Ford’s campaign continued to pound Reagan on the “$90 billion” proposal and his comments on Social Security. And Kissinger joyously piled on, suggesting that Reagan was a threat to world peace without mentioning him by name. At a State Department press conference, Kissinger said that negotiations between the three superpowers were “too delicate, too important for world peace to be used for simply partisan sloganeering.”
81
The heat Reagan was taking in the media from the Ford campaign was even too much for Reagan’s old appointment secretary, Paul Haerle, who had become Chairman of the California Republican Party courtesy of his appointment by Reagan. Haerle supported Ford in 1976 and also organized fellow Californians Wilson and McCloskey in their opposition to their former Governor.
Ford’s team was more effectively controlling expectations than Reagan by playing down their chances while playing up Reagan’s. New England Political Director Richard Mastrangelo and others were assuring reporters that Reagan’s rock-ribbed supporters would turn out no matter what, but Ford’s support was softer. They were conditioning the media for a narrow Ford loss or, even better, an unexpected Ford win. Said one Ford supporter to the
Boston Globe,
“It all depends on the size of the turnout. If people are apathetic and don’t vote, Reagan wins because those G—damned Reagan people will vote no matter what.”
82
The President also found time to spend a day and a half stumping in Florida, where his chances were brightening. He campaigned in Orlando, Ft. Lauderdale, Miami, Ft. Myers, and St. Petersburg. At one of Ford’s appearances, Frank Cormier reported for the Associated Press, “His speech was marred by a brief scuffle between pro-Ford oldsters and youthful demonstrators . . . the senior citizens, wielding purses and umbrellas, clearly won.”
83
Reagan’s local forces were finally backing off landslide predictions they’d been making. His State Chairman, Tommy Thomas, a Panama City auto dealer, had previously told reporters that Reagan would defeat Ford “two to one” in the Sunshine State. Both sides now knew the situation in Florida was so fluid that any stumble or loss in a primary before the Florida March 9 GOP contest could tip the outcome one way or the other.
84
Reagan’s anti-big-government message was starting to sound like a broken record to the reporters covering his campaign. He was also getting hit in the media for accepting contributions from oil executives.
85
Despite his successes in New Hampshire, Reagan’s campaign also appeared in disarray when Loeb and Thomson disagreed publicly over its fate. Loeb said he thought that his man could lose, while Thomson predicted Reagan would prevail over Ford by at least 5 percent.
86
Working against Reagan’s expectations was the growing chorus from the Ford White House, the President Ford Committee and his New Hampshire operation that Ford might pull an upset win. The national media, experienced in such matters, had seen trailing campaigns “puff ” their chances, believing wavering voters would want to go with who they perceived was a “winner,” and therefore much of the ballyhooing from the Ford camp was dismissed by the media.
It was announced that Ford would make one final swing through New Hampshire the Thursday and Friday before the February 24 primary. But one more attack on Reagan by another one of his opponents must have pleased the candidate. A Soviet commentator, Valentin Zorin, called Reagan a “henchman of the extreme right-wing circles of America” and said that Reagan was “especially zealous” in his attacks on détente between the United States and the Soviet Union.
87
The Ford White House never seemed to decide whether to label Reagan as an extreme, out-of-the-mainstream, unelectable nuclear cowboy or someone who was in basic philosophical agreement with Ford. They used both stratagems. But when Ford charged once again a mere week before the primary that Reagan was “to the right of me philosophically” and that Reagan could not win the general election, the charge gave Reagan a chance to reach into his bag of tricks.
“I’m a little surprised by this statement about my so-called extremism,” Reagan said with a smile. “It does come rather strange because he tried on two different occasions to persuade me to accept any of several Cabinet positions in his Administration, and did appoint me subsequently to his CIA investigating commission.” When asked whether he thought Ford offered the positions as a way of dissuading the challenger from running, the Governor chuckled: “No, I just thought he recognized my administrative ability.” Embarrassed, the Ford team confirmed the proposed Cabinet offerings.
