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> Working-class families whose heads of household earn between $14,000 and $20,000 a year, a traditionally Democratic group that has been hardest hit by unemployment and inflation. Though largely blue collar, this category includes a significant number of white-collar workers in both private industry and government.
> White Baptists (the black vote is the most faithful of all the Democratic constituencies). Unlike other white Protestants, the Baptists voted in substantial numbers for one of their own in the last election. But they tend to be conservative on social issues, and many have grown disillusioned with Carter. If they turn out in large numbers, they can have a decisive impact in the Border states and the Deep South.
> Residents of towns and smaller cities of no more than 40,000 people. Traditionally inclined to vote Republican, they strayed from the party in 1976. Polling data indicate they can be reclaimed, though G.O.P. policies must be tailored to their different locations.
The Reagan campaign aims to pull these groups together by emphasizing the issues that unite them rather than those that might divide. Says Senator Lugar: "There is a high degree of consistency among working people on patriotic as well as moral issues. The same people who are disturbed about the impotence of national power are also highly worried about abortion. There is a common thread here." Republicans have found that working people are no less interested in tax reduction than any other group. In addition to the Kemp-Roth federal income tax cut of 30% over three years, Kemp has proposed creating free enterprise zones in decaying parts of cities. Patterned after the well-received British experiments, the plan would permit sharp tax reductions and minimal Government regulations for companies that are willing to relocate and provide jobs for the local community. It could be an ideal Republican program: a free-market approach to a pressing social problem that has resisted governmental remedies.
To bring all these new people into its ranks, however, the G.O.P. is going to have to modify its country club image. Joe Six-Pack does not belong to a country club. Maryland's Republican Congressman Robert Bauman expresses a widespread aversion to the venerable upper crust that has long controlled party affairs: "They are elitists. They are out of touch with the supermarket counters. Their view of Communism is that it is a market to be sold to, not a system that may destroy their children's freedom."
During the rules committee hearings in Detroit this week, Josiah Lee Auspitz, a member of the liberal Republican Ripon Society, plans to offer a resolution to change party rules to make it easier for ethnic groups to become convention delegates and members of the R.N.C. The present process discriminates against the larger states, where ethnic voters are concentrated. Auspitz is a member of the R.N.C.'s outreach program, which makes a special appeal to minorities. Yet he complains: "The party tells these groups, 'Give us your vote, but your participation stops at the ballot box.' "