Word: schweikered
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...major parties divide along liberal-conservative lines, he switched from the Democratic Party in 1950 to push his conservative beliefs. Reed had professed to favor Reagan, but was thought by some insiders in the delegation to be awaiting an excuse to move to Ford. The selection of Schweiker gave Reed that excuse. After taking phone calls from both Ford and Reagan, he finally convened a press conference in which he denounced Reagan's selection of Schweiker as "wrong and dumb. It was an act of desperation. It was a double sin inasmuch as it didn't work." Concluding...
Regardless of what happens in Mississippi, simply holding the conservative lines would not be enough for Reagan. For the Schweiker ploy to work, it would have been necessary to win over delegates in New York, New Jersey and, notably, Pennsylvania. So far, that simply has not been happening. Schweiker insisted on Wednesday that he would pull as many as 20 Ford delegates from Pennsylvania into either the Reagan or uncommitted columns-but he did not produce a single name...
...Pennsylvanians visited Washington last Thursday, stopping first to listen to Schweiker on Capitol Hill. He got a polite hearing with his plea that "if Governor Reagan can cross the sound barrier and ask me to join him, I can cross the sound barrier and join him in a coalition for victory." Even a longtime Schweiker friend and former campaign manager, Drew Lewis, urged support for Ford. James Stein, 21, once a Reagan admirer, said Reagan had lost "credibility" with him. "At least I know where Gerald Ford stands, and I can take him at his word...
After a 90-minute audience with the President at the White House, six delegates-who had been considered uncommitted-came out publicly for Ford. Reagan and Schweiker may meet jointly with Pennsylvania and New Jersey delegations this week to try to persuade delegates to switch; they also plan to address the Mississippi delegation...
Reagan's aides insist that the strategy will pay off before the convention. Campaign Manager Sears argued that the plan all along was to spend the first week after the Schweiker announcement just explaining the odd coupling. In an implicit admission that the Reagan cause only days earlier had seemed lost, he claimed: "People are saying, 'Now we really can't tell who's going to win.' " Sears seemed to be hearing voices inaudible to almost everyone else...