Washington was stunned and reaction to the announcement ranged from dismay to anger to praise to mockery. The media extensively reported on Schweiker’s voting record, especially reviewing his favorable ratings by labor organizations including the AFL-CIO.
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But Sears expected this. He was further braced for a loss of several delegates in the South and the West, as his staff had warned him. The
Washington Post
did a quick survey of nine uncommitted Pennsylvania delegates and found only two who thought the selection would lean them towards Reagan. Still, the Reagan team took that movement as a positive sign. One who moved from “unleaned” back towards leaning for Ford was James Stein, the young man Reagan had charmed back to a neutral position after meeting with him in Harrisburg several weeks before.
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The hope was that those losses would be offset by “soft” Ford and uncommitted delegates coming over, especially in Pennsylvania around Philadelphia, New Jersey, New York, and West Virginia. Reagan’s forces also reasoned that the reaction would settle after the first forty-eight hours, after the shock had subsided and things had stabilized with Reagan’s passionate supporters in the South and the West—especially in Mississippi, where things were becoming more and more fluid for Reagan.
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One disgruntled conservative suggested to Leslie Stahl of CBS, “The reason Reagan chose Schweiker was because Mondale was already taken.”
76
And Mel Thomson, the Governor of New Hampshire told the
New York Times
in a flight of hyperbole, “It is a sad day in American history when a public leader of Reagan’s stature would abandon all that he stood for.” Other conservatives who complained included junior Congressman Phil Crane of Illinois, who reaffirmed his support for Reagan yet pledged to work against Schweiker at the convention if Reagan won.
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But one in the Ford camp who was impressed by Reagan and Schweiker’s decision was Baker. He issued a statement calling the move, “obviously significant.” He also recalled that his operation, “had to go to battle stations to keep Pennsylvania.”
78
Schweiker told the press conference he would begin immediately to attempt to round up delegates in Pennsylvania and elsewhere for the “Reagan-Schweiker” ticket. He expected heavy resistance, and Shuster told the
New York
Times
, “I think Governor Reagan is going to be disappointed, because it’s much too late for that.”
79
Young Americans for Freedom, closely allied with the Reagan campaign, issued a press release “reluctantly” praising the selection of Schweiker. The organization had been close to Reagan since the 1960s, but it was one of the few conservative groups or individuals to praise Reagan’s decision.
80
Others, like Ashbrook, described himself to the
New York Times
as a “former” supporter of Reagan.
81
Still another, Richard Viguerie, publisher of the
Conservative Digest
, told the paper that the decision by Governor Reagan was, “a coalition built on expediency and hypocrisy.”
82
But the most important and immediate benefit was that Walter Cronkite of CBS tore up the lead story for that night, which was to announce Ford had clinched the nomination.
83
Other media organizations were forced to go back to counting and recounting delegates, which was exactly what the Reagan campaign wanted. They had bought the time needed to get to Kansas City. And all the participants were forced to play from a new deck; no one knew what cards they would be dealt. The next day, the
Washington Post
led with an editorial entitled, “Gov. Reagan’s Gamble” and opined,
Ronald Reagan has done a rather dazzling thing in announcing his choice of Pennsylvania Senator Richard S. Schweiker to be his running mate, should he win the Republican Presidential nomination. Given the tightness of the race between him and Mr. Ford, the finely honed sense of opportunity any number of delegates have perceived in it and the ideological passions of some of Mr. Reagan’s supporters, it is all but impossible to guess whether the move will hurt or help him. . . . But that is the definition of a gamble, and you must say this for Mr. Reagan’s move: It was bold. We will go farther: It may even have been wise.
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Lyn Nofziger was quoted in the
New York Times
as saying the choice of Schweiker proved that Reagan was “not so far right he’s falling over the edge.”
85
Nofziger and other conservatives had been battling Sears off and on over the past year over the direction and tone of the campaign, but no conservative staffer inside the campaign ever thought the choice of Schweiker was a bad idea.
