On April 24, the state conventions for the Arizona and South Carolina Republican parties took place, and Reagan, as expected, did well in these two states. In South Carolina, Reagan prevailed, seizing twenty-seven of the thirty-six delegates at stake. Reagan was helped there by one of the two Governors in the country to endorse him—Jim Edwards. The only minor disappointment was Edwards’s failure to gain his convention’s support for a “unit rule” whereby all delegates had to vote with the majority. Reagan did even better in the Grand Canyon State, taking twenty-seven of the twenty-nine delegates selected, despite a speech by Goldwater lauding President Ford.
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The Pennsylvania primary took place on April 27, but the Reagan forces, as decided by Sears, had decided to forego any effort there. They reasoned that the state party had such an iron grip that any effort there would be futile. The Republican Party in Pennsylvania was controlled by Ford’s supporters including Drew Lewis, who had lost for Governor two years before, as well as Senators Hugh Scott and Richard Schweiker. Lewis had spent months combing the state for delegates who would be certainly loyal to him and at least marginally loyal to Ford.
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Pennsylvania’s delegates, like New York’s, were technically listed as “uncommitted,” but the vast majority would eventually go for Ford—a total of 257 between the two states.
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Again, Sears’s decision was disputed, but his side had one simple answer on the matter of bypassing these big industrial states: power. The GOP machines were all on record for Ford and used their own financial resources to help him. Any startup grassroots organizational effort on behalf of Reagan would have cost more than what was available to the Reagan campaign. Sears’s reasoning was sound in the eyes of many but not all: win impressively in other states, impress these uncommitted delegates with the victories Reagan was rolling up, and bargain with them in the days leading to the convention.
Others, like Paul Weyrich, then an up-and-coming conservative activist, had met with Sears and pleaded to let them organize conservative groups that could assemble their own delegate operations for Reagan. But according to Weyrich, Sears demurred.
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Of Reagan’s new strategy, Lou Cannon wrote in the
Washington Post
,
Both the South and West will be disproportionately represented at the Republican convention, largely because of the success of conservatives at the last two conventions in turning back effort to increase the representation of the most populous states.
As a result, there are nearly 1,000 delegates in the Southern and Western states, and [John] Sears estimates that Reagan needs about 700 of them to have a realistic chance of securing the Presidential nomination. The other 430 delegates needed for the nomination would come from a scattering of Reagan delegates in other regions and from uncommitted delegates.
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Rowland Evans and Robert Novak also spotted a new trend in Reagan’s appeal in Texas:
The remarkable gathering of over 3,000 lacked the sleek, chic look of Texas Republicans and seemed much more like a typical Wallace rally— women in housedresses, sport-shirted men, lots of small American flags. If the virtual collapse of Wallace’s candidacy is sending right-wing populist Democrats across party lines to Reagan, President Ford is in deepening trouble here.
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They also observed that Reagan was now “far more combative and assured” than he had been in New Hampshire.
A newly released poll showed the largely unknown Jimmy Carter beating Gerald Ford.
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Adding to Ford’s headaches, another issue was emerging in Texas that would eventually serve Reagan’s purposes. Back in December, Ford had signed an energy bill that was strongly opposed by Texas’s oilmen. Reagan attacked the bill, saying it discouraged domestic production. The “oil depletion allowance,” which Ford and Congress had all but eliminated in the bill, was as sacred in Texas as the Alamo.
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Texas was also another open primary state, and although Bob Teeter’s polling of Republican voters showed Ford competitive, his calculations could not factor in the flagging campaign of George Wallace and the thousands of conservative Democrats his demise would cut loose in Texas on May 1. Making Teeter’s job virtually impossible was that voters did not register by party in Texas, so there was no realistic way in which to measure support or turnout. Furthermore, this would be the first contested Presidential primary in Texas Republican history, leaving no way to “guesstimate” turnout.
