They're So Close

When a sprinkling of previously uncommitted delegates announced for President Ford last week, the switchover was heralded as a major event. To proclaim it properly, the chairman of the New York delegation even held court at a full-blown press conference in Washington. Yet in the harrowing, narrowing race between Ford and Ronald Reagan for the Republican presidential nomination, the hoopla was not all that excessive. So vital has every vote become that the solitary delegate holding out for Non-Candidate Elliot Richardson was won over to the Ford ledger last week when Richardson himself made a personal plea.

From soundings taken in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Guam, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, TIME correspondents assessed the struggle this way, as of week's end: 1,104 delegates for Ford, 1,090 for Reagan, 65 uncommitted. The figures (see chart) include projections of delegates to be chosen this week in Utah and Connecticut. Avowedly uncommitted delegates known to lean strongly toward one candidate have been credited to their favorite.

Many Lures. Thus, five weeks before the Republican National Convention opens in Kansas City, TIME's projections indicate that while Ford is a scant 26 votes short of the 1,130 required for nomination, his challenger is only 40 votes short.

The situation is highly volatile, with both camps increasingly panicky about the firmness of their support. Delegates currently favoring Reagan could be lured to Ford in a variety of ways: appointments, honors, White House visits --or simply by a developing sense that a minority party cannot afford the luxury of turning an incumbent President out of office. Others could be swayed by the fact that Ford, as he emphasized during a White House press conference last week, has not ruled anybody out in weighing vice-presidential candidates. It was an obvious reference to Reagan, but the Californian quickly reiterated that he was not interested.

If either candidate should appear to be the likely nominee, uncommitted and loosely committed delegates would shift to him, for in politics there is no future in sticking with a loser. Thus the projections of July could differ greatly from the actual tally in August.

In the current jockeying, no situation is more intriguing than that involving the 30-vote Mississippi delegation. Traditionally, Mississippi Republicans vote as a unit. Most observers expect that the unit rule will be retained and that Reagan will win the delegation, although some Ford supporters have threatened to bolt and back the President. The most influential member of the delegation, National Committeeman Clarke Reed, is being intensively courted by Ford: Reed was a guest of the President at a dinner for Queen Elizabeth in the White House Rose Garden. Reed expects the Mississippi delegation to vote for Reagan, but admits he certainly would urge it to switch if "it appears Ford is the man" at the time of the first ballot.

Ford improved his national position slightly last week, winning eleven North Dakota delegates to Reagan's five, with two uncommitted; the delegation had been expected to divide 9-9. In Colorado, Reagan won as expected, picking up 26 delegates to 4 for Ford and 1 uncommitted. Both sides expect Reagan to sweep Utah's 20-vote delegation. But the Californian's aides, who had predicted their candidate would gain five delegates in Connecticut, now concede all of that state's 35 votes to the President.

Since the hard-core uncommitteds are increasingly resistant to blandishments--some openly concede that they enjoy their newly acquired importance and want it to continue--the struggle and suspense are likely to last until the convention. As New Jersey's Andre Gruber, Republican chairman of Middlesex County and an uncommitted delegate, puts it: "Their hearts belong to Reagan but their minds belong to Ford. Whichever part of the anatomy prevails will decide how they come down."

Second Ballot? There is even a possibility of more than one ballot. That could well prove fatal to the President's chances, since many delegates committed to Ford on the first ballot are known to prefer Reagan. Some would be under no obligation to stick with the President beyond the first ballot. The Kentucky delegation, for example, now stands at 19 votes for Ford and 18 for Reagan, in line with the outcome of the state's primary voting. If there was a second ballot, the delegation could divide 27 for Reagan, 10 for Ford.

Reagan's campaign chairman, Nevada Senator Paul Laxalt, is trying to encourage a second ballot by urging delegates whose votes are pledged to Ford but whose hearts belong to Reagan to abstain on the first go-around. In fact, under rules governing the 1976 convention, delegates cannot formally "abstain." If a delegate for any reason does not vote, then an alternate must vote for him.

But those same rules, which supersede state laws, offer a possible loophole. Regardless of pledges, delegates are permitted to vote for anyone they wish--on the first or any other ballot. North Carolina, for example, could vote for a favorite son on the first ballot, denying Ford a majority and enabling the Reagan support to flower fully on a second ballot. Another possibility is a Reagan effort to force a test vote before the presidential balloting--perhaps over an issue like credentials or the platform. The reasoning is that if Reagan's camp won such a vote, those who really prefer the Californian would stampede to his side by the first ballot.

The two stars, meanwhile, jockeyed for advantage. In a 30-minute nationwide television appearance, his second of the campaign, Reagan aimed his sharpest barbs at Jimmy Carter. He declared that "soothing rhetoric, pleasant smiles and reorganization gimmicks" were inadequate to meet the problems of the day. As for Ford, he reaped a bonanza of Bicentennial publicity. He also vetoed a $4 billion jobs bill, labeling it a Democratic election-year giveaway that would fuel inflation; the veto, his 52nd in less than two years, may be overridden, but it went over well with many Republicans. In addition, Ford won general approval for rescinding a ridiculous ban on father-son and mother-daughter school functions on the ground that they violate sex-discrimination regulations.

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