CAMPAIGN '74: Democrats: Now the Morning After

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On Merits. From the Oval Office, Ford viewed the election as offering his presidency a fresh start. Believing the voters have now exorcised their wrath about Nixon's misdeeds and economic mismanagement, one confidant explained: "From now on, it's the Ford Administration, and the President knows that it will be judged on its merits." Ford met at length last week with several advisers to establish a plan for action between now and the end of January. According to Press Secretary Ron Nessen, the President intends to ask the lame-duck Congress to act promptly on some 40 matters, among them his economic and energy proposals, the trade bill and Rockefeller's confirmation.

There is, however, a disquieting sense among some people in Washington that after three months in office, Ford is still groping for guidance on how to be President. According to Nessen, Budget Director Roy Ash has urged Ford to "steep yourself in the broad philosophical questions involved in preparing the 1976 budget. Partly as a result of that suggestion, Ford intends to commit 1½ hours each day to pondering the major themes of the State of the Union address, which he will deliver in January. After he returns from his trip to the Far East and the Soviet Union on Nov. 24, he plans to spend a similar amount of time each day formulating specific proposals for his 1976 budget.

It all sounded like a remedial course on the presidency and left the unsettling impression that Ford has not yet fully assimilated the problems that face the U.S. or sufficiently disciplined himself to handle them. Such suspicions were heightened by the time Ford took from his duties in the Oval Office to campaign in 20 states for Republican candidates.

One presidential adviser insisted: "We would have batted zero if the President hadn't done something." Even so, Ford's prodigious efforts seem to have done next to nothing to help Republican candidates. The Nixon pardon, which ended what the Washington Post called the euphoric, "English Muffin" phase of Ford's presidency, cut off any coattails that his accession might have offered to beleaguered Republicans. In California, for example, Republican Houston Flournoy somewhat bitterly blamed the pardon for his surprisingly narrow loss of the Governor's race to Democrat Edmund G. ("Jerry") Brown Jr. Ford's campaigning did not keep Democrat Milton Shapp from being re-elected Governor of Pennsylvania or prevent Republican James M. Inhofe from being swamped in Oklahoma by Democrat David L. Boren. But there were at least two Republican winners who credited Ford with helping them to squeeze out close victories: Incumbent Senators Henry Bellmon of Oklahoma and Robert Dole of Kansas.