The Texas high command for Reagan—Ron Dear, Ernie Angelo, and Ray Barnhart—had been impressed with the win their old conservative friends Tom Ellis and Jesse Helms had achieved for Reagan in North Carolina. Ellis and Helms gladly accepted the Texans’ invitation to the Lone Star State to help. Ellis also brought along pollster Arthur Finkelstein, who scripted much of the North Carolina effort, hoping he could be of use in Texas as well. Establishment Republicans had long ago dismissed the trio of Dear, Angelo, and Barnhart as “extremists.” Indeed, the Texas Republican Party “held a press conference in which they said they weren’t worried about the Reagan operation in Texas because they didn’t have anyone of ‘substance’ working for them,” Angelo recalled.
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Jeff Bell, who had been in the campaign’s doghouse since the “$90 billion” speech, had been keeping a low profile in the headquarters. But he finally pleaded with Sears to let him go to Texas to help his friend Ron Dear, and Sears agreed.
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While in Texas, Bell discovered a lifetime Democrat in Fort Worth, Rollie Millirons, who was planning to cross over and vote for Reagan.
Finkelstein was alerted to Millirons and immediately wrote a radio script that was broadcasted repeatedly across the state. In the commercials, Millirons told his listeners that he had been a Democrat all of his life, and he was planning on voting for George Wallace, but Wallace could not win. Reagan could, and that was why Millirons would be voting for Reagan. The commercial was a revelation to many Democrats in Texas, who had been “yellow dog” Democrats all their lives, following in their parents and grandparents and great-grandparents’ footsteps. The Reagan campaign also handed out fliers, stating, “Democrats: You will not be committing a major indiscretion if you vote, this year, in the Republican primary.” The fliers had drawings of a Republican elephant saying “I’m for Reagan!” and a Democratic donkey saying “Me too!”
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Ford was scheduled to make two trips to Texas, but his campaign was reassessing its strategy. Incumbency, it was determined, was no longer enough to win primaries. The campaign believed Ford would have to get more specific about where he stood and where he disagreed with Reagan, and how he and not Reagan was in basic agreement with Republican primary voters.
On the day of the Wisconsin primary, Reagan was campaigning in Texas while his campaign was going through a reorganization of sorts. Reagan’s Press Secretary, Lyn Nofziger, was detailed back to California to run the Reagan effort there for the June 8 primary and was replaced by Jim Lake. Nofziger was battling with Sears over strategy and ideology but had never been a favorite of Nancy Reagan’s. Lake was popular with both.
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The campaign was still strapped for cash, and one of Reagan’s Texas Chairmen, Ray Barnhart, told the media that his plans for a phone bank would have to be scrapped. Barnhart said that Reagan would win two-thirds of the one hundred delegates to be chosen on May 1, thus raising the bar for Reagan at a time when Ford had financial resources, and Reagan did not. Furthermore, Ford had the support of the state GOP and Texas Senator John Tower, a favorite of conservatives there.
However, the Ford campaign had also forgotten how to manage its expectations. They were consistently telling the media that although they thought Reagan would win, it was possible for Ford to win or at least stay competitive with Reagan, especially when it came to delegates.
In primary after primary, it was the same story. A small group of dedicated conservatives were backing Reagan, while the state GOP and local party appa-ratchiks were supporting Ford. These grassroots conservatives did not know that “it could not be done,” so they simply did it. Some were middle-aged white males, but not all. For example, Chris Lay, a young movement conservative and staffer for Congressman Steven Symms of Idaho, traveled to Texas at his own expense to volunteer for the campaign. Symms also went into Texas to campaign for Reagan.
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But all of them were hardworking and dedicated and refused to back down. They also shared a joy at beating the GOP country club establishment.
Regarding the shift of cultural attitudes, the Democrats’ frontrunner, Carter, suddenly found himself on the defensive over a comment he made about the “ethnic purity” of neighborhoods. Carter backtracked and issued a statement that suggested he had been forced to make the comment. The media jumped on him for that, but it died fairly quickly. However, the other two contenders for the coveted Democratic nomination, Fred Harris and “Scoop” Jackson dropped out of the race, bringing the total to seven Democrats whom the diminutive peanut farmer from Georgia had banished from the field.
