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One region that looks particularly promising for Republican gains among working people is the South. That is the thrust of a memo written to Reagan by one of his Southern strategists, Lee Atwater, who thinks the blue-collar workers hold the balance of power in the area. If they could be converted, the South could eventually be solid, he concludes, for Republicanism. Some evidence supporting this view comes from Texas, where the G.O.P. primary contest between Reagan and Bush drew a record 510,000 people to the polls. Says Reagan's Texas strategist Ernest Angelo: "There was just a greater degree of good salt-of-the-earth Texans than we've ever had before." Dallas Attorney Paul Eggers was surprised by a recent Republican rally that featured "beer, hotdogs, rednecks and lots of music and stomping. Fifteen years ago it would have been sacrilege to do that at a Republican rally."
The G.O.P., however, cannot take its appeal to blue-collar workers for granted. Evidence of their crossing party lines to vote for Reagan in the primaries is sparse, though they clearly helped in Illinois and Wisconsin. While it is true that union leaders have not yet attacked Reagan, there is no reason to assume they will not. Says Robert Neuman, deputy chairman of the Democratic National Committee: "Union leadership has been concerned with Carter and Kennedy. They haven't gotten to Reagan yet. When they do, I think they'll hold the rank and file on issues of concern to workers: right to work, OSHA. Reagan's views are dead wrong."
Right or wrong, Reagan is not likely to change them. In general he sees no reason to modify his opinions when he feels the rest of the country is coming around to his point of view. The best way to form a coalition, he thinks, is for other people to convert to his viewpoint. To an extent, this has happened. But he eventually will meet more resistance. At that point, will he give a little or stand adamantly on principle?
How Reagan orchestrates these various groups he needs to win the election will be a critical test of his leadership. If he seems to cater too much to the Southern fundamentalists, for example, he risks alienating urban ethnic voters in the North. Some of Reagan's backers in Detroit and elsewhere are demonstrating the zealotry that helped lose the election for Goldwater and lean perform the same feat for Reagan. Says Ed Meese, Reagan's chief of staff: "It is a difficult balancing act on some of these things, but it is a necessary one to reflect the broad spectrum of support Ronald Reagan gets."
Whether Reagan can accomplish what he intends will not be known until he is put to the test. Like many successful politicians, he is essentially an enigma. Says one shrewd Massachusetts Republican leader who has known and supported Reagan for many years: "I know George Bush. I know Howard Baker. I know Phil Crane. I know Bob Dole. I even know John Anderson. They all know me. But I don't know Ronald Reagan. If he came into a room where I was, someone would have to tell him my name. He is the most aloof politician I have ever encountered."