By the next day, Ford’s campaign was in shambles. The President told reporters he was, “disappointed,” but aides reported that he was much more than just “disappointed” and used some colorful language to denounce his campaign, Reagan, crossover states, and the media. Again, reporters at the daily White House briefing hounded Nessen. Morton and Spencer were summoned to the White House for a meeting with Ford and Cheney to discuss campaign strategy, and a conference call was arranged with GOP leaders from around the country to solicit their advice. Walter Mears of the AP wrote, “Reagan’s victories put the President’s political future in jeopardy.”
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A meeting of Ford cronies and GOP “muckety-mucks” that included Senators Dole and Goldwater was also hastily arranged at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington for an all-around rant session. Cheney and Nessen did not attend, so naturally they received most of the criticism as leaked to the media. The President Ford Committee announced that sixty staffers would be laid off so that money could be devoted to other operations in the campaign. The staff would eventually be reduced from 207 to 145.
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It was generally agreed at this point that the Ford campaign was taking too strident a tone against Reagan, but apparently Morton did not get the memo. He told the
Washington Star
, “Mr. Reagan’s demagogic statements may have gained him a temporary advantage. But every national poll shows the President to be far more popular than Mr. Reagan.”
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Another small but nagging problem for Nessen to handle was an embarrassing story that surfaced involving White House photographer David Kennerly and Elizabeth Ray, the secretary who could not type but had other talents she had performed for Congressman Wayne Hays of Ohio, as it was later revealed. Kennerly had taken nude photos of Miss Ray and sent them to the Navy photo labs for developing. The story was leaked to
Newsweek
, and Kennerly was forced to send a check for $4.50 to cover the cost of developing.
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With his fourth win in a row, Reagan went ahead in the national delegate count over Ford, according to the
Washington Star’s
tabulations, 381-372 with 328 uncommitted.
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Many of the uncommitted delegates were from “machine states” like Pennsylvania and New York and thus were believed to be pro-Ford. But in a fluid situation, anything could happen.
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Many state party rules did not bind delegates to vote for the candidate in whose name they were chosen, and while some states did have such rules, they were virtually unenforceable. It was rare for delegates to break with their candidate, but anything was possible in 1976. Besides, no one had ever gone to jail for voting for someone other than whom they were pledged at a national convention.
It was the “jail break” of Democratic crossover voters that deeply worried Morton, Cheney, Spencer, and others at the Ford White House and campaign. On the Democratic side, opposition to Carter had largely collapsed, which gave further credence to the notion that even more Democrats might cross over to vote for Reagan. Four of the next six primaries would be held in states that permitted Democrats to vote in Republican primaries, including Ford’s home state of Michigan.
Michigan had a sizable quantity of Democrats who fit the profile of what would eventually become known as the “Reagan Democrat.” They included blue-collar laborers, Catholics, pro-life advocates, NRA enthusiasts, and union members. If Ford lost in his own backyard, it would be the end of his bid. And in a new poll by the
New York Times
, Reagan was running strongest against Ford among Catholics, garnering a majority of their vote. Senator Bob Griffin of Michigan, a close Ford ally, told the
Star
that no longer could Michigan “be taken for granted.”
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One week after Ford’s triple loss were the primaries in West Virginia and Nebraska, The President was still expected to do well in both. But over a period of only eleven days, beginning with the Arizona and South Carolina state conventions, Reagan had won 282 delegates to Ford’s twenty-seven.
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On his way to campaign in Nebraska, Ford first made a brief appearance in President Harry Truman’s hometown of Independence, Missouri, where he attended the unveiling of a statue of the former President, whom Ford considered his role model.
Ford also unveiled a new tone when he told the ten thousand people in attendance, “President Truman, like Abraham Lincoln, had a great faith in the ultimate good sense of the people.”
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Ford continued, “He liked them, he liked their language— and in 1948 they went to the polls and proved that his faith was fully justified.” One several occasions, Ford became emotional when talking about Truman’s travails. Indeed, the
New York Times
, covering the event, wrote, “Some observers said they sensed that Mr. Ford’s emotion might bespeak an awareness that his Presidency could be of a brief duration.”
