Bill Roberts, whom Stu Spencer had asked to take over the Florida Ford operation said that Reagan was “totally unqualified to be President.” He told Ford’s supporters in Florida, “[Reagan] looks like a President, and he looked like a Governor, but he is a figurehead. He is totally incapable of exerting leadership and is dependent on people bringing programs to him. He is a reactor, not an actor.”
11
Reagan’s campaign in Florida was headed by the ever-ebullient Tommy Thomas, the Panama City car dealer. Thomas made New Hampshire’s Mel Thomson look like an amateur when it came to putting the candidate in the pickle barrel.
Thomas, a renowned character in Florida politics, was also good copy. Sometime too good, as he told Loye Miller of the
Miami Herald
that Reagan “has got to quit being the nice guy or he’s gonna nice-guy himself right out of this race.”
12
Referring to the federal government, he also told the paper, “If I was going to give the world an enema, I’d insert the nozzle in Washington.”
13
The campaign had also recruited Al Cardenas, a twenty-two-year-old law student, to run the vitally important operations in Dade County.
14
It wasn’t unusual for Reagan’s campaigns to be placed in the hands of very young people, as with Rick Reed and Kathy Regan, who were also assisting Reagan in Florida.
15
They were just three of the “conservative children’s crusade” who comprised Reagan’s following throughout his political career. Reagan’s most passionate supporters always came from young Americans, moved by his message.
For the Ford campaign, the win in New Hampshire was a shot of adrenaline that couldn’t have come a moment sooner. It transformed the “gang that couldn’t shoot straight” into the “masters of the universe” overnight.
One Reagan supporter tried to put to put a positive spin on it. William Loeb, the acerbic publisher of the
Manchester Union-Leader
wrote two days later that “no incumbent President has ever had a challenger who acquired in a New Hampshire primary 49 percent of the vote.” He reminded readers of the odds that Reagan was up against and called down fire on the “professional Republican politicians [who] were breaking their backs in order to keep their positions on the Washington gravy train by putting across their protector, Mr. Ford.”
16
Reagan supporters were smarting all across the country in meetings, conservative circles, at
Human Events, National Review,
and especially at the campaign offices of Citizens for Reagan. Reagan’s loss in New Hampshire was “devastating,” according to David Keene.
17
The campaign had high hopes for a win in Florida, but New Hampshire made this doubly difficult. Ford had the momentum after his unexpected win.
Before New Hampshire, Reagan had been clinging to a small lead in Florida, according to Dick Wirthlin’s polling. The Ford campaign there was in shambles as a result of the incompetence of Congressman Louis Frey, who chaired the President’s Florida effort before Stu Spencer bumped Frey and installed Roberts to clean up the mess. The Ford campaign, at least organizationally, had been righted in Florida. After New Hampshire, Reagan had plummeted by seventeen points in the Wirthlin polls in Florida.
18
Also trying to explain his loss in New Hampshire was former Senator Fred Harris of Oklahoma. A Democrat campaigning in the truest populist fashion, like his hero William Jennings Bryan, Harris lost disappointingly to Jimmy Carter in the Democratic primary. At his post-primary reception, Harris told supporters, “We have not done as well at the polls as we had hoped, perhaps because the little people could not reach them.”
While all eyes were now on Florida, Massachusetts and Vermont would hold their state primaries on March 2. The Reagan campaign had already announced it would bypass both, and Ford did not campaign in either state. But the state parties were working hard for Ford in both states.
Not contesting these primaries may have been a mistake. Citizens for Reagan bought into the stereotype of both states being faddishly, hopelessly liberal, while not focusing on the small numbers of primary voters who would be deciding on a decent chunk of delegates. “They argue that Massachusetts, because of its liberal voting patterns of recent years does not represent mainstream Republican thought and will have little bearing on their campaign,” wrote the
Boston Globe
.
