■ What the media wanted the media got in Massachusetts and Vermont, where their candidate, liberal Congressman John Anderson, was up there with the big boys, Reagan and Bush Says Esquire’s political columnist Richard Reeves of Anderson: “If there were a press caucus [today], Anderson would be the front-runner. . . . He is a giant among pygmies.” . . . Anderson made his surprisingly good showing in Massachusetts by getting a huge chunk of the independent vote—half of his total vote was from independents—and splitting the moderate vote with Bush. Despite which, conservative columnist George Will doesn’t think he’ll go far: “[He] is the pin-up of columnists not famous for wishing the Republican Party well. He is a Kennedy whose sentences parse, but he has a rendezvous with the wrong convention.” . . . If Anderson can’t make it, the media’s backup candidate is George Bush, who is, says U. of Vt. political scientist Garrison Nelson, “the first squeaky-clean Eastern Republican candidate in a generation.” . . . Or as Keith Bulen, Reagan’s deputy state chairman in Massachusetts, put it, “We [the Reagan camp] have the Schlitz drinkers. Bush has the sherry drinkers.” In the event, there proved to be just about as many sherry drinkers as Schlitz drinkers in the Bay State. . . . Meanwhile, the man in the wings, Gerald Ford, is getting some flak from other Republicans for his blast at Reagan as the candidate-who-can’t-win. Barry Goldwater has come out with a ringing endorsement of the Reagan candidacy. “Reagan is the man best equipped to lead the nation.” . . . And Sen. Ted Stevens (R., Alaska)—the Acting Senate Minority Leader in Howard Baker’s absence—says he doesn’t think Ford should be making remarks “about the electability of other Republican candidates”—an allusion to Ford’s losing the White House in 1976 to Jimmy Who? . . . With New England behind him, Reagan looks ahead to the South, where he’s always been strong. A recent Texas Monthly poll, which had John Connally leading Reagan 2 to 1 six weeks ago, showed Reagan ahead with 33.7 per cent, as against 32.8 for Bush and 25.4 for Connally, in a poll taken between Iowa and New Hampshire. . . . When asked, while campaigning in South Carolina, whether he didn’t worry about other candidates breaking the Eleventh Commandment (Thou Shalt Not Speak 111 of Any Other Republican), Reagan said no: “I worry about their breaking some of the other ten.” Any in particular? “Thou Shalt Not Bear False Witness.”
Gurbutt, England Rothco
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