88
Just a week before the primary, David Nyhan of the
Boston Globe
summarized the reality of the race: “The President’s spear-carriers say a 50.1 percent victory will be received like a victory, and they are probably correct.”
89
Both campaigns were now on high octane, relentlessly driving through the last several days of the campaign. Both candidates were due back in the state just before the primary although they would not directly cross paths. Ford would eventually campaign in Keene and Portsmouth on Thursday and Friday (February 19 and 20) while Reagan would march through a sixth and final swing in Manchester and Nashua on Saturday and Sunday. Reagan would then depart New Hampshire for Illinois until the late afternoon of February 24 when he would return to New Hampshire. This decision to pull Reagan out of New Hampshire would be bitterly debated for years to come.
90
Meanwhile both camps made phone calls to their committed supporters and the “undecided,” made literature drops in Republican strongholds, arranged rides to the polls for the following Tuesday, drank coffee by the gallon, and smoked cigarettes by the carton.
If there was any remaining doubt as to the quirky nature of New Hampshire politics, it should have been put to bed when Ford’s Chairman, Senator Cotton, happily introduced Reagan at an event in his hometown of Lebanon. Cotton made clear that he admired Reagan, could work with him and support him if he was the nominee and he was “my kind of fellow.”
91
All parties seemed to agree that it was too close to call, but the low-key style in the final hours of the Ford campaign contrasted sharply with the infectious enthusiasm of their counterparts in the Reagan operation. Many in the media wanted Reagan to win because they wanted a horse race to write about and liked many in the Reagan camp, especially Sears, Lake, Anderson, Nofziger, Black, and Keene. Conversely, they did not like many people in the Ford operation, including Nessen, Morton, and Callaway. Cheney, Spencer, and Peter Kaye were the few exceptions.
Nessen took the “lowballing” of New Hampshire too much to heart, as he told reporters that it was relatively unimportant in the context of thirty other state GOP contests. Ford was forced to do some cleanup when he arrived in the state, telling reporters, “I think New Hampshire is very important. The eyes of the nation are on this state.”
92
Counterintuitively, Ford attacked Reagan from the right, accusing his oppo- nent of being for “back door socialism” because of Reagan public musings about investing the trust fund of Social Security into America’s stock market.
93
Reagan was once again forced on the defensive and had to restate his support for Social Security. “It is unconscionable, for whatever political purpose for someone to use people who are dependent on Social Security and frighten them into believing that something may interrupt their payment,” the Governor said at senior citizen housing projects in Manchester.
94
Ford also chided Reagan for not running in all thirty Republican Presidential contests that year as he was.
On his final swing through the Granite State, Reagan was accompanied by two of his old Hollywood friends, actors Jimmy Stewart and Lloyd Nolan. They were greeted by large and excited crowds, including the students at St. Anselm’s College, before flying out Sunday morning, the 22nd, just two days before the crucial primary.
95
Inexplicably to many, Reagan jetted off for two days of campaigning in Illinois whose primary was several weeks away. Hannaford said, “There, he spent a day touring boyhood sights and went to Tampico, his birthplace. Nancy Reynolds and I stood outside, talking, when a
New York Times
reporter came up to us and joked, ‘Where’s the manger, upstairs or down?’ We then went to his grammar school and all of his old third grade classmates were there. They all looked twenty years older than Reagan.”
“That afternoon, there was a big rally at his Dixon high school,” Hannaford said.
96
After Deaver and Wirthlin boarded a plane in Los Angeles the morning of Sunday the 22nd and found out they were heading for Illinois instead of New Hampshire, Wirthlin said, “I died a little bit when I found that out.” Hannaford shared the same concern as Wirthlin.
97
Years later, Wirthlin wrote that as they were flying into New Hampshire on Monday night, Sears informed Wirthlin that he had not yet shared the latest polling data with Reagan, which warned that he might possibly lose to Ford. Wirthlin was stunned. He had warned Sears in a memo several days before that his data showed Reagan with only a “whisper of a lead.”
