Reagan Races a Little Faster

The prize is New Hampshire, and Bush is hard on his heels

Red, white and blue crepe paper adorned the auditorium at Columbus College in Columbus, Ga., and a fraternity banner proclaimed RON-TKE-AND APPLE PIE. A student dressed up as a cougar led a cheer for Ronald Reagan. Members of Tau Kappa Epsilon fraternity presented him with a T shirt and hat, and students inducted his wife Nancy into the honorary Order of Diana. When a couple performing a song-and-dance act pulled the candidate out of his chair, he seemed a bit confused, then joined them. The show over, Reagan delivered his speech somewhat stiffly but with more emphasis and bite than earlier in the campaign. "No more Taiwans and no more Viet Nams," he pledged. "No more abandonments of friends by the U.S. ... We don't care if we're not liked. We're going to be respected."

Reagan's campaign swing through seven Eastern and Southern states last week hummed with metronomic precision, as he sought to make up for his surprise loss to George Bush in Iowa. There were no important hitches and plenty of warm crowds--but also a certain lack of spontaneity, as if the veteran actor were playing an overfamiliar role. He hammered away at Carter's foreign policy, proposing one new American initiative after another. He mentioned as a possibility a blockade of Cuba--"Stop the shipment of everything in and out"--in retaliation for the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. As another option, he suggested stationing U.S. fighter planes with support personnel in Pakistan. He went out of his way to bring up Viet Nam. Said he: "When 50,000 Americans make the ultimate sacrifice to defend the people of a small, defenseless country in Southeast Asia from Communist tyranny, that, my friends, is a collective act of moral courage, not an example of moral poverty." He urged that the Navy be built up, charging, "The U.S. is in a more precarious position today than it was the day after Pearl Harbor."

Reagan, however, may be getting tough too late. A Boston Globe poll showed that in late January, he was trailing Bush in New Hampshire by 36% to 45% among Republicans and independents. Last September he was leading Bush 50% to 8%. Reagan is also having trouble adjusting to a busier schedule. His organization is so large that shifting it is much like maneuvering an ocean liner in a lake. He plans to do less traveling around the country in the next few weeks and more informal stumping in New Hampshire, including question-and-answer sessions. He has agreed to a formal TV debate with his opponents in South Carolina, though he is still wary of being trapped in some chance remark that he may have to take back later. "I'm a little gun shy," he admits. "I'm fearful that I'll find myself again faced with a distortion of something that I did not say."

Reagan is not ducking one of his most troubling issues: his age. In some lighting, especially on TV, he looks all of his 69 years, though he claims to feel as fit as he did 15 years ago. At almost every stop, he is asked whether he thinks his age may hinder him in the presidency. He has assembled a store of quips to turn aside such questions. Sample: "We don't elect Presidents to run foot races. We elect Presidents to display experience and maturity." Whenever possible, he mentions how late he campaigned the previous night or how early he got started in the morning.

He had hoped not to have to accept federal matching funds and thus not be bound by a limit on campaign expenditures. But after Iowa, he had a cash-flow problem, and he reluctantly decided to accept federal money; he is currently eligible for $2 million. Though had campaign organizations in every city and town in New Hampshire as early as November, that feat has now been duplicated by Bush. Reagan has the support of William Loeb's Manchester Union Leader, which lambastes Bush almost every day. Bush, complains Loeb, is the "candidate of the elite, the Trilateral group, the remnants of the Rockefellers. Any time Bush scratches his nose, it's a big thing." But Loeb's backing is no guarantee of success in New Hampshire. Reagan was supported by the Union Leader in 1976, but he still lost the primary to Gerald Ford.

On top of being considered the favorite in New Hampshire, Bush is expected to win the March 4 Massachusetts primary, with 42 delegates at stake, compared with New Hampshire's 22; and he is picking up support in the South, where Reagan and John Connally are thought to be the front runners. Reagan will soon find out if the sentimental symbols that greet him at campaign stops--the banners and the cheers--can be translated into votes.

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