■ Question: Is there an underground vote for Ronald Reagan? How else to explain the wildly off-target recent polls? Whereas in South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, and Illinois the pollsters scored bullseyes in the Kennedy v. Carter match, they consistently, and badly, under-rated Reagan’s vote. E.g., Florida, They predicted Reagan would get 42 per cent of the vote; he got 57; Georgia, predicted 40, got 73; Alabama, predicted 39, got 70; Illinois, predicted 36 (against 34 for Anderson), got 48 (against 38 for Anderson). . . . And Reagan got better than a quarter of the crossover vote in Illinois: independents and Democrats who obviously can’t stomach the choice the Democrats are offering. … In a New York Times / CBS poll of Illinois voters, most Reagan voters said they thought he could win in November, only one in five mentioned his age. . . . Two weeks ago Barry Goldwater came out for Reagan—in a well-timed gesture to derail the Ford candidacy—while John Connally used his clout in Texas to keep Republic Gov. Bill Clements from announcing for Ford. Connally’s endorsement of Reagan is expected at any moment. . . . Liberal Republican Rep. Paul McCloskey—whose campaigning for George Bush in New England might have backfired—perceives John Anderson as “the first Republican since Wendell Willkie to excite enthusiasm rather than just respect.” But that was before Illinois. . . . Rep. Mickey Edwards (R., Okla.) doesn’t see it that way. He sees Anderson as the premier opportunist of the campaign. “John looked for where there was an opening on the spectrum. There was one on the Left, and he took it.” … No help with party regulars, Anderson’s statement that he would be “more comfortable” with Kennedy as President than Reagan, and his wife Keke’s calling Connally “a crook” and Crane “a fascist.”
■ Washington Post’s astute David Broder isn’t all that sure it’s a shoo-in for Carter in November. Broder cites the economy, Carter’s slow erosion in the polls, and the possibility of a John Anderson-headed third-party effort that would sop up dissident liberal votes. . . . Teddy Kennedy hasn’t managed to get two endorsements he badly needs, from Sen. Patrick Moynihan and Gov. Hugh Carey of N.Y., but Bella Abzug and Gloria Steinem climbed aboard his badly leaking ship last week. Steinem’s endorsement may be the kiss of death in Politics ’80: she’s also for John Anderson. . . . One alarming finding for the Kennedy forces was the CBS poll of Illinois Democratic primary voters that showed 41 per cent of them would not under any circumstances support Kennedy in November.
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