Big John's Ten-Gallon Candidacy

He is turning on the Republican rank and file

Republican Party pros scoffed when Big John Connally, 62, announced that he was running for President. "A slick Lyndon Johnson," sneered one, "A wheeler-dealer in a sharkskin suit," gibed another. Now, only two months later, the jeering has stopped. Concedes Nevada Senator Paul Laxalt, campaign chairman for Front Runner Ronald Reagan: "Connally is coming on like gangbusters."

The former Texas Governor has got off to such a fast start that he has become Reagan's principal rival for the nomination in a race that most political experts predict will be settled in the early state primaries. The first is in New Hampshire, eleven months from now. Last week Connally, accompanied by Wife Nellie and a van of political reporters, made his first foray into the state since announcing his candidacy. In speeches and press conferences, he called for new decisive leadership to rescue the U.S. from the grasp of oil sheiks and end the dollar's decline. Said he: "We're going to have to reinstill pride in America for what we are, for what we've been. Somehow, we're going to have to save the world again."

This sort of rhetoric is turning on the conservative rank-and-file Republicans, who traditionally play an outsize role in determining the party's presidential standardbearer. Three weeks ago, the silver-haired Connally made a stem-winding speech to 600 Midwestern Republican leaders at a convention in Indianapolis. A subsequent poll of 254 delegates showed that 29% favored Connally for the nomination, while Reagan trailed with 21%. Admits a rival, conservative Congressman Philip Crane of Illinois: "Connally has a lot of pizazz."

The adulation is being converted into cash: only six days after Connally announced his candidacy, he met the requirements for federal campaign-matching funds by receiving donations of $5,000 or more in 20 states. His war chest bulges with $1.25 million in contributions, more than Reagan has collected. Far more volunteers are trying to board Connally's bandwagon than his underorganized staff can absorb.

Connally's strong showing has been an unpleasant surprise to his rivals. They had believed that his late conversion from the Democratic Party would be an insurmountable handicap. They also figured that he had not shaken the unsavory image gained from his 1975 trial on charges of accepting a $10,000 bribe while serving as Nixon's Treasury Secretary. But Connally, for the moment at least, seems to have blunted both problems with a combination of humor and forthrightness. Said he to the New Hampshire legislature: "I have some background to talk to you no matter what your party affiliation." As for the bribery trial, says Connally, "the jury gave an answer for all time and all reasonable people, and that was simply not guilty."

It remains to be seen, of course, whether Connally can survive the long and arduous marathon of about three dozen primaries. As he left New Hampshire last week, two other candidates were arriving: Congressman Crane (for his 21st visit) and Kansas Senator Robert Dole (for his 15th). Meanwhile, Senator Howard Baker has appointed Indiana Senator Richard Lugar as his campaign chairman and has stepped up his travel schedule. And in California, Reagan was calculating how and when to take the offensive against the man he now regards as the most formidable obstacle between himself and the nomination. Says Laxalt: "John Connally is a very strong political personality. I don't know anyone in the country who is stronger." For now.

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