Reagan’s schedule was crammed with seventeen stops in three days. His campaign knew Spencer was telling the national media that Reagan was lazy and tired easily so they assembled a grueling schedule to banish the whispering campaign against their man. Despite the arduous schedule, Deaver remembered it was, “the most fun I ever had on a campaign. We stored quarts of whiskey and gin in the back of the bus. When we got to a town, the advance guy would run out and get Kentucky Fried Chicken for everyone on the bus.”
53
Reagan was to begin his national campaign with an intense fifteen day, twelve-hundred mile swing through the first five primary states, with the greatest emphasis on New Hampshire, where two, three-day tours were planned for January. The plan was to campaign a total of nine days in New Hampshire in January. However, he was about to be placed on the defensive by Spencer and his personal recruit to the campaign, Peter Kaye, over the “$90 billion” speech, and there he would stay for three more weeks.
Before criticism of the proposal mounted, Reagan’s team had sought to defend it. Wirthlin had polling data that showed it was popular with Republican voters. According to a nationwide survey, 59 percent of those surveyed favored transferring federal programs to the states, with only 31 percent opposed.
54
“We’re not backing away from the concept at all,” Lyn Nofziger, Reagan’s campaign spokesman said to the
Boston Globe
. “We think this is a good Republican approach.”
55
While campaigning in New Hampshire, Reagan made the point that in 1955, Senator Hubert Humphrey, no slave to federalism, had been a member of a committee which issued a report questioning the new programs the government was undertaking. The document speculated on “new activities which are susceptible of a larger measure of state and local handling.” The unseen hand of Marty Anderson was behind Reagan’s counter-offensive.
Reagan’s campaign was bounding in high spirits, despite the lingering problems with its poor handling of the “$90 billion” speech as a result of Spencer’s offensive against Reagan in New Hampshire. A Harris poll, released in December of 1975, showed the American people in basic agreement with Reagan’s conservative philosophy, including clear majorities that believed government meddled too much with private business and strong pluralities that believed Ronald Reagan was no “ordinary politician” and that Reagan’s hard-line policies toward the Soviets was appropriate.
56
Polling in December also showed Reagan surging in national surveys. A January Gallup poll of Republicans nationwide showed Ford and Reagan tied at 45 percent apiece, with the balance undecided. Gallup duly noted that Ford had been in a steady decline against the former California Governor since the previous spring, when he had led Reagan by a nearly two to one margin. Reagan had also moved ahead of Ford among independent voters.
57
Still, the problems surrounding the speech would not fade, and even Reagan’s in-state supporters were backing away. Loeb told the
Boston Globe
, “I think that’s probably a program which he will be thinking of taking a second thought on.”
58
While defending Reagan, Governor Thomson made it clear that he was against new taxes and would not be supporting Reagan if the candidate was going to increase New Hampshire’s taxes.
While Ford’s problems were beginning to take a backseat to the Reagan effort in New Hampshire, fresh speculation spread through Washington that former Pennsylvania Governor Bill Scranton, a moderate, would take over his political affairs and oversee Callaway and Spencer. But the rumor proved false. In fact, Cheney was already quietly at work, stabilizing the Ford campaign operations and meeting each morning with the top management of the committee.
While expectations were building for Reagan in New Hampshire and Florida, Ford wisely told an audience in Boston that he would run in every primary, regardless of the outcome of the first several primaries, effectively lowering perceptions about Ford’s chances in the early rounds. However, he later told the Associated Press that he foresaw no “serious obstacles” to winning the nomination, thus contradicting himself and driving Spencer and Cheney crazy.
The
Boston Globe
reported early in January, “Political observers give Reagan the edge over Mr. Ford in New Hampshire, which politically is one of the most conservative states outside the South. Reagan had endorsements from present and past Republican Governors and the state’s only statewide newspaper.”
59
The FEC also disbursed the first round of matching funds to the candidates. The President Ford Committee received an initial check of $374,422 and Citizens for Reagan received a check for $100,000. According to Loren Smith, Reagan’s Campaign Counsel, the FEC was auditing the Reagan campaign’s report. Smith contended that the FEC owed Reagan a great deal more.
60
Reagan campaigned effectively in New Hampshire, his “star status” clearly an advantage. It was in the Granite State where Reagan unveiled the effective “Citizens Press Conferences” he had used for eight years in California.
Reagan would typically address a roomful of supporters and curious onlookers and afterwards take questions, often lasting well over an hour. He was the master at this and answered all with energy and humor. He would also frequently stand in line, shake hands, pose for photos, and hold babies, without ever losing his poise or charm. Contrary to the opinions of many, Reagan was actually getting a fair ride for the most part from the press. The
Christian Science Monitor
,
ABC News
and NBC’s
Today Show
covered the early portion of his campaign favorably.
Many conservative columnists also wrote praiseworthy pieces. Their backing was a given, at least as far as the Reagan forces were concerned. But not all of them were supportive, as
Human Events
complained in their ongoing fight with columnist George Will. The conservative weekly’s editors, Tom Winter and Allan Ryskind, had been engaged in a feud of longstanding with Will, the former Washington Bureau Chief of
National Review
who left to become a columnist for the
Washington Post
. Winter and Ryskind thought Will was insufficiently conservative and told their readers so.
Human Events
took delight in reminding their readers that Will was no fan of Reagan’s and took occasional shots at the Gipper. One of his columns in 1973 said of Reagan, “around the mouth and neck he looks like an old man.” Will also wrote favorably about Rockefeller, before Reagan entered the foray, suggesting that he lead the Republican Party in 1976.
61
But by 1976, Will was often praising Reagan in his column.
