On to the Showdown in Florida

New Hampshire was past; Massachusetts and Florida were looming ahead in successive weeks. Even as the victory chants in a Manchester hotel broadened his gleaming grin, the boyish-looking candidate took the lectern to talk of the impending challenge by Alabama Governor George Wallace in Florida. Dropping his genteel accent, former Governor Jimmy Carter spoke jokingly in the redneck slang of his rural South, vowing, "And we gon' take 'im!" His traveling Georgia campaign workers whooped with joy. Then Carter, whose Secret Service code name is Dasher, flew off to Boston while most of his exhausted Democratic opponents slept overnight in New Hampshire.

As Carter was rushing to Boston, an unusually anxious Gerald Ford went to sleep in the White House shortly after midnight, without knowing whether he had become one of the few Presidents ever to lose a primary election. He awoke at 5:30 a.m., eagerly turned on a radio--and discovered he had defeated California's Ronald Reagan. Although the margin was only 1.2% (a switch of fewer than 660 votes, out of 108,331 cast, would have changed the outcome), Ford declared he was "delighted" by his first election victory of any kind outside Grand Rapids. A reporter asked him, "Was it like beating Michigan State?" The old Big Ten center laughed and in football lingo indicated that it was much bigger and better: "Oh no, like beating Ohio State."

For both Carter, who only a few months ago was relatively unknown outside the South, and Ford, an unelected President whose performance in office was approved by only 36% of the population in the Harris survey taken in January, the first primary provided sharp injections of added confidence. Carter's solid if unspectacular 30% of the Democratic vote, in a field of five major candidates, lent new weight to his dogged optimism. After three impressive showings in the first five nonprimary, caucus states (he placed first in Iowa, Maine and Oklahoma), his is the only campaign that holds real possibilities of breaking far ahead of the pack.

However thin, Ford's victory seriously stalled Reagan's strategy of seeking a quick knockout in the early primaries--a gamble that could leave Reagan without the will and resources for the long difficult fight now necessary to eliminate Ford. Reagan contended that he was "happy" to "come out with a virtual tie with the incumbent President." His showing was indeed impressive in a historical context, but in fact his aides expected him to win. Now Reagan badly needs to defeat Ford in Florida to erase the "Reagan can't win" label that Ford's men are pushing.

The results demonstrated again that New Hampshire voters, however small their number and however untypical their own state might be, managed to pick and choose shrewdly among the candidates. Reported TIME Senior Correspondent John Steele: "The candidates were talking about serious issues with considerable forthrightness and a minimum of humbug," while the voters were "listening rather closely, asking serious questions and getting serious answers." Nevertheless, the issues were not defined as clearly as they will be in the shakedown process of later primaries. Boston Bureau Chief Sandra Burton saw the nation's "quirkiest, contrariest and most stubbornly individualistic voters" making their choices mainly on the basis of personality and character.

The decisions in New Hampshire began the painful process of winnowing out the candidates. Whatever their rating behind the victorious Carter, the Democrats sought solace, often unrealistically, in the figures. Arizona Congressman Morris "Mo" Udall, who finished second with a respectable 24%, had the best case to make. But the liberal candidates who trailed him, including Birch Bayh (16%), Fred Harris (11%) and Sargent Shriver (9%), had to be jolted by the news from New Hampshire. Their rhetoric and the realities:

UDALL "This campaign is on target and on track--our destination is Madison Square Garden," declared the easygoing Congressman, who also insisted that he was picking up "Mo-men-tum." (He often predicts that "Enie, Meenie and Minie will drop out, leaving only Mo.") Udall's strong second place did stamp him as the early leader in the fight for survival among the four most liberal Democratic candidates. If the party's "ABC" ("Anyone But Carter") liberals coalesce in a stop-Carter movement, Udall is in position to lead it. Idaho Senator Frank Church, another liberal, intends to enter the race later, but by the time he does, Udall may well have pre-empted the left side of the field.

BAYH. "We're running a strong third," Bayh shouted incongruously to his supporters after the vote count. The Indiana Senator clearly lost the most in New Hampshire. Before the election, Udall's press secretary Richard Stout saw Bayh and Udall in a similar bind. Said he: "We're both broke, and we know that one or more of us can't last after Massachusetts without a score."

