Republicans: Reagan’s Road Show

For a freshman Governor who insists that his only ambition is to run California well, Governor Ronald Reagan has mapped out quite a national itinerary for himself. By year’s end, he will have delivered speeches—or at least his basic “Speech”—in Illinois, Wisconsin, South Carolina, Nebraska, Oregon, Kentucky, Texas, Washington, Iowa, Kansas, Ohio, and probably Connecticut and Florida. At every turn, he will likely repeat to reporters: “I am not a candidate. I am not running for President.”

Back in Sacramento last week after four days on the road, Reagan may have been tempted to change his refrain. The trip proved that the rookie Governor is one of the hottest speakers on the G.O.P. circuit. After dedicating a library at his Illinois alma mater, Eureka College, Reagan flew to Columbia, S.C., where a $100-a-plate fund-raising dinner packed in some 3,500 of the faithful for the largest and most lucrative banquet ever held in the state.

Like Jane & Cheetah. Next night in Milwaukee, 2,823 Republicans jammed into the Municipal Arena for another $100-a-plate affair, while several thousand more paid $5 apiece to listen from the balcony. Reagan, who may have been raiding Bob Hope’s gag file, started off with a string of japes: “We have some hippies in California. For those of you who don’t know what a hippie is, he’s a fellow who has hair like Tarzan, who walks like Jane, and who smells like Cheetah.”

Then he launched into “the Speech,” a rerun of the 1964 peroration for Goldwater that established Dutch Reagan’s conservative credentials.

Some of Wisconsin’s party leaders were not so delighted as the troops with Reagan’s charisma. Unless he signs an affidavit disavowing any plan to run, Reagan’s name will automatically be listed on the ballot in the April 2 Wisconsin primary, the nation’s second. State G.O.P. officials, mostly strong Nixon supporters, have good reason to fear that Reagan would cut into Nixon’s conservative strength, possibly throwing the primary victory to Michigan’s George Romney.

Howling Dog. Reagan, for his part, ebulliently went back to state problems before embarking on another tour of fund raisers. His rhetoric certainly remained colorful. Labor leaders protested when Reagan allowed convicts to help harvest California fruit and vegetable crops, but Reagan at a press conference pointed out that the union had failed to provide sufficient manpower to bring in the crops before they were in danger of rotting. Said Reagan of the union leaders: “Sometimes they remind me of a dog sitting on a sharp rock howling with pain, who is too stupid to get up.” Then he ordered his department of health and welfare to find out how many of the state’s welfare recipients would be willing to go out and work in the fields to harvest or risk losing their benefits.