19
But the rules of the game were changing. It was no longer just about winning primaries to score psychological wins; it was now also about the all important delegate count. Although Reagan and Ford essentially split the vote in New Hampshire, Ford walked away with eighteen of the twenty-one delegates. However, many Republican state parties had switched to proportional delegate selection. Massachusetts opted for this system in a state committee meeting by a narrow vote of twenty-five to twenty-four the previous September.
The Ford people were learning quickly how to manage their—and Reagan’s—expectations. Reagan had announced that he would not make any effort in Massachusetts, would expend no resources, and would not personally campaign there. Indeed, the
Globe
reported, “To say that the Reagan campaign in Massachusetts has been a small scale effort is probably an overstatement—it has been hard to find.”
20
Ford’s forces accused the Reagan camp of “playing possum,” and charged that Reagan was “trying to sneak up on us in Massachusetts,” as reported in the
Globe
. Reagan had spent fifty-eight thousand dollars on Boston television, but that was all aimed at New Hampshire. Reagan had downplayed his non-existent effort in Massachusetts, estimating a return of somewhere around 30 to 35 percent.
21
The Ford people estimated publicly that Reagan could come in as high as 47 percent.
22
But this was simply a case of the Ford campaign boosting Reagan’s expectations, knowing that Reagan would most likely lose badly.
The GOP universe in Massachusetts had shrunk from 520,000 to 460,000 registered voters over just two years. The prevailing wisdom was that moderates and liberals were leaving the GOP for the Democratic Party, which was cooler and hipper in Massachusetts in 1976. Still, no one in Reagan’s camp thought he could win or even show well in Massachusetts without a concerted effort like Ford’s, which spent two hundred thousand dollars in the state.
23
Reagan’s in-state supporters, including Bill Barnstead, who was the GOP’s State Chairman, initiated an organic phone effort. It was poorly organized and only reached fifteen thousand primary voters. Meanwhile, Ford’s campaign boasted that they had called ten times as many GOP primary voters.
24
Like Thomas, his Florida Chairman, Reagan had had high hopes for Florida. Even the Ford White House conceded the situation when Nessen told reporters in late January that Ford would get “clobbered” in Florida if the primary had been held the day of his briefing.
Reagan departed Manchester, accompanied by Paul Russo and other aides for a day of campaigning in Illinois. That evening he pushed on to Florida for several days of campaigning. If Reagan was glum about the results, he did not show it to the supporters who showed up to see him off. Reagan looked immaculate in a blue suit and crisp white shirt. He also spoke with reporters before noting a hand-lettered sign to one of his staff that had been taped to the fuselage of his chartered jet, reading, “Air Force One—’77.”
25
Several prominent Republicans believed Reagan was a lightweight and thus saw Ford’s win as not impressive, but as a show of weakness, since he could not defeat Reagan decisively in New Hampshire. Nelson Rockefeller, John Connally, and Elliot Richardson all took the measure of Reagan and Ford. Each would bide his time to see if the campaign would produce a divided convention. Or if Ford were to drop out, they would re-evaluate their situation and dive in to pick up the fight against the Californian.
Defying Ford, Rockefeller told the nation’s Governors that he supported 100 percent federal financing of welfare and then petulantly went on to say that his views “do not purport to be Administration policy.”
26
Meanwhile, Reagan went to his hometown of Tampico again to campaign and told a crowd of twelve hundred at the high school he attended, “You could get dazed in a warm bath of nostalgia.”
27
He was questioned again about the $90 billion speech. Reagan defended it and then said, “Does Ford have a better idea?” playing off the Ford Motor Company’s advertising campaign of the moment.
Hours after Ford eked out his win in New Hampshire, Sears “broke out the booze,” according to Charlie Black, and his team met to discuss a new rhetorical direction for the candidate. In an all night session, they agreed Reagan needed to start going after Ford on Henry Kissinger, détente, the Panama Canal giveaway, and the relative strength of the U.S. military. Reagan was agreeable.
