective use before the final primaries.
As the fratricide continues, fear is mounting among many Republicans that the nomination may mean nothing, no matter who wins it. "This is a pitiful little party at best," says one prominent California Republican. "The fight is precluding us from any chance to win in November."
Various Yankelovich, Harris, Gallup and University of Michigan surveys place the percentage of voters who consider themselves Republican at between 18% and 25%, v. between 42% and 50% who consider themselves Democrats (the rest are self-styled independents). While Reagan backers insist that their man is now showing he can attract independents and Democrats, his following so far seems to be a narrowly based conservative bloc. "If Reagan succeeds in putting this coalition together," observes Marquette University Sociologist Wayne Youngquist, "it's not going to be a new majority, it's going to be a new minority."
Worry is growing that the party is headed for another Goldwater-like 1964 disaster, and Barry Goldwater shares that view. To the dismay of his far-right fans, he has been assailing Reagan for not being "honest" on the Panama Canal issue. Thunders Goldwater: "He's saying Ford is giving Panama away. Ford can't give anything away. It has to be the Senate and the House of Representatives." If Reagan "comes out for war" over the canal, Goldwater predicts, "he's going to defeat himself."
Moreover, Goldwater claims J unkindly that "a lot of the same people who were backing me are just as viciously and strongly backing Reagan." In Arizona, Goldwater charges, some Reagan people threatened to defeat him if he ran for delegate to the National Convention. "I've never been a delegate, so it didn't matter a damn to me." He will be a speaker in Kansas City.
If either a convention deadlock or the fear of defeat in November paralyzes the party, the possibility of a compromise candidate--now only remote--would increase. At the moment nearly all such speculation centers on Connally. "You couldn't write a better scenario for Connally than what is happening in the Republican presidential campaign," says one of his political aides. But Connally's associates insist that he is making no move to seize the opportunity--yet. He is only giving speeches on college campuses, appearing at party fund raisers, keeping his options open and staying neutral in the Reagan-Ford bloodletting.
Rockefeller also faces unexpected opportunities. He is quietly trying to gain influence over neighboring state delegations in Pennsylvania, Connecticut and New Jersey. Together with New York, they stand to have at least 300 uncommitted delegates, out of 1,130 needed to nominate. Rocky's aim is to keep those delegates in Ford's camp or, if the President appears to be losing, prevent them from stampeding to Reagan--and then use them as bargaining chips for his still unclear purposes.
Most distressed by the Ford-Reagan standoff on the right side of the G.O.P. are the party's moderates and liberals. To launch a third rival candidacy, or .even a third-party campaign, would only ensure a Democratic victory. Maryland Senator Charles ("Mac") Mathias Jr., who once considered such a movement, has no yen for it now. Yet he is critical of Ford for trying to appease the Reaganites. "By trying to feed the alligators," Mathias complains, "the President has in fact helped them grow bigger. He has enhanced their importance. You can't appease the alligators--their appetite is insatiable."
Reagan's successes could turn out to be only a brief stretch of glory. In a national survey for TIME of 1,011 registered voters, taken just before the Texas primary, Opinion Analyst Daniel Yankelovich found that Republicans and independents combined favor Ford by a huge margin:
Ford 62%, Reagan 25%.
Reagan supporters are about equally divided between conservative Republicans and those independents and Democrats who share Wallace's expressed concerns. Adds Yankelovich: "Reagan's victories in the South and Indiana are therefore deceptive. In these conservative states, there are more of the kind of people to whom he appeals than in the country as a whole, and they vote in primaries, especially when cross-over is permitted. As of the moment, Reagan's base is about as narrow as Goldwater's was in 1964."
The nationwide preference for Ford seems to belie any claim that Reagan would be the stronger candidate in November. A Harris survey taken last month shows that Ford would run much better than Reagan against Carter, though either Republican would lose to him. In that survey, Carter was ahead of Ford, 47% to 43%, and in front of Reagan, 53% to 34%.
Despite the feeling among Republican and Democratic leaders that Ford will survive the challenge in Kansas City, there remains considerable doubt. TIME last week asked its correspondents to estimate the number of delegates that Ford and Reagan are likely to win in the state elections ahead. Momentum and other imponderables could easily change the figures, but the correspondents produced an unexpected conclusion. At the moment, Reagan would go to Kansas City with about 150 more wholly committed delegates than Ford. But when Ford picks up the uncommitted delegates who are thought to lean to him, he gains a roughly 75-vote edge--hardly a decisive difference. In addition, there are about 120 delegate races that are now impossible to call. These may well be most important because, by TIME'S latest projections, both men would be a shade short of the 1,130 needed to pin down the nomination.
That presages the decisive struggle ahead in the G.O.P., notably in the home states of the two contenders. Ford is currently conceded to be leading in Michigan by a precarious margin, and Reagan is thought to be ahead by a thread in California. Both sides agree that if either Ford or Reagan loses his home state, it would be a devastating blow. The irony would be if each were to win on the other's home ground --not an impossibility in this intriguing year.
The winner of the Republican rumble will face a tremendous challenge in trying to pull all the battered and shaken forces together to run well against the Democrat. That would be particularly true if the candidate is front runner Jimmy Carter and if he continues to show such broad strength throughout the nation's regions and voting groups. But stand by: judged by its form so far, 1976 will have further surprises lying in ambush on the road to the White House--for both the candidates and the electorate.
*Actually, the negotiations had not resumed at that time. Ambassador-at-Large Ellsworth Bunker had made a preparatory visit to Panama. -Reagan seems to have misplaced a decimal point. If the U.S. had been spending at a rate of $7 million a minute, the federal budget would be $3.68 trillion. The actual spending rate is closer to $700.-000 a minute.
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