How Reagan Plays G.O.P. Hardball

Sounding angry and a trifle stunned, Fred Baker, co-chairman of Gerald Ford's presidential campaign in the state of Washington, talked about the fervor of Ronald Reagan's workers: "These Reagan people don't care; they're absolutely ruthless. They want all of it. Our people just aren't used to this uncompromising hardball stuff." An echo came from one of Ford's key regional coordinators in Colorado: "We're concerned about the survival of the party and its candidates."

Reagan's decision last fall to challenge the President was based largely on his conviction that he could stir grassroots Republican support better than Gerald Ford. As the struggle for the nomination moves toward what looks like a close and brawling finish, Reagan's superior organization shows, especially in the remaining Western convention states that still are electing delegates. For months Reagan's men burrowed into the bedrock, taking control of the local parties at the ward and precinct levels. While Ford built his state organization from the top down, Reagan built from the bottom up.

New Mexico, which will hold its convention this weekend, is a good example. The President early had the support of U.S. Senator Pete Domenici and Congressman Manuel Lujan Jr. But as state senator Leo Dow, who is Reagan's state chairman, sees it: "All they seemed to do was add more names for steering committees and take the whole thing for granted." Dow took the opposite approach. He began recruiting volunteers, including some who had been inactive since Barry Gold water's 1964 campaign and some who were new to politics. One such recruit: Ernie Leger, 46, an Albuquerque real estate salesman, gave up his job for four months to work as a full-time volunteer (15 hours a day). He worked telephone banks turning people out for ward conventions, the first step in the delegate selection process. Says state chairman Jack Stahl, who is staying neutral: "I see a clean sweep of all 21 delegates for Reagan."

The hardball players usually press for every advantage. In Montana, where Reagan won the nonbinding primary, 65% to 35%, State Chairwoman Florence Haegen called for a proportional split of the delegates. But Reagan forces are fighting for a 20-to-0 shutdown at this weekend's convention. In Washington State, when the Reagan team narrowly won some precinct caucuses, they insisted on shutting out the Ford minority, sending only Reagan loyalists to the higher-level county sessions. In precincts that Ford carried, the losers argued that their own long service to the G.O.P. entitled them to some representation at the county conventions. Moans Fred Baker: "We let them go. We didn't even have any pros to guide us. Jesus Christ, our poor dumb people."

The Reagan drive is being expertly guided from Washington, D.C., by John Sears, a lawyer whose graying hair and developing paunch make him appear older than his 35 years. A Nixon delegate hunter in 1968 who served briefly as a White House aide later, Sears has shrewdly used his old contacts around the nation to help his present boss. Reagan's organization has suffered its share of bloopers. Its initial strategy of knocking Ford out early backfired, and it goofed in Ohio, where delegate slates were filed too late, and in Illinois, where it filed weak delegate slates.

But the President's operation gives off too little crackle from the candidate himself. With affable but unsavvy Rogers Morton as chairman, it has no strong command figure at the center. From the start, Ford and his strategists never took the Reagan challenge too seriously. As Betty Ford told Women's Wear Daily last week: "I can tell you they just sat back complacently, thinking that the President would be nominated, that it was sort of a shoo-in."

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