98
Even Reagan apparently had misgivings about leaving the state. When he flew back Monday night, he looked out the window at the lights of Manchester and said to no one in particular, “I hope someone down there lights a candle for me.”
99
However, Governor Gregg had insisted that Reagan leave the state for the last two days, and Sears deferred to him.
100
It was Gregg’s state and Sears reasoned that he knew it better than the Reagan campaign did. Gregg articulated to them that Reagan’s presence would clog turnout operations and he would be an unnecessary distraction.
The morning of the New Hampshire primary dawned clear and unseasonably warm, atypical for a state famed for its skiing and other winter sports. The national media had descended in the state like a swarm of locusts. The three television networks alone sent over four hundred staffers to the tiny state to cover the two Presidential primaries.
Lake started his morning as he had for the previous three months, with breakfast at 5:30 A.M. He then proceeded to the campaign headquarters where he would usually find Governor Gregg already at work. That morning they reviewed the newspapers, made phone calls to county, town and precinct workers, fielded press calls and exhorted the troops to do their maximum.
Reagan’s team gathered at the New Hampshire Highway Hotel that evening. Huddled in a private suite were Reagan, Mrs. Reagan, Lake, Wirthlin, Reynolds, Anderson, Paul Russo, Hannaford, Deaver, Nofziger, and other members of the team. All through the day, Reagan had been clinging to a small lead over Ford, but some worried that the city of Keene would hold its vote results back until all other precincts in the state had reported when the polls closed. Keene’s Mayor, the popular Jim Masiello, was a strong Ford supporter and the President Ford Committee had high hopes for a healthy showing in the city.
101
The day began ominously for Reagan as he lost the midnight vote from Dixville Notch with eleven votes for Ford and only four for Reagan.
102
Dixville Notch citizens liked the bath of national media attention every four years as a result of their bizarre habit of voting just after midnight. It meant little in the larger vote total, but it was the first real news report from New Hampshire and thus was important for both bragging rights and the psychology of the respective campaigns. Overall, Reagan had campaigned in more than one hundred communities, including Dixville Notch.
Jimmy Carter bested the field for the Democrats in Dixville’s Democratic vote. Little did anyone know at the time, but the eventual 1976 nominees of the two parties had already been chosen by the few dozen crotchety citizens of Dixville Notch. The story led on the front page of the
Manchester Union-Leader
along with a story in which Reagan not only predicted victory to bolster his troops, but told students in Illinois that his campaign’s polling showed he would win. Reagan was usually a better campaigner with a better sense of handling expectations than he showed that day.
103
It was also uncharacteristic because Reagan rarely concerned himself with polls and the happenings of a political campaign, including his own.
Caught in his own apparent inexplicable giddiness, White House political advisor Rogers C.B. Morton told reporters the day before that Ford would win, 52 percent to 48 percent. Nessen was sent out to assure the media that the President, though he expected to win, would not put a number on it like Morton or back it with campaign polling, like Reagan.
104
On the evening of Tuesday, February 24, Ford’s team nervously gathered at his campaign headquarters in Washington and at the White House, taking projections from key precincts across the state and preparing to put the best face on what could only be described as a disaster for Ford if he lost to Reagan. Not since Harry Truman lost to Estes Kefauver in the 1952 New Hampshire primary had a sitting President lost here.
105
Truman withdrew from the race shortly after the loss. Reagan jumped to a 52–48 lead, according to exit polling conducted by the campaign, and he clung to it all day.
106
Spencer blamed one person for Ford’s possible predicament: Richard Nixon. He speculated that the trip to China was a deliberate attempt to cause Ford to lose. At Ford’s headquarters, Spencer said loudly enough for reporters to hear him, “The Secret Service better not let me get within thirty feet of the bastard.”
107