The Nation: How Ford Won and Reagan Lost

At Ronald Reagan's headquarters in Concord's dingy New Hampshire Highway Hotel, confident aides had chilled several bottles of Almadén blanc de blancs champagne for the expected victory party on primary night. The bottles were never opened. Next morning, as the campaign troupe decamped, Ronald Reagan Jr., 17, and other deflated supporters loaded the bubbly aboard the candidate's chartered Boeing 727—just in case there might be reason for popping their corks in Florida, Illinois or the other hard primaries ahead.

Reagan was doubly disappointed because he had blown the lead. After his first foray to the state last November, his polls showed him with a 45%-38% margin over Ford, though 17% were undecided. Following the President's first campaign visit in early February, Reagan fell slightly behind in the polls. Then, in the final weeks of campaigning, the pollsters' findings wavered back and forth. Still, on election eve, Reagan staffers anticipated victory.

The day after the primary all the Governor's men began analyzing what had gone wrong. There is little question that Reagan had outorganized and outdazzled Ford. Reagan had committees in all 236 of New Hampshire's cities and towns, spent close to the legal maximum of $200,000, and made more than 200 stops in 17 days of polished politicking. Friendly crowds applauded his calls for an end to unbalanced federal budgets and for more spending on defense and tougher bargaining with the Soviets. Even his ill-considered proposal to transfer many federal social-welfare programs to state and local governments—he estimated the shift would cut the federal budget by $90 billion—was popular with many voters.

But Reagan made serious mistakes. He spent little time in the cities and towns where much of Ford's strength lay: Keene, Nashua, Durham, Portsmouth and Dover. He erred by campaigning in Illinois the day before the primary; New Hampshire Campaign Manager Hugh Gregg, a former Governor, had advised Reagan that further stumping in New Hampshire was unnecessary. In hindsight, an unhappy Reagan strategist concluded, "That's when we should have been going full bore. The situation was that volatile."

The Ford forces thought so too. Until the polls closed, they went all out to make up for the President's inept organizing early in the race. The situation was saved mainly by Stuart Spencer, the savvy professional campaign organizer from California who is Ford's political director. Spencer, 49, managed Reagan's winning gubernatorial campaign in 1966. The White House recruited him in September to take over authority for the Ford election committee's day-to-day operations from inexperienced Chairman Howard ("Bo") Callaway, who now serves essentially as coordinator of campaign activities.