Reagan, as might be expected, received favorable coverage from conservative publications like
Human Events
and
National Review
. It was with the editorial pages and the liberal columnists of the major daily newspapers where he sometimes got raked across the coals. When he announced for President in November of 1975, the
Baltimore Sun
wrote acidly, “The Reagan challenge to Mr. Ford comes from the right, the radical right, which cherishes notions that often are too simple, too negative and too risky. Yet, we welcome Mr. Reagan’s entry, and if Mr. Ford falters or swings too far right, we would welcome the candidacies of others speaking for the Republican mainstream.”
62
James “Scotty” Reston, one of the deans of the eastern establishment’s liberal columnists, wrote that Reagan’s challenge to Ford was, “patently ridiculous . . . the astonishing thing is that this amusing but frivolous Reagan fantasy is taken so seriously by the news media and particularly by the President. It makes a lot of news, but it makes no sense.”
63
Garry Wills, a nationally syndicated liberal columnist who had once written for
National Review
, wrote that it is “unfair to expect accuracy or depth” from Reagan, who “seems destined to keep playing second lead, even to a bungler like President Ford.” Wills judged the other candidates in relation to Reagan. Fred Harris “offers a more genuine populism.” Jimmy Carter “economizes more as Governor.” Sergeant Shriver was a better dresser, and George Wallace “is even more ignorant.”
64
Benjamin Taylor, a reporter and columnist for the
Boston Globe
, wrote, “In his political style, Ronald Reagan catered to the fears and anxieties of the great middle class.” Reviewing Reagan’s political career, he wrote, “His was always a campaign against something.”
65
Taylor did come to the conclusion that Reagan had been a fairly effective Governor of California, although he contended Reagan had done so by “compromising” and being more moderate than his rhetoric.
Reagan’s media coverage, especially as it related to the “$90 billion” speech and his New Hampshire campaign, was about to take a dramatic turn for the worse. Headlines soon blared about Reagan being confronted at campaign stop after stop about his proposal. All three days of his initial tour were marred with the same questions from the media and the citizenry about his plan. Reagan answered each patiently and never lost his cool, but it must have been maddening. The
Boston Globe
reported,
At three stops during Reagan’s tour of New Hampshire’s northern section, he defended his scheme to slash $90 billion from the Federal budget by returning various social programs to the states. The plan has been criticized as unsound and potentially disastrous to state and local governments by Ford supporters.
66
While Ford’s forces were effectively injecting the “$90 billion” speech into the national and New Hampshire political debate, the Ford White House showed remarkable discipline for the first time and sent Ron Nessen to tell the media that Ford would not respond to Reagan’s attacks.
Reported the
Boston Globe
, “The tack enables the White House to lump Reagan, a potentially strong conservative challenger and the only Republican rival to Mr. Ford, in with the large number of Democrats.” The story proceeded to report Ford’s new strategy, “We haven’t overreacted in the past,” said a Ford aide. “For instance, when Reagan made his proposal to cut the Federal budget by $90 billion, the President didn’t come out and criticize it directly, he left that to others to do.”
67
Others, like syndicated columnist Mary McGrory, officially of the
Washington Star.
McGrory referred to Reagan’s speech as a violation of the Twelfth Commandment (the Eleventh being, “Thou shalt not speak ill of another Republican.”), which was, according to her, “Thou shalt not speak of half-baked money schemes in mixed company.” McGrory also gleefully quoted Callaway saying that Reagan wanted to “throw old people out in the snow.” McGrory opined, “It could be that the people of New Hampshire are as flinty as their reputation and would endorse the idea of throwing old people out in the snow and be glad that Ronald Reagan had made cold-heartedness respectable.”
68
By the end of his first swing in New Hampshire, it seemed all Reagan could talk about was defending his now controversial budget proposal. On the last day, he was asked over twenty times by voters about the “$90 billion” speech, and he patiently gave the same answer each time. The plan would be phased in gradually, there would be no interruption of services, and there would be an identical cut in taxes at the federal level for each additional dollar needed at the state and local levels to offset the loss of federal funds.
The problem was that Reagan was explaining, and the old adage in politics was that if you were explaining, you were losing. Reagan was ahead of Ford in Wirthlin’s surveys, and he was hailed as the frontrunner by the press, influenced by the adoring crowds. His own campaign staff was letting expectations get out of control and Reagan was beginning to lose ground in New Hampshire.
“I hope someone down there lights
a candle for me.”
G
erald Ford arrived in New Hampshire on January 9, 1976, for his first visit to the state since he stumped unsuccessfully for GOP Senate nominee Louis Wyman in September of 1975. Ford was still carrying the burden of being made sport of by some in the national media, including Mike Barnicle, an iconoclastic liberal columnist for the
Boston Globe.
1
Barnicle welcomed Ford to the state, hypothesizing that at one of Ford’s first campaign stops someone had asked him about his wife Betty’s controversial interview with
60 Minutes
the previous August—in which she made clear she would understand if her daughter, Susan, had an affair. Barnicle spoofed Ford by writing, “Any affair that Susan has while I’m in the White House will be catered. And that’s all I have to say on that subject.”
2
Time
greeted the New Year by reviewing Ford’s ongoing problems in an article titled “The Ridicule Problem.” The piece summarized many of Ford’s pratfalls and included some favorite lines of comedians: “How can a man who works in an Oval Office paint himself into so many corners.” Another was: “The only thing between Nelson Rockefeller and the Presidency is a banana peel.” Worse: “The President pierced his left hand with a salad fork at a White House luncheon celebrating Tuna Salad Day. Alert Secret Service agents seized the fork and wrestled it to the ground.”
3
It was all terribly unfair to the President. Some of the political cartoons could be even crueler. But it was the reality his team was forced to deal with, as Bo Callaway addressed in a memo to Stu Spencer: “We run the other risks inherent in travel; slips, falls, accidents, etc. which surely hurt us.”
4