28
Ford went into Florida the first weekend after New Hampshire’s primary. Although he was soaked campaigning in an open limousine during a six-hour motorcade, he was cheered on by a decent-sized crowd. Ford later dried by the sun, but looking somewhat the worse for wear, said, “I don’t look very good, but I think I’m a darn good President,” and the crowd of ten thousand at a West Palm Beach shopping center reacted enthusiastically. It was also apparent that Ford was wearing a bulletproof vest under his rain soaked shirt. He told the crowd at many of the fourteen cities he stopped in that America was “on the road to a new prosperity . . . we’re not going to be sidetracked now.”
29
While eating barbecue in Sarasota, Ford told a supportive crowd about the differences between himself and Reagan, noting that different recipes are served at different cookouts. “I know some political campaigns have that same approach,” Ford said, “but as President, I have to use a political recipe that’s consistent. I don’t have the luxury of dealing with each of the 50 states one at a time telling each of them what they want to hear. My job is to determine the best recipe for the whole country.”
30
Ford also addressed a group of 1,161 new American citizens and blasted Fidel Castro, calling him an “outlaw.” At the naturalization ceremony, Ford told the cheering Cuban Americans, “My Administration will have nothing to do with the Cuba of Fidel Castro.”
31
Once again, as in New Hampshire, all the advantages of Ford’s incumbency were on full display and carefully marketed to Florida’s Republican voters. A reporter told John Coyne, who was writing an article for the
National Review
, “Ronald Reagan brings a political campaign to town, Gerald Ford brings the White House.”
32
Consensus in the national media was building that the Reagan loss in New Hampshire was costing him his lead in Florida. Reporters assumed he could not continue if he lost in Florida and Illinois. Even Reagan conceded the loss of momentum to reporters when asked, saying, “That may well be.”
33
However, credibility gaps were widening in both camps as Ford told a pleasant crowd in Florida that he had not reversed himself on one issue in the nineteen months he had been President. Reagan’s poll numbers in Florida had plummeted, although Sears showed them to no one in fear of the effect it would have on morale. Sears never told Tommy Thomas who continued to tell anybody and everybody that Reagan would win.
In Vermont, where eighteen delegates would fall into Ford’s lap without contention or question, and in Massachusetts, voters went to the polls on March 2. As expected, Ford won with 84 percent of the vote. A last minute write-in campaign was organized for Reagan, but it only managed to scare up 4,769 votes compared to Ford’s 25,720.
34
In Massachusetts, Reagan received almost exactly what his campaign predicted: 35.6 percent of the vote—62,951 ballots. Ford received 91,391 votes. Of the forty-three delegates in the state, Ford received twenty-seven and Reagan received fifteen, with one undecided who was eventually convinced to opt for Ford.
35
The cold weather was horrible on March 2, which helped snuff turnout in both states. Nearly a foot of snow fell in Vermont, and three towns were forced to suspend their voting. Ford watched the returns at the White House while Reagan was in California, preparing for his next foray into Florida. An
NBC News
-
Boston
Globe
exit poll showed Ford doing well among liberal, moderate, and even some slightly conservative voters. Reagan was only doing well among those who identified themselves as conservative or very conservative.
36
The twin victories were yet another psychological win for Ford and his forces. Although Reagan had conceded both states to Ford, two more primary victories under his belt salved a lot of wounds in his campaign, and Ford’s stature continued to grow inside the Republican Party. He also began to campaign with more confidence—looking less like a bungler and more like a winner.
During Reagan’s initial foray into Florida, his supporters and the media expected him to begin to tear into Ford and his Administration. His Hillsborough County Chairman, Ward Dougherty, introduced Reagan to 600 faithful at a luncheon, telling the crowd, “I wish he would forget all that Eleventh Commandment stuff, but he won’t,” to the cheers of the Reaganites in attendance. Reagan only gently elbowed Ford as “part of the Washington establishment.”
37
Reagan was holding back because his essential decency and respect for the institution of the Presidency weighed on him. Despite his agreement with Sears and company to boost the specific attacks on Ford, Evans and Novak described Reagan’s rhetoric as “wrapped in cotton wadding with scarcely the glint of a sharp edge.”
38