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But Truman was driven from the race in 1952, and this was the historical analogy on the Reaganites’ minds, not 1948. Ford’s campaign was consoling itself with a new poll from the
New York Times
that showed him far ahead of Reagan nationally. But the poll could not measure the intensity of support in individual states. The “natives” were Reagan people, coming out of both parties, and they would continue to give Ford fits. Meanwhile, the
Washington Star’s
political cartoonist, Pat Oliphant, who possessed a dagger for an ink pen, depicted Reagan as an aging tortoise running over and then away from Ford, the hare.
Newsweek’s
cover headline was “A President in Jeopardy.”
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Under fire from all quarters, Ford now found someone in his backyard taking aim. New York GOP Chairman Richard Rosenbaum led a coalition of ten northeast states that included all of New England, Pennsylvania, and several others. Taking full advantage of Ford’s predicament, they were threatening to withhold their 300 uncommitted delegates unless those delegates played a large role in writing the Republican Party’s platform and had a major voice in Ford’s choice for his running mate.
To place the Ford White House on notice, Rosenbaum invited John Sears to a highly publicized two-hour meeting at the Hotel Roosevelt in New York. Cheney, Spencer, and Morton were not amused at Rosenbaum’s strong-arm tactics. They sensed the unseen hand of Rockefeller behind Rosenbaum’s actions.
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Rosenbaum hinted that if Ford lost his home state of Michigan, a third candidate might come into the race. No one needed to guess who that third candidate might be, since the man in question had harbored Presidential aspirations since he had first been elected Governor of New York in 1958.
Regarding the Texas victory, the Ford campaign had filed yet another complaint against the Reagan campaign, charging potential illegal coordination between Citizens for Reagan and independent groups supporting him there, as well as overlapping contributors. The groups named included the Texas-based Delegates for Reagan, the American Conservative Union, Conservative Victory Fund, and the National Conservative Political Action Committee.
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Becky Norton, a talented and strong-willed conservative from Ohio, had initially worked for the ACU, but later went to Texas to help out with the Reagan campaign. Having pitched in to help with the New Hampshire and Florida campaigns, Texas was her second tour with Reagan. She served as an effective Press Secretary for Reagan’s operations there. Although no laws were broken, Loren Smith, the General Counsel for Citizens for Reagan, thought it best that Norton remain with the ACU for the duration of the campaign after the Texas primary. Her work was not the focus of the Ford’s campaign’s complaint.
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Smith brushed off the complaint in a letter to the President Ford Committee saying, “Your quarrel is not with our committee but with Mr. Ford who signed a confusing and poorly drafted bill.”
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Since the FEC was at that time in limbo, awaiting action by the Congress and the Ford White House, it had no enforcement powers to investigate the charges. Sauce for the goose, since all the campaigns— including both Carter’s and Reagan’s—suspected politics was involved in the Ford White House’s unwillingness to sign a new FEC bill that would allow the matching funds to be disbursed to the campaigns.
Reagan staffers also marveled at the ability of the Ford campaign to outspend Reagan in the primaries and still remain in the black. Ford had a unique advantage over Reagan and over prospective Democratic opponents because the commercial airlines would grant credit to his campaign. Conversely, all the challengers had to pay up front.
135
In fact, the commercial airlines’ credit to Ford had been extended to sixty and—in some cases—ninety days, effectively granting the President’s campaign interest-free loans worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. In addition, Ford could use White House employees, whose salaries were paid for by the taxpayers, to plan his travel and handle many of his political issues. He also could use Air Force One and government limousines when his travel was classified as “non-political.”
136
Still, these advantages did not dissuade Nessen from complaining to reporters about independent groups supporting Reagan who were using “loopholes” in the laws. “Perhaps in some places, 80 percent of the advertising for former Governor Reagan is paid for by groups which say they are unauthorized or unofficial and therefore don’t have to report their spending,” he told the
New York Times.