86
It was only with outside conservative supporters and delegates where Reagan ran into opposition. This was another testament to Sears’s persuasive abilities.
Another key element in Sears’s strategy was to pressure Ford to do likewise. Even if names were only floated tentatively, Sears believed that someone, somewhere in the Republican Party would be offended by any of Ford’s choices. The conclusion of the
Post
editorial must have been music to the ears of Reagan strategists: “President Ford, on the other hand, has only told the nation whom he will
not
have. It remains to be seen whether he feels confident enough to respond to Mr. Reagan’s gambit by offering the country an advance look.”
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Sears also hoped the move would quash Ford’s speculation that, in the end, Reagan would accept the second spot on the ticket.
In praising the choice of Schweiker, the
Post
added to his credentials that he had once been on the Nixon White House’s “Enemies List.” Schweiker had never been a favorite of Nixon’s. He had been a critic of the Vietnam War, had voted against several of Nixon’s judicial nominees, and was among the first of the GOP to call for Nixon’s resignation.
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Ford’s White House held back from any comment and only focused on its intention to chose a running mate who could take the fight to Jimmy Carter in the South. There was some cackling to the media on and off the record by some Ford operatives about Schweiker’s liberal voting record and Reagan’s seemingly desperate ploy. According to Ron Nessen in
It Sure Looks Different From the Inside
, Ford’s staff was gleeful at the Reagan move, seeing it as a sure sign he was floundering. But Dick Cheney threw cold water on their premature cheer, telling them, “Look, we have to keep up the same posture we have had. . . .We don’t have the nomination. Let’s not go overboard. Let’s not get euphoric. Let’s just stick to the same hard work we have been doing.” He added, “Remember North Carolina.”
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Still, extensive memos flew around the White House measuring the response to Reagan’s announcement inside the Pennsylvania delegation and around the GOP.
90
Jack Marsh, in a memo for Ford, said the “view seems to be disbelief, incredulous. . . .”
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The next day, July 27, John Connally, who was exceeded by no one when it came to spotting a political opportunity, endorsed Ford for President.
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Clearly, Connally was maneuvering to get on the ticket with Ford. But his move only served Sears’s purposes by antagonizing some of Ford’s liberal supporters in the North. Sears brushed off the endorsement, telling the
New York Times
, “The truth of the matter is John Connally is a phenomenon of the press and his own wits and he had no constituency outside of a few friends in Texas.” Sears also noted that Connally “still has Watergate all over him.”
93
The same day, Senator Laxalt succinctly summed up the situation for Jules Witcover in the
Washington Post
, “Yesterday was the reaction we anticipated— shock and dismay. But around the country today, it has generally dissipated.” Sears added, “We won’t take a lot more heat over who this guy [Schweiker] is. You were going to get some of it no matter who was picked. The rest is whether this is a good political move.”
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With a few notable exceptions, such as that of Bill Buckley, who praised Reagan’s move, virtually all conservative and liberal columnists denounced it. George Will compared it to “slapstick” and wrote, “Reagan and Schweiker have not exactly contributed to the public stock of harmless pleasure. Their caper is another subtraction from the dignity of the political vocation.”
95
Another conservative supporter of Sears’s bold strategy was Jude Wanniski, associate editor of the
Wall Street Journal
. “It was clear a week ago that Mr. Reagan had to do something, that his pat hand was a losing one. . . . The conventional wisdom is saying that the Schweiker move will fail. But not making a move at all would have certainly failed,” he wrote.
96
The
New York Times
initially ridiculed the selection, but later reversed field and praised Reagan’s and Schweiker’s decision, writing, “He [Reagan] has probably eliminated the possibility that he will lose the Presidential nomination to Gerald Ford before the convention. . . . In doing so, the former California Governor has also increased the possibility—still not a probability—that he can defeat Mr. Ford on the floor of the convention.”
