The trumpets sounded, the drums were thumped, and the jubilant crowds burst out singing--to the tune of The Battle Hymn of the Republic--"Ronny, Ronny, Ronald Reagan, his truth goes marching on." "I believe in miracles," the former California Governor said during one of the celebrations last week, "but I also believe you've got to ootch them along a bit." The resurrection of Reagan's half-dead presidential campaign in four straight primary victories was undeniably something of a miracle, but keeping watch on Reagan as he ootched it along required quite a bit of ootching on the part of the two dozen TIME correspondents assigned to different parts of the ever changing battlefield this year.

One typical shift last week moved the Washington bureau's Strobe Talbott, 30, who translated the Khrushchev memoirs, out into the Reagan campaign. Said Talbott: "I picked up the Reagan road show on Sunday in Indianapolis, and since then I've visited 14 cities and towns in four states and listened to Reagan do his thing at 31 rallies, fund raisers, press conferences, and town-hall meetings. He has quite a repertory of mother-in-law jokes, folk tales in an Irish brogue, farm stories involving cows and milk buckets, and by now I know them so well that I've even started to dream his opening jokes in my dreams--when I've had a chance to sleep, that is. My only casualty from this constant traveling, though, was the winding stem on my wristwatch, which I broke by resetting the watch so often for changes in time zones."

Campaigning with Reagan also meant hectic hours for National Political Correspondent Robert Ajemian, who interviewed the candidate in a car driving through Shreveport, La., then boarded a plane that blew out a tire, and finally reached New York at 4 a.m. to deliver his Q. and A. with Reagan. In Washington, Dean Fischer covered the Ford side of this week's cover stories.

Putting it all together each week is the task of the seven writers and eight reporter-researchers in the Nation section headed by Senior Editor Marshall Loeb, with the aid of Senior Editor Ronald Kriss. Says Loeb: "Few stories in recent history have had so many twists, turns and unexpected outcomes as this campaign. But maybe TIME readers are less surprised than other people because we've long been saying that the voters are in an independent mood, and this is an anything-can-happen year."

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