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Ford arrived in Omaha, Nebraska, via Air Force One for two days of campaigning. Following the shellacking they had been taking over the previous several weeks, his campaign hoped to rebound in the primaries in Nebraska and in West Virginia the following Tuesday. Also, the state Republican parties began their delegate selection process in Oklahoma, Louisiana, and Missouri, on Saturday, May 8, while Wyoming and Kansas would host state conventions.
Ford continued with the new strategy of projecting an upbeat tone. He emphasized the accomplishments of his Administration, his plans for a second Ford Administration, and a fresh start in the primaries against Reagan. Several days before, the Ford campaign had floated a trial balloon in the media portraying Reagan as “dangerous.” But Cheney killed that idea. He was nearly unique in the Ford White House and among the campaign staffers. He never made fun of Reagan and had always taken him much more seriously than anyone else around Ford. “I was a conservative and a Westerner, so I understood Reagan better,” he said.
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“The fight for the Presidency begins again here in Nebraska on Tuesday,” Ford told reporters on Air Force One.
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Ford also backed off on his attacks on Reagan and never mentioned his name or inferred his presence in the race. No longer was he telling crowds that Reagan’s credibility was “severely at stake,” as he had done in Texas.
While the “local boy makes good” argument did not work for Reagan in Illinois, Ford had higher hopes for Nebraska. In his first day of campaigning in the Cornhusker State, Ford stopped by the home where he was born and told the crowd of supporters there that he was “the first native of Nebraska to serve as President of the United States.”
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Later that day, he delivered the commencement address at the University of Nebraska and kept to the high road.
The high command of the Ford campaign had concluded that while some in the GOP were not enthralled with Reagan’s conservatism, Republicans almost universally liked him. Ford’s attacks in Texas and elsewhere were seen as beneath the dignity of the President and personally unfair to Reagan. It would remain to be seen if the new strategy would work.
Reagan had yet another good Saturday and began to extend his delegate lead over Ford, starting on May 8. Several states were beginning their caucus and convention delegate selection processes. In Wyoming’s GOP state convention, Reagan would prevail by ten to seven. In Oklahoma’s first round of delegate selection, Reagan first took eighteen and would eventually win all of the thirty-six delegates that were to be selected. In Louisiana, Reagan seized nine delegates initially, and he eventually won thirty-six delegates to Ford’s five at the state convention on May 15.
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At Missouri’s state convention, held on June 11, guerilla tactics combined with skillful legerdemain by Reagan’s ground forces seized victory from the jaws of defeat for Reagan. Delegates had been elected to the state convention on May 8, and it appeared at the time that most, if not all, of the delegates selected in the Show Me State for the national convention would go to Ford. The Ford forces were hoping to win big in both Kansas and Missouri, to begin the process of blunting the Reagan recovery and claim that the President’s campaign itself was recovering. Sears and Keene had made a brief trip to Missouri to scout the situation but quickly concluded that Reagan’s chances there were questionable. They eventually dispatched Don Devine and Morton Blackwell, two seasoned and savvy conservative infighters who specialized in convention politics, to handle the Missourians.
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Earlier, on April 25 at district caucuses, 1,439 delegates had been elected to attend Missouri’s GOP state convention.
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The unguided missile of the GOP, Barry Goldwater, appeared in fresh radio ads attacking Reagan in Nebraska and telling listeners, “I know Ronald Reagan’s public statements concerning the Panama Canal contained gross factual errors. . . . He has clearly represented himself in an irresponsible manner on an issue which could affect the nation’s security.”
144
In an interview with the
New York Times
, Goldwater professed his “love and affection” for Reagan, but the paper reported that the Senator’s behavior had left many conservatives puzzled and hurt.
145
Several days later, Goldwater rebuked the commercials he appeared in, saying he had never authorized them. Stu Spencer’s answer to Goldwater’s claim was short, simple, and impossible to misinterpret: “bulls—.” Even so, the ads were pulled.
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