Reagan's Revolution (22 page)

Reagan’s team had high hopes for a big win in New Hampshire, but they lacked the discipline to keep expectations low. The problem was that they could not stop themselves from telling everyone, it seemed—on and off the record— that Reagan would win in the Granite State.

They reasoned that Reagan’s conservative, old-fashioned patriotic message would definitely work with the flinty New Englanders. After all, the state’s motto, “Live Free or Die,” was proudly proclaimed on every license plate. Liberals and academics complained about the political ramifications of the motto, but that was of no consequence. This was New Hampshire, home of the
Manchester Union-
Leader
, its only statewide newspaper, owned and published by the last of the great yellow journalists—William Loeb. Loeb personally authored a front-page editorial each day in his newspaper in
Citizen Kane
fashion, expounding on the dangers of liberalism, collectivism, and Communism, as well as the virtues of America, conservatism, and especially Ronald Reagan.

Loeb loved Ronald Reagan. But no one who offended Loeb escaped his biting pen, including Betty Ford after her
60 Minutes
interview and even President Ford, whom Loeb would often refer to in writing as “Devious Gerald” or, even worse, “Jerry the Jerk.”

Loeb, despite his tendency towards what might be charitably called “tough” editorials, had an impressive political pedigree. His father had been the personal assistant to President Theodore Roosevelt when Loeb was a child, and the Old Rough Rider bounced the young Bill Loeb on his knee in the White House many times.

Loeb’s editorials were unfortunately much tougher than the old man himself, and they sometimes came across as harsh and even cruel, making some conservatives in the state blush with embarrassment. His support for Reagan came with what was called in later political parlance, “baggage.” Loeb had political enemies, including many conservatives in the state. This was unfortunate for Reagan, who might have expected to have broader support with the state’s Republicans. In a
Boston Globe
poll, New Hampshire Republicans were asked if Loeb spoke for people like them. Sixty-two percent answered no. Clearly, the man had his critics, including inside the GOP.
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Another New Hampshire supporter of Reagan’s was Governor Meldrim “Mel” Thomson. Thomson could also be characterized as “controversial.” As Jules Witcover observed in
Marathon,
“A man who had once proposed issuing atomic weapons to members of the National Guard was bound to be somewhat controversial.”
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In 1978, when President Carter abrogated the mutual defense treaty between the United States and Taiwan, Thomson flew the American flag upside down at the state capitol, the international sign for distress.

A significant development for Reagan in New Hampshire was the decision by Gerald “Jerry” Carmen, the Republican State Chair, to keep the Granite State GOP neutral. Carmen was an entirely charming small businessman from Manchester who could also be tougher than nails when the situation called for it.

New Hampshire’s GOP was one of the very few state parties to take an uncommitted position in 1976, as most were openly for Ford. Carmen scrupulously walked the fine line—from 9 A.M. to 5 P.M. Although he did not endorse Reagan, he made himself available for advice and counsel to Reagan and Lake after hours.

Still, the major coup for Reagan’s New Hampshire effort was the acquisition of former Governor Hugh Gregg, who came from the more moderate wing of the state’s Republican Party. The suggestion of making Gregg the Chairman of the New Hampshire Campaign came surprisingly from Loeb, Thomson and his people. Thomson was engaged in his own re-election effort. Sears and Jim Lake, who was running the New Hampshire Reagan campaign, could not believe their good fortune. They had thought that Thomson wanted to chair the effort and were trying to figure out how to finesse the problem.

