The Gipper Strikes Back

By Wllliam R. Doerner

With Democratic taunts fresh in his ears, Reagan hits the campaign trail

Los Angeles, California.

Nearly 600 members of the U.S. Olympic team are cheering and shouting. "There is a new patriotism spreading across our country," the visitor declares as he looks out over the red-white-and-blue uniforms. "So when you're out there, set your sights high . . . Then go for it! Do it for yourselves, for your families, for your country. And will you forgive me, if I may be a little bit presumptuous, do it for the Gipper."

Austin, Texas. A crowd of 20,000, braving 100DEG temperatures, gathers in a riverside park. The featured speaker leans into the microphone for emphasis: "The national Democratic leadership is going so far left, they've left America." The crowd cheers. "Don't let them bury the American dream in their graveyard of gloom and envy."

Atlanta, Georgia. More sweltering weather, a crowd of 10,000, this time at a shopping mall. "Four years later America is a very different place, and the Democrats are saying that it's my fault." (Applause.) "I'll take the blame for inflation falling by almost two-thirds." (Applause.) "And it's our fault that the prime interest rate fell from 21.5%." (Applause.) "... that we cut taxes for every American." (Applause.) Hoboken, New Jersey. A spaghetti dinner at St. Ann's Roman Catholic Church. "Why do those who claim to represent the party of compassion feel no compassion whatsoever for the most helpless among us--the unborn." (Applause.) The punchy rhetoric, the actor's timing, the roar of the crowd, all could mean only one thing: the Gipper was back on the campaign trail. During the long primary season, Ronald Reagan had let the Democrats slug it out among themselves.

The President had been content to preside over a series of carefully staged Rose Garden ceremonies, some honoring ethnics and other voter blocs, and to play the statesman's role on highly visible trips to China and Europe. But last week, with the challenges and chidings of the Democratic Convention still ringing in his ears, Reagan took the gloves off. Declared Campaign Director Edward Rollins: "We are ready to do combat."

Not since he campaigned four years ago had Reagan worked crowds as physically hard as on last week's three-state swing. Under the watchful eye of his Secret Service guards, he mixed with supporters for long stretches in open-air settings, shaking hundreds of hands, kissing babies, signing countless autographs. At a carnival booth on the grounds of St. Ann's, he delighted onlookers by knocking down a pyramid of mugs with a perfectly aimed pitch, winning a yellow stuffed elephant. Women told him he was handsomer than he looked on television. "Thank you," Reagan replied, "that's nice to hear."

Reagan's ebullience on the road contrasted sharply with his subdued, almost wary mood during a nationally televised press conference earlier in the week. Most of the questions involved campaign topics, and Reagan took pains to answer them cautiously. He opened the session on a deliberately partisan note by challenging the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives to act on six pieces of "bottled-up" legislation that form the domestic core of his own re-election platform. The half-dozen purportedly trapped bills include a constitutional amendment requiring a balanced federal budget, a measure allowing spouses working as homemakers to open tax-free individual retirement accounts, tax incentives for the construction of factories in inner-city "enterprise zones," and tuition tax credits for low-and middle-income parents of private-school students. There was also the so-called equal-access bill, which was passed by the Senate in June. It would permit religious groups to meet in public high schools before and after classes. Reagan quickly got his wish on that measure: the next day the House approved it overwhelmingly, 337 to 77.

The President was forced early in his news conference to deal with an item left over from the Democratic Convention, namely Mondale's bold assertion that any Chief Executive, including Reagan, will be forced to raise taxes in 1985. The issue was tricky for Reagan not only because of its volatility among the electorate but also because the tax plank is shaping up as one of the few sparring points between moderates and conservatives at the upcoming Republican Convention. Supply-side Congressmen, led by Jack Kemp, want the platform to pledge specifically that taxes will not be raised in a second Reagan Administration. G.O.R leaders in the Senate and even some of Reagan's top White House advisers are convinced that new taxes are needed to help close the nearly $200 billion annual budget deficit. Admitted Senator Paul Laxalt last week: "It would be less than honest, and unrealistic, for him to lock himself into a no-tax-increase-under-any-condition position."

Reagan did not do that, but in a series of zigs and zags he appeared acutely uncomfortable with the issue and close to deceptive about it. "I have no plans for a tax increase," he declared. "I believe it would be counterproductive with regard to the present recovery." But that was followed by an important caveat. If in his judgment Government costs had been reduced to their lowest possible level, said Reagan, "you would have to look at the tax structure in order ... to meet that minimum level of Government expenditures." Then a countercaveat: "I think we're a long way from that point with regard to bringing Government down to where it could be brought down." Yet Reagan declined to say where further spending cuts could occur or how they could possibly approach the $200 billion level of the budget shortfall, which he is committed to eliminate.

Indeed, the President proceeded to dispense a measure of election-year largesse that will cost some $5 billion next year. The nation's 36 million Social Security recipients would have to forgo a 1985 cost of living adjustment in their monthly payments, he noted, if the annual inflation rate falls below 3%. With the rise in consumer prices running at about that rate now, Reagan said he would ask Congress to reinstate the adjustment no matter what the prevailing pace of inflation. In fact, the Senate beat him to the draw and approved such an increase within 48 hours, and the House is expected to follow suit this week.

Reflecting his advisers' uncertainty about Democratic Vice-Presidential Nominee Geraldine Ferraro's impact on the campaign, Reagan cautiously called her selection "just another step forward in the recognition of the new place of women, and that has been long overdue." Reminded that the Democratic vice-presidential nominee had charged that he was not a "good Christian" because of the pain his budget cuts had caused the poor, Reagan smiled and said, "Well, the minute I heard she'd made that statement, I turned the other cheek." The line fell curiously flat, possibly because it sounded too rehearsed. But at least Reagan's attempt at humor was intentional. Campaign Director Rollins, by contrast, found himself hastily apologizing for what will surely not be the last unplanned double-entendre of the race involving Ferraro. Said Rollins: "Geraldine Ferraro may be the biggest bust politically in recent history."

The next day Reagan hit the hustings and began sounding the political themes that promise to dominate his campaign. His first priority was to link the Democratic ticket with Democratic policies of the past. Reagan declared sarcastically, "Today they offer new realism. Well, forgive me, but their new realism seems to begin right where their old ideas left off: billions in new spending, higher taxes on small business, family farms and every other working family." Another recurring strain was the opposition's gloomy world view. Cracked Vice President George Bush, who joined Reagan on the Texas podium and posed with him in the obligatory ten-gallon hat and with the not-quite-obligatory cheer leaders: "The pessimism out there in San Francisco was incredible. I'm surprised they didn't name the Moscone Center the 'Temple of Doom.' " Reagan accented his speeches in New Jersey and Texas with othe famous line from the 1980 campaign: "Are you better off today than you were four years ago?" Judging by the choruses of affirmative answers, the incumbent may be asking that question a lot in coming months.

In Hoboken Reagan was joined by Native Son Frank Sinatra, a boyhood parishioner of St. Ann's. Saying that his goal was to serve as President for 4 1/2 years more, Reagan concluded, "And I have no reservations about throwing my candidacy on the mercies of the good people of St. Ann's Church in Hoboken, N. J. , and asking them to give the kid a chance." It may have been only the campaign kickoff, but the Gipper was at the top of his game.

-- By Wllliam R. Doerner. Reported by Douglas Brew with Reagan

With reporting by Douglas Brew