(2 of 11)
But Bush is not ready to be plucked yet, and Reagan knows it. New Hampshire was only the first of 35 state primaries; Bush had built an impressive organization for this week's contest in Massachusetts, a liberal state where Reagan appeared to have limited support. And Reagan put his whole future campaign into question by dismissing, several hours before the polls closed on election night in New Hampshire, his controversial campaign manager, John Sears. Still, for the immediate future, both momentum and the calendar favor Reagan. The early March contests are in the Dixie states of South Carolina (March 8), Georgia, Alabama and Florida (all March 11). This is conservative country, where Reagan is strong. The next major confrontation will come in the Illinois primary on March 18, the first in any of the delegate-rich industrial states.
There is always a chance that the many Republicans who consider Reagan too conservative or simply too old to win the presidency will coalesce behind an alternative candidate. That could be Bush, Senate Minority Leader Howard Baker, 54, or even ex-President Gerald Ford, 66, who appears sorely tempted to enter the race in an attempt to head off Reagan, his old nemesis from 1976.
But Reagan at least deflated the balloon of Bush, his highest-flying early challenger. Bush, the former envoy to the United Nations and to China, former Republican National Chairman and former CIA director, had modeled his entire campaign strategy on the one followed by Jimmy Carter in 1976. He hoped to win national attention in Iowa, as he certainly did, ride the sudden burst of publicity into upset victories or at least strong showings in the early pri maries, and then parlay those triumphs into the nomination.
In the glorious and innocent weeks between Iowa and New Hampshire, Bush bragged incessantly in his Ivy League-cheerleader tones of having "the Big Mo" (momentum). But he did only well enough to maintain his new status as No. 2 going into the Southern round. Gamely and accurately, Bush summed up his New Hampshire debacle in a
postprimary phone call to Reagan: "Ron, congratulations, sir. You beat the hell out of me." How did Reagan do it? Bush's strategists were ready—after the vote—with a barrage of excuses. For one thing, the exhausted Bush flew home to Houston the weekend before the vote, while Reagan campaigned to the bitter end. Thus New Hampshire television viewers on Sunday and Monday saw pictures of Bush resting beside his Texas swimming pool while Reagan was doggedly plowing through chilled New Hampshire crowds—an odd contrast for a campaign in which Reagan's age was supposed to be a major handicap. Heavy stress was placed on the brutal daily pummeling Bush took in the Manchester Union Leader, New Hampshire's only statewide paper—though Publisher William Loeb has berated other candidates in other primaries with limited consequences.