Everyone in New Hampshire and Washington assumed that Gregg would support Ford, but intra-party squabbles between Congressman Jim Cleveland and a mistake by the Ford campaign’s Washington office put Gregg on the market.
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After some face-saving comments by Ford’s people in the wake of the loss (“Let Reagan enjoy him”
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), Jim Lake had the last word as he told a newspaper, “In getting Hugh Gregg, we were trying to establish we were not the candidate of kooks.”
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In a curious way, the public problems of the Ford White House and the ongoing problems with his campaign were beginning to dramatically lower Ford’s expectations while unnecessarily raising Reagan’s expectations heading into the New Hampshire primary. As Elizabeth Drew wrote in
American Journal,
“The President’s campaign apparatus is in shaky condition. The opinion polls, to the extent they are known, indicate that the race between the President and his challenger is very close. . . . Ronald Reagan is said to have the more effective organization as the candidates with the more zealous backing often do.”
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Reagan surely had his own problems as evidenced by the way he was on the defensive for three weeks leading to New Hampshire’s February 24 primary. Reagan was trying to handle the fallout from the “$90 billion” speech, but Ford’s continued woes in the White House since August of 1974, in the Washington office of the President Ford Committee, and his various problems in the states, were now ironically working to his advantage.

Citizens for Reagan was aggressively moving ahead, and Reagan appeared on the ABC Sunday show,
Issues and Answers
, following his announcement tour. This was the first time the national media bore in on the “$90 billion” speech. The host, Frank Reynolds, pressed Reagan hard on the far-ranging implications of the speech he had given the previous September in Chicago. According to Witcover,

Reynolds told Reagan that the federal government paid 62 percent of New Hampshire’s total outlay for welfare and observed, “That means New Hampshire has to either assume that or cut it down [under your plan].”

Reagan acknowledged that was true: “I think that you would have to have taxes increased at state and local levels to offset this, or to maintain some of these programs.”
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Correspondent Bob Clark, appearing with Reynolds for ABC, sparred with Governor Reagan asking, “In candor, wouldn’t you have to tell the people of New Hampshire that you are going to have to increase your tax burden and that probably means either a sales tax or a state income tax?”

Reagan’s retort was direct and to the point: “But isn’t this a proper decision for the people of the state to make?”
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Reagan’s answer would have made the Founding Fathers proud, but its direct federalist implications eluded some reporters who saw all problems through the prism of more, not less, centralized power.

Nonetheless, Jeff Bell and his compatriots at the Reagan campaign fretted because Reagan was not reading the sample questions and answers they had prepared for him dealing with controlling the message and any fallout over the “$90 billion” speech.

The issue faded until two weeks later, when nationally syndicated columnists Rowland Evans and Robert Novak wrote that the Reagan campaign was internally concerned about the potential for political trouble because of the speech. Never ones to pull punches, they wrote that concerns were mounting in the Reagan camp and Bell’s speech “has become the secret worry of [Reagan’s] political managers” with the potential “to be an albatross around his neck.”