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The Ford operation announced that sixty former Reagan officials from California and “friends” had endorsed Ford for President. Lou Cannon interviewed several of them for the
Washington Post
including David James, a Los Angeles businessman who said of Reagan, “His talents are not suited to the management of great enterprises.” Another, Norman “Skip” Watts said that a Reagan Presidency “would be dangerous to the country and dangerous to the party.” Later in the story, Watts was identified as the Director of Primary States for the Ford campaign. He had no further direct relation to Reagan and only a very thin indirect relation. Yet another, on background, told Cannon of Reagan, “He is a fine decent man who did a good job in California. But he lacks the wide intellect necessary for the Presidency. Not that Ford has all that much intelligence, either.”
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Shadowboxing continued between the two Presidential contenders over the next several weeks. Ford bizarrely interpreted the results of Wisconsin as a referendum on Kissinger.
In a Rose Garden ceremony, he told a group of visiting businessmen, “As far as I am concerned, my full support for Secretary Kissinger is fortified by the decision in Wisconsin.”
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Campaigning in Texas, Reagan’s take on Wisconsin was different. Noting that in Texas, like Wisconsin, Democrats were allowed to cross over and could vote in Republican primaries, Reagan said before a morning rally, “Let us ask them if they can’t see their way to join us in what I see as a crusade to save this country before it is too late.”
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Reagan was also getting help in Texas from some of his old Hollywood friends, including Efrem Zimbalist Jr., Jimmy Stewart, and Ken Curtis.
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It was not unusual for these celebrities, along with Chuck Connors, Jack Webb, and Mike Conner, to also stop by the Reagan headquarters in Washington and boost morale. All of Reagan’s operations, including Texas and Washington, were putting in long hours, but before the offices in Washington were closed for the evening— and they often weren’t—someone had to send the final baseball scores to Reagan whenever he was on the road.
At one point, Reagan aide David Bufkin found himself working in the lobby of the campaign’s headquarters because so many volunteers had shown up for Reagan. On the phone with a friend, he complained about the national media, unaware that Leslie Stahl of CBS could hear his conversation. When Sears appeared for his interview with Stahl, she pointed at Bufkin and barked at Sears, “I want that man fired on the spot!” Despite Stahl’s demand, Bufkin stayed.
The volunteers for Reagan, according to Bufkin, ran the gamut from “Ivy Leaguers to hippies to cowboys, all types.” Sometimes the young staffers for Reagan and Ford would run into each other at a Washington watering hole where the Ford kids would refer to the Reagan kids as “right-wing nut jobs” and young Reaganites would call the Ford kids “geeks.”
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Ford arrived in Irvington, Texas, stressing the need for tougher sentencing on convicted drug dealers. His campaign reasoned that he had not talked enough about “law and order” issues.
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Ford was off stride and the “Bozo the President” suspicions began to creep back into the race when he was photographed at a Texas event eating a tamale without first removing the corn husk.
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Clearly, Reagan’s win in North Carolina, his national speech, and his victories in South Carolina and Arizona had unnerved Ford. He was also spending virtually all of his time answering Reagan’s charges. Edward Walsh wrote of the President’s predicament in the
Washington Post
:
At airport press conferences, local TV interviews and open question-and-answer sessions, Mr. Ford was asked about the future of the Panama Canal, U.S. relations with Hanoi and Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger’s diplomacy.
The President and his advisers are unable to move their campaign toward issues they would prefer—notably, the signs of improvement in the nation’s economy. As a result, Mr. Ford was forced into a defensive posture.
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Even more frustrating for Ford, the national economic picture was brightening, yet he was getting little credit from Republican primary voters. The gross domestic product was up, and unemployment was falling. Ford’s mantra on the stump was, “Everything that should be going up is going up and everything that should be coming down is coming down.” But Reagan’s issues, not Ford’s, were holding the interest of voters.