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At the same time, according to author John Green, “Congressman John Heinz of Pennsylvania, a Ford supporter, told [Ford White House aide] Jack Marsh not to worry too much about Schweiker ‘because he is not too much with the hard core, regular Republicans in Pennsylvania.’”
98
How the blue-blooded inheritor of a vast fortune would know anything about “regular Republicans” was a question without an answer. John Heinz hadn’t shaken the hand of a common man since the last time he had tipped the attendant at the Philadelphia Club.
Contributing to the initial negative reaction to the announcement of Schweiker was that many Reagan supporters around the country confused him with Senator Lowell Weicker, a very liberal Republican from Connecticut who despised conservatives and joyously rubbed their noses in his liberal voting record. Weicker’s ego defied description, especially after he served on the televised Senate committee investigating Richard Nixon. For example,
Time
reported, “Similarly confusing Schweiker with Connecticut’s Senator Lowell Weicker, a table of lunch- ing Chicago businessmen wondered why ‘that Watergate Senator’ would join Reagan.”
99
Due to Reagan’s assiduous damage-control phone calls to his supporters around the country, almost none of the previously pledged Reagan delegates switched to Ford after the surprise of the announcement began to wear off. For instance, while one Reagan delegate from Virginia switched to Ford after the Schweiker decision, others were more resolute. “I’d rather commit adultery than commit my vote before the convention,” one Virginia delegate told UPI.
100
Schweiker began calling individuals in the Pennsylvania delegation immediately after the press conference and continued all day on the following day. As a result, his spokesman told the
New York Times
, “A number of them were moving from Mr. Ford to an uncommitted stance.” This was confirmed by Baker in a quick survey of Pennsylvania’s delegation that showed several possible defections to Reagan and Schweiker. Ford’s campaign had immediately reached ninety-five of the 103-member delegation, and only eighty-two were reaffirming their commitment to the President.
101
Meanwhile, Schweiker made an initial foray into South Carolina to meet with Republican delegates at the official residence of Governor Jim Edwards. Twenty-three of the state’s delegates attended. Edwards later told reporters he had not backed away from supporting Reagan and that Schweiker, “had no horns growing out of his head.” He explained that, in fact, he found much in common with the Pennsylvanian.
102
Also,
Human Events
editorially supported Reagan and made a compelling case for conservatives to not flee his cause.
103
The paper’s support helped hold the Right in place behind Reagan in the days before the convention in Kansas City. Still, there was carping, criticizing, and second-guessing from conservatives outside the campaign. But most, like Jimmy Lyons of Texas, decided to stay put with the Californian.
104
They had a lot invested in him and were not about to walk away now. Guy Hunt, Co-Chairman of the Reagan campaign in Alabama, summarized well how conservatives thought of the Reagan gambit: “The church ain’t just for the righteous. Sinners can come in too.”
105
Years later, Laxalt recounted, “We would have been dead in the water. . . . All the undecideds were being marched into the Oval Office . . . that’s when Sears suggested Schweiker. He laid it on me and my first reaction was ‘holy God,’ but the more we discussed it . . . as only Sears can do . . . the more it made sense. Unfortunately, a lot of conservatives gagged. But we went into the convention alive.”
106
In a letter to supporter Jim Lacy in 1979, Reagan made clear his belief that picking Schweiker was the right thing to do. Reagan, ever the loyalist, went much further than simply defending his pragmatism. He really liked Schweiker and wrote, “He is a deeply religious man with a fine family and great integrity.”
107
According to Molly Ivins, writing in the
New York Times
, one prominent conservative who had a rather rough take on Reagan’s choice was Howard Phillips. At the annual meeting of the Young Americans for Freedom, Phillips made an analogy between Reagan and a Republican Congressman who had recently been arrested for soliciting a prostitute, but gave “credit” to the Congressman since at least he had been approached, and not the other way around.
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