“The Reagan campaign embraced, needlessly in hindsight, a proposal bearing high political risks. Even if the risks are ultimately avoided, Reagan must begin his campaign partly on the defensive—losing the challenger’s greatest advantage,” the column said.
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With all the previous talk of a divided party, paired with the problems both campaigns had getting to a solid start, a Ford White House staffer authored a memo outlining what they believed were the “four scenarios” of the upcoming Reagan versus Ford campaign. Whoever authored the memo must have been very optimistic about Ford’s chances because in none of the four scenarios does Reagan win the nomination and the election. Presciently, however, scenario number two was “Reagan runs strong. President wins nomination. But party split and President loses in November.”
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Ford’s day-to-day operation in New Hampshire was run by a young Vietnam War veteran, John Michels, who told
Newsweek
, “I guess you might say we’re trying here to win the hearts and minds of people,” paraphrasing the American strategy in Southeast Asia. Using another analogy, he said of the President Ford Committee, “We’ve found out that, as in Vietnam, the generals aren’t always the ones who know the most about local pacification.”
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In December, the Southern Republican State Chairmen met in Houston. Reagan spoke to them and whacked the ball out of the park. Ford sent Bo Callaway and Nelson Rockefeller, incredibly, who did nothing to bring them into the Ford fold. At a private meeting with the GOP State Chairmen, Rocky was reported to have said, “You got me out, you sons of b—es, now get off your asses and help the President.”
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On the other hand, the Southern GOP Chairmen felt Ford had snubbed them. To make matters worse, Dave Liggett, a Ford field staffer from California, wrote in his weekly report for the Washington office that “Regarding Bo Callaway’s remarks in Houston over the weekend, comments have been generally negative.” Liggett’s memo also discussed his request for “equal time” from KHJ TV, which had run an old Reagan movie the weekend before.
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For the rest of the month of December, Reagan kept a fairly low profile. He met with staff and marshaled his energies for the coming battle by staying close to California. He did not return to New Hampshire until January 5, 1976, where Stu Spencer sprung his trap on Reagan using the “$90 billion” speech. Spencer recalled, “I’d get with Peter Kaye and say, ‘we’ve got to get this guy on the defensive. . . . [H]e’ll start stumbling around and it’ll take him awhile to get his rhythm back but when he does, we’re in trouble.’”
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Despite the surprise Spencer had planned for his old boss, both campaigns were working overtime in New Hampshire, Florida, and other early primary states. The Reagan grassroots team was doing a better job of organizing the later state conventions and caucuses in the West. Andy Carter and Frank Whetstone, two of the campaign’s most seasoned operatives, were overseeing this aspect of the campaign. Carter was a big man from New Mexico who flew his own plane, wore bolo ties and cowboy boots, and had made a fortune in oil and cattle in that state. Whetstone was also a self-made man from Montana and, like Carter, was an unabashed conservative who spoke his mind.

The Ford team had recruited two veteran Republicans in New Hampshire: State House Speaker George Roberts and State Senate leader Alf Jacobson. They were to be Spencer’s point men in New Hampshire, taking on Reagan over the impact his September speech would have on the people of their state. Callaway and Spencer had been presented with a detailed memo in January that dissected the Reagan plan, complete with acerbic asides:

The single most radical and probably most detrimental aspect of his [Reagan’s] proposal is the total elimination of General Revenue Sharing. He is vulnerable on several fronts with this element of the plan. . . . [It] is symptomatic of the thoughtlessness or at best lack of care in projecting budget savings. . . . Reagan’s Backgrounder One claimed a $7.2 Billion annual savings. This is just a “careless” $1 Billion dollar error. The program is funded at $6 Billion per annum.
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The memo showed a tax shortfall of over $13 million for New Hampshire if the Reagan plan were to be enacted. It also helpfully documented those projects in New Hampshire that would have to be curtailed or cancelled under the Reagan proposal, including a roof for a library and a new fire truck for Manchester and sidewalks and police equipment in Concord.

Press releases were sent from the President Ford Committee to the Washington and New Hampshire media as Reagan was flying into the state. And Roberts and Jacobson held a press conference in Concord where they raised “the specter of new and higher state taxes as the price of Reagan’s folly,” according to Witcover in
Marathon
. Roberts further assailed Reagan’s plan, saying it “would cost the people of New Hampshire tens of millions of dollars just to maintain the existing mandated programs at their present level”; moreover, it would force the state “to eliminate many necessary programs, to add to the local property-tax burden, or to institute a state sales tax, a state income tax, or both.”
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Lake and Sears were now fully apprised of the Ford offensive and briefed the Governor on his response before his airport press conference. “The people of New Hampshire, I understand, are worried that I have some devious plot to impose the sales or income tax on them. Believe me, I have no such intention and I don’t think there is any danger that New Hampshire is getting one,” Reagan said.
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Later that day in Moultonboro, Reagan reiterated his position in a speech at the Lions’ Club, saying “I have no intention, with anything I have proposed, that New Hampshire should have either a sales or income tax.”
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Shortly after Reagan had announced, Terry Drinkwater of
CBS News
reported, “Very shortly, he’ll seclude himself here in California again before the real run begins after the first of the year. He’ll also rest. There are those who question whether he has the stamina and the stomach for the nonstop campaigning which underdogs usually endure. He’s sixty-four and a man who likes to be alone with his family.”
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