The dynamics of the contest needed to be changed quickly, and John Sears thought he had the solution that would keep the campaign alive until August and possibly deliver the nomination to Reagan at Kemper Arena b shaking loose some uncommitted delegates.
After Paul Laxalt and Sears’s press conference, during which Sears claimed that Reagan had the nomination in hand, Jim Baker jumped right back at them, releasing the names of sixteen formerly uncommitted delegates who he claimed had come around to Ford.
15
David Broder wrote in the
Washington Post
of Baker’s announcement that “The accelerating psychological warfare between the contending Republican rivals had reporters scurrying between headquarters in downtown Washington to keep abreast of the latest claims.”
16
Sears responded to Baker by releasing the names of four previously uncommitted delegates who had declared their allegiance to Reagan, including Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina.
17
But Elizabeth Drew, in
American Journal
, calmly pointed out that of the claims of both camps were totaled, it would exceed the number of delegates available.
18
The
Post
account of the entire mess put Ford at 1,099 delegates and Reagan at 1,038 with 122 uncommitted.
19
Again, the
New
York Times
had the contest closer—1,102 to 1,063—but all agreed that Reagan was behind and Ford was within striking distance.
20
Sears could keep Reagan’s hopes alive for a time by keeping the situation murky, but he would not be able to sustain Reagan’s candidacy until the convention. The simple fact was Reagan lacked the firepower that Ford had at his disposal to whittle down the number of uncommitted delegates and put himself over the top.
Sears stuck to the claim that Reagan had 1,140 delegates. He also told reporters the campaign would give them a state-by-state list of Reagan delegates but then increased the smokescreen by telling reporters that they had hidden delegate strength. According to Sears, “closet” Reagan supporters, perhaps as many as forty to fifty, had told the media tracking the delegates that they were supporting Ford.
21
Something needed to be done. Something that was, in the opinion of all, then and since, either brilliant, controversial, or both. Sears’s newest tactic would be defended for years by his supporters and criticized just as virulently by his detractors, including many conservatives.
Sears decided that Reagan should pick a running mate well ahead of the convention. He reasoned that this tactic would put pressure on Ford to name his own running mate before the convention, as well as give Reagan’s campaign maneuvering room until the convention. If they could keep the President Ford Committee off balance and the media in a holding pattern until August 18, they might find something else in Kansas City that could be used to help get Reagan the nomination.
Sears sat down with Andy Carter, Dave Keene, and Charlie Black to discuss the situation. All were confidants, and all knew how to count. Sears reviewed the bleak situation and offered up the idea of shaking things up with selecting a Vice Presidential candidate well ahead of the convention. The three saw the merits in Sears’s arguments and agreed immediately with the revolutionary concept.
22
Keene later wrote, “At the very least, we would be off the defensive and that would in itself be worthwhile.”
23
In fact, Northeastern delegates had already attended a “stop Connally” meeting organized by Nelson Rockefeller in Maine. Liberals were paranoid that Ford might pick John Connally to placate conservatives if Reagan failed to get the nomination. For Sears, the questions were who would do it, and who would bring the most to the table? Whoever it was, the move needed to be made quickly. Time was running out.
With the primaries and the conventions over, Ford now had time to spend with uncommitted delegates using the most potent lobbying tool available to him: 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. However, it’s safe to say Ford wished he hadn’t spent time with one particular delegate from New York.
State Senator Fred Eckert of Rochester was technically an uncommitted delegate who had previously been listed as a Ford supporter, but he was in fact a committed conservative and closet Reagan supporter who spent much of his time in Albany tweaking the liberal leadership of both parties. Eckert had been invited to the White House as part of the entire delegation from New York of “uncommitted” delegates to meet with the President. Ford had been briefed beforehand that Eckert was influential and so was invited into the Oval Office for a private meeting with Ford as Baker and Dick Cheney looked on. Ford went into his standard pitch, as Eckert appeared respectful and inter- ested. That is, until Ford asked Eckert if he had any questions. Eckert replied in the affirmative.
“Well, Mr. President, I am just so honored to be here in the White House and so in awe that I am sitting here in the Oval Office with the President of the United States. But I do have just one question for you Mr. President.” Ford, sitting behind his desk and smoking his pipe, nodded for Eckert to go ahead with his question.
Eckert said, “Mr. President, if Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was an uncommitted delegate from New York, would he have been invited here today?” After an uncomfortable pause, Ford nearly choked on his pipe while Cheney and Baker stared at the ceiling, wishing with all their might that they were someplace, anyplace other than there in the Oval Office. Suffice to say, the meeting ended quickly.
24
The
New York Times
had reported on the invitation to the New Yorkers, referring to the White House’s wooing of those still uncommitted delegates and “rewooing” of those who were committed to him.
25
Prior to the meeting with Eckert, Ford had been given a rough time by two delegates from Brooklyn who assailed him over the closing of Ft. Harrison. Broder wrote after the session, “He could be excused for concluding that there has got to be an easier way to get nominated.” Broder described the delegates as complaining about the White House oeuvres while questioning Ford about why he never aspired to anything other than a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. One of the delegates, Vito Battista, told Broder he preferred Italian food to what had been served in the White House.
26
Other meetings with individual delegates went better. But one local official from Long Island expressed concern over a sewer project, which the President of the United States agreed to look into. Another individual delegate Ford was powerless to do anything about was his own Secretary of Agriculture, Earl Butz. Butz was a delegate from Indiana, but Indiana had gone for Reagan, so he would be compelled to vote for Reagan on the first ballot.
