The Week

Best wishes to Billy Carter for a speedy recovery, and when he’s feeling better may he disavow some of his brother’s public statements.

“I think that we’re going to have to take Big John more seriously, maybe even as seriously as he takes himself.” The speaker, quoted by Jack Germond of the Washington Star, was a political aide attending the Midwestern Republican Leadership Conference in Indianapolis. The “Big John” referred to was John B. Connally. Connally and five other presidential hopefuls— Howard Baker, George Bush, Philip Crane, Robert Dole, and Jack Kemp—addressed a gathering of six hundred Republican regulars from 13 states. All gave more or less conservative speeches, well-received, but Connally stopped several times for applause and got the biggest hand at the end. A CBS poll of not quite half the audience showed 29 per cent picking Connally as their first choice for President in 1980, and a whopping 53 per cent rating him the best speaker (Ronald Reagan, who did not attend, finished second in each category, with 21 and 12 per cent). Some observers felt Connally’s showing represented a shift in the Republican heartland, since Midwestern regulars had been opposed to giving the former Democrat the vice-presidential nod in 1976. “The poll had no intrinsic importance,” Germond noted. “[But] . . . the results suggest that the Connally ‘problem’ [with GOP regulars] may be overstated.”

Best wishes to Billy Carter for a speedy recovery, and when he’s feeling better may he disavow some of his brother’s public statements.

“I think that we’re going to have to take Big John more seriously, maybe even as seriously as he takes himself.” The speaker, quoted by Jack Germond of the Washington Star, was a political aide attending the Midwestern Republican Leadership Conference in Indianapolis. The “Big John” referred to was John B. Connally. Connally and five other presidential hopefuls— Howard Baker, George Bush, Philip Crane, Robert Dole, and Jack Kemp—addressed a gathering of six hundred Republican regulars from 13 states. All gave more or less conservative speeches, well-received, but Connally stopped several times for applause and got the biggest hand at the end. A CBS poll of not quite half the audience showed 29 per cent picking Connally as their first choice for President in 1980, and a whopping 53 per cent rating him the best speaker (Ronald Reagan, who did not attend, finished second in each category, with 21 and 12 per cent). Some observers felt Connally’s showing represented a shift in the Republican heartland, since Midwestern regulars had been opposed to giving the former Democrat the vice-presidential nod in 1976. “The poll had no intrinsic importance,” Germond noted. “[But] . . . the results suggest that the Connally ‘problem’ [with GOP regulars] may be overstated.”