REPUBLICANS: Now the Republican Rumble

In just seven startling days.

Campaign 1976 gyrated wildly. The breakaway surge of Jimmy Carter had transformed the crowded Democratic race into what looked to be a one-man romp the rest of the way. Then an astonishing string of four straight primary victories suddenly revived the near hopeless candidacy of Ronald Reagan, throwing the fight for the Republican nomination into a bruising, free-swinging rumble.

Reversing roles, the party that likes to think of itself as the more orderly and dignified was now in chaos. Would the battered Gerald Ford and the newly confident Reagan cut each other up so badly that Democrat Carter could breeze to the presidency in November? Sensing that possibility, would Republicans eventually reject both men and nominate somebody else, a healer and more likely winner, in Kansas City in July?

The prospect of a convention deadlock was savored by former Texas Governor John Connally, a spellbinding speaker who hankers to be President. But it still seemed unlikely that the Republican delegates, basically the same kind of conservatives who nominated Barry Goldwater in 1964 and only grudgingly accepted Richard Nixon in 1968, would give their nomination to a Democratic turncoat. It seemed far more unlikely that the Republican Convention would move to Vice President Nelson Rockefeller, still a pariah to the party's dominant right wing. Yet Rockefeller will control most of the huge New York delegation (154 delegates, making up 7% of the convention's votes), and he might even be able to determine the outcome. No one knows what he might ask for in return.

Reagan, helped by the ballots of frustrated former voters for George Wallace, moved ahead of President Ford last week in firm delegates to the convention, 365 to 294. Sixteen tough primaries lay ahead, including nine in Southern and Western states where Reagan would normally be strong. Ford, though still a shaky favorite to win the nomination in the end, could not even be sure of carrying his home state of Michigan on May 18.

The Reagan rebound inspired a most unusual scene in the Cabinet Room of the White House on the agonizing morning after last week's primaries. Ford's face was drawn and haggard as he walked into his regular weekly meeting with Republican congressional leaders. "He's been up late watching the returns," mused one of them. Indeed he had—and the news from Indiana, Georgia and Alabama had all been bad. The legislators rose as they always do, but this time did something unusual: they broke into applause. At a moment when the President was down, they wanted to show their support and affection. Delighted, Ford grinned through his unaccustomed role as a loser.

The session at first seemed to be a mutual pep rally. "Anybody who gets the impression that we're going to quit is crazy as hell," declared Ford. Sounding like Knute Rockne at half time in a Reagan movie, he added: "We're coming out fighting. We'll be there in Kansas City to the end. And we're going to win!" The leaders applauded again.