Still, the retail wooing effort was paying off for Ford, as delegates declared for the President came from Reagan’s strongholds—including several from South Carolina, where Governor Jim Edwards was supporting Reagan and from Virginia, where Governor Mills Godwin was not, but the bulk of the party was.
In Virginia, Lt. Governor John Dalton expressed support for Ford, but the Reagan forces had never considered him a possible ally. Dalton would be running for Governor in 1977 and could not go against Godwin and hope to have his support the following year. Dalton’s choice was offset by the Old Dominion’s GOP Chairman, Dick Obenshain, a strong conservative supporter of Reagan. Obenshain would die tragically in a plane crash just two years later, while running for the U.S. Senate in Virginia.
27
Tempers were running high in Virginia, as several Reagan delegates switched to Ford. Several uncommitted delegates, whom the Reagan people thought were theirs, also declared for Ford. Kenny Klinge, Reagan’s Virginia coordinator, was obviously not happy. Yet he assertively told the
Post
, “This was clearly not one of our better days, but we will be back.”
28
Ford’s campaign also scored in the case of an assumed Reagan delegate from South Carolina. As reported in the
Washington Post
,
The lists of converts to the Ford candidacy also included a South Carolina delegate who earlier had become a classic example of an obscure party figure whose uncommitted status earned him the ear of high level Administration officials. He is Bobby Shelton, Cherokee County Republican Chairman and a small businessman embittered by the cancellation of a $30,000 Small Business Administration loan two years ago and his inability to get any sympathy for the last several years from Washington officials. In an interview last month, Shelton told how his uncommitted status had produced a solicitous hour-long phone call from Secretary of Commerce Elliot L. Richardson and a personal letter from the President.
29
Shelton and his wife were later treated to a meeting in the Oval Office with the President and he finally committed after that. Unfortunately, Reagan called just one day after Shelton had made his decision, though Shelton had been leaning his way.
30
The uses—or abuses, depending on one’s point of view—of the White House and the perks it could offer uncommitted delegates were drawing increased unfavorable scrutiny from the media, so a fig leaf memo was distributed to the White House staff from Cabinet Secretary James Connor warning that such “considerations, favors or rewards” were verboten.
31
Still, there were no charges of outright illegal behavior by the Ford White House. They had walked the line closely in several situations, but never actually crossed it. Green wrote in his book on Ford that “patronage jobs were dangled everywhere.” But in fact there was never any evidence of outright abuse of power.
32
Nonetheless, while it was 1976, some delegates apparently confused the White House with Tammany Hall. Several of the delegates being targeted by Baker had crassly raised the possibility of receiving federal jobs or contracts in exchange for their support of Ford. But Baker diplomatically stopped them short, reminding them it was against federal law to promise a federal contract in exchange for political favors. Baker told the
New York Times
, “We don’t entertain those kind of suggestions.”
33
Reagan had his own unpleasant experiences with delegates. In one meeting, Reagan, accompanied by Dave Keene, was startled to hear an uncommitted delegate from Illinois explain that his law firm was failing. In exchange for Reagan arranging for $250,000 in business for him, his vote could be had. Reagan departed quickly with Keene, turned to him, and said sourly, “I feel like I need to take a shower.”
34
It was important to keep Reagan in the news and for him to keep making news. At one point, he went on the
Today
show to reiterate his challenge to debate Ford at the convention, which the President brushed aside. He also charged the Administration with trading favors for delegate votes and using “heavy handed” tactics, but Ron Nessen quickly denied the charge.
35
Events were moving faster now, too fast for Sears’s liking, between the two campaigns. On Friday, July 23, Baker released the names of fifteen previously uncommitted delegates from Hawaii and claimed that this announcement now put Ford over the top, with a total of 1,135 delegates. The
Washington Post’s
numbers at the time showed Ford at 1,101 and Reagan at 1,027.
36
While the Associated Press and United Press International also put Ford under the magic figure, things were now getting just a little too dicey for Reagan.
37
Buttressing the skepticism in the media was Baker’s initial refusal to release a complete list of pro-Ford delegates, despite having promised to do so several days before. Shortly thereafter, however, the names, addresses, and phone numbers of 1,119 delegates pledged to Ford were released to the media.
38
Still, some in the media were dubious.
The problem lay in delegates themselves telling the media one thing and the Reagan and Ford camps another, serving only to prolong the guessing game. Sears and Baker may not have agreed on much in 1976, but they did agree that most delegates were almost more trouble than they were worth. In three weeks, only a handful of delegates had made a commitment to one candidate or another. It was courting season, and the love of attention was in the air for any uncommitted Republican delegate in July and August 1976.
Pennsylvania was a perfect example. The Ford campaign had tallied more delegates than media tabulations. This discrepancy was typical. Concerning the East Coast delegates, the
Washington Post
wrote, “Reagan has had tough sledding in these eastern delegations, where he feels his record is much misunderstood and where some people feel he is some kind of kook.”
39
Also, freezing some of the more conservative uncommitted delegates was the rumor that Ford really did want Reagan for the ticket and that Reagan would accept the Vice Presidential slot. Reagan had to keep beating down the idea, but it hung around. In the minds of Reagan’s men, the rumor was wholly impractical, for one reason: the two candidates could not get along. Something no one could have predicted was the second reason: Sears was about to drop his bombshell.
Citizens for Reagan sent a press release to the media touting a “major statement” on Monday, July 26, in Washington and Los Angeles. Reagan would be in Los Angeles and speak first.
40
Another press conference in the Senate would follow, but the release only listed Sears and Laxalt as participants. Some speculation centered on whether or not Reagan was announcing his withdrawal from the campaign.