Though the 1980 election is still eleven months away, Republican Candidate Ronald Reagan says he is already spending so much time traveling that he no longer feels that he just gets on airplanes: "I wear them." That view is shared by TIME's National Political Correspondent, John Stacks, who has a mandate to range far and frequently to meet candidates and test political moods. In the past two months, Stacks has done extensive firsthand reporting on Massachusetts Senator Edward Kennedy, California Governor Jerry Brown, Texas Republican George Bush and Reagan. He and Los Angeles Correspondent Joseph Kane collaborated on the profile and interview of the former actor and Governor that appear in the Nation section this week, on the occasion of Reagan's formal announcement of his candidacy for the White House. Says Stacks: "What I expect to be doing in the coming months is a great deal of flying--on big planes, medium-sized ones, little ones. Constant motion is the first rule of political coverage. The variety of places to visit and sources to see is the best protection against misunderstanding the politics of any campaign year."

Pennsylvania-born Stacks, who lives in the Washington suburb of Chevy Chase, Md., majored in political science at Yale ('64) and got his first journalistic exposure to national politics as a general assignment reporter for the Washington Star. By the 1968 campaign he had joined TIME, for which he covered the Democratic candidates through the election. In 1972, as Boston bureau chief, he followed the New England primaries, and in 1976 he was part of the Washington bureau team that trailed the Carter-Mondale campaign. After taking a leave from his correspondent's duties--first to help Watergate Judge John Sirica compose his memoirs, later to write as a member of TIME's New York staff--Stacks returned to the pursuit of politicians.

This will keep Stacks airborne. Last week, when Reagan went to New York City to launch his presidential drive at a dinner in Manhattan, Stacks was unable to attend because of a previous engagement: he had flown to Des Moines for three days of watching George Bush beat the bushes in Iowa. Despite all the arduous travel involved, Stacks takes special pleasure in campaign reporting. "Politicians are sometimes silly, sometimes banal, frequently self-serving and occasionally absolutely unbearable," he says. "But they are just as often earnest, serious and creative in proposing solutions to the problems the nation faces. In an election year, there is no better assignment in journalism."

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