Off and Not Yet Running

Reagan touches key political bases in the Sunbelt

To Ronald Reagan, the occasion was a "homecoming." To others, it looked like an exploratory mission on the 1984 presidential campaign trail. Either way, the President was clearly in his political element last week, as he escaped the legislative infighting of Washington for a two-day foray into the Sunbelt.

In San Antonio, Reagan spent 45 minutes with a flag-waving crowd of 1,000 people, including some 500 Hispanic Americans; he sipped lemonade, munched on a guacamole taco, and expounded on his economic and Central American policies. In Phoenix, he told some 4,000 enthusiastic members of the National Rifle Association that "we will never disarm any American who seeks to protect his or her family." Throughout the trip, Reagan looked and behaved very much like an undeclared candidate for reelection. As one of his aides put it, "The more we touch constituent bases, the more evident it is that he is running."

Maybe yes, maybe no; Reagan was still not saying. Nonetheless, last week's trip highlighted the political challenge Reagan would face in 1984, if and when he declares himself: to shore up support among right-wing Republican supporters while reaching out to swing such groups as Hispanics, blue-collar workers and Roman Catholics.

The President's San Antonio visit was his second to Texas in seven days. White House aides explained Reagan's continuing interest in the Lone Star State by calling it one of the "big three," meaning that Texas, along with California and Florida, are the three Sunbelt states that Reagan must carry to win in 1984. Hispanic voters are a crucial bloc in all three states; thus Reagan was happy to be in San Antonio to help commemorate Mexico's 1862 defeat of occupying French forces.

Standing alongside the city's Democratic mayor, Henry Cisneros, and his wife Mary Alice, Reagan lauded Hispanics for "shouldering ever increasing responsibility" in U.S. Government. On unemployment, a problem that has hurt Hispanics almost as badly as blacks, Reagan cited this year's $4.6 billion jobs bill and his Administration's emphasis on job-training programs. On Latin American policy, Reagan declared that "the United States can no longer remain complacent about what is happening to our friends and neighbors to the south." Reagan's remarks were fairly bland, but the crowd, many of them sporting blue-and-white REAGAN IN 84 buttons, was enthusiastic. Yelled one spectator: "Just run for reelection. Then you can keep up the good work."

Before the Phoenix audience, Reagan, himself a lifelong NRA member, declared that "those who seek to inflict harm are not fazed by gun-control laws." Then he added, referring to his own 1981 shooting: "I happen to know this from personal experience." Earlier in the day, Reagan visited a gathering of some 300 elderly volunteer sheriffs posse members, where he took credit for reducing inflation, fighting crime and saving the Social Security system.

Reagan's upcoming trips also have a political cast. Later this month, for example, he plans to appear at a Cuban-American day in Miami. Indeed, despite his continuing protestations that he has yet to decide whether to run, Reagan left little room for doubt about his intentions when he appeared earlier last week at a G.O.P. congressional strategy session in Washington. If Democratic insistence on lower defense spending and higher taxes leads to a budget impasse in Congress, he said, "then we'd be sitting perfectly for 1984." . This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.