HARRIS. The self-styled champion of the common folk managed a brave quip: "Our problem is that the little people weren't able to reach the levers on the voting machines. We need a stool in every voting place." But Harris, shaken by his poor finish, was more candid than most: "We did not do as well as we thought we would." Indeed, only his diehard determination and penny-pinching campaigning can keep him in the contest.

SHRIVER. "Like Lazarus, I've risen from the experts' graves," insisted Senator Edward Kennedy's brother-in-law. But there was no realistic way to find anything rosy in Shriver's fifth-place finish--last among the major candidates. To some voters, his Kennedy ties were more a liability than an asset. "He's just an extension of the Kennedys, and when he finally gets to the convention, he would just hand it over to the Kennedys," contended Dick MacDonald, 25, a gas station attendant in Portsmouth, who decided to vote for Udall. Yet Shriver also ran a poor campaign, coming across as a lively but uninspiring lightweight--at best, only half a Kennedy.

Carter won only in part because he had the moderate-to-right portion of the party's ideological spectrum to himself, a situation that will not prevail in Massachusetts and Florida. Yet except for perhaps Harris on the left, the ideological differences between Carter and the other candidates did not sharply emerge. In New Hampshire, Carter was not seen as--and indeed he is not--a right-winger. According to a CBS poll only 41% of the Democrats who identified themselves as conservatives voted for him, which meant the more liberal candidates actually split 59% of this vote. In fact, Carter's base was broad; Bayh's aides conceded that Carter, rather than another liberal, was often the second choice of Bayh's supporters. Udall admitted that "the undecideds must have broken more for Carter than for us."

Carter did far better than Bayh or Udall among blue-collar workers. In Manchester, where Bayh was expected to be strong because of the endorsement of some labor leaders, Carter topped Bayh, 3,239 to 2,567, while Udall got 1,843. Said Armond Laurence, a worker at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard: "Most of the guys decided to vote for Carter because he's someone who's not afraid to get his hands dirty." Carter also did well among low-income groups, Catholics, the middle-aged and the least-educated voters.

Udall's strength emerged in the more traditional liberal areas of the state, including Hanover (home of Dartmouth) and Durham (home of the University of New Hampshire), as well as Keene, Lebanon and Concord, where strong organizations mobilized the vote. His dry self-deprecating wit and his calls for breaking up the oil companies and regulating strip mining were popular among the young and the best-educated. But he lacked Carter's zest for gladhanding. One day at a Nashua shoe factory, Udall made a good impression, but several workers asked, "He didn't say who he was--who is he?" Said New Hampshire Democratic Party Chairman Laurence Radway, who admires Udall: "I wish he would have dribbled a basketball around a few gyms in Manchester." If he had the 6-ft. 5-in. Udall would have done it well: he is a former professional basketball player.

In the two-man Republican primary, Ford fought off defeat by pointedly criticizing Reagan in the campaign's closing days, touring his own strongest areas at the last moment and effectively using banks of telephones (see following story). Yet in such a razor-thin victory, fate proved helpful. Unseasonably balmy weather contributed to an unexpectedly large voter turnout, especially luring independents to the more clear-cut Republican contest. If the turnout had been smaller, the President would not have got so many lukewarm moderates, but Reagan could still have counted on his zealous supporters.

However psychologically important New Hampshire was to the candidates of both parties, they had little time to dissect its portents. The primary this week in Massachusetts is far more important for the Democrats. Udall stands to do well. He has the endorsement of House Democratic Leader Thomas "Tip" O'Neill, former Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox and the academically oriented liberals. Because so much is going for him, a poor showing would knock down his chances. Conceded Udall last week: "If I don't lead the liberal pack a week from today, the Udall campaign is going to have to reassess its position." Yet Massachusetts is also such a special situation, with both Wallace and Jackson exploiting the state's antibusing fervor, that it may say little about the eventual outcome of the emerging Carter-Wallace-Jackson showdowns.

That test will come more sharply next week in Florida, where those three Democrats have little opposition. Though others are on the ballot (including Bayh, Udall and even Church), none of the top liberals is campaigning there, which gives Carter an opening to the left, in contrast to his situation in New Hampshire. Thus the moderate Carter again seems fortunately positioned by his vow to enter all primaries, while others try to choose their own best shots. (Ironically, Jackson's failure to enter New Hampshire may have given Carter the chance to build the strength that now makes him a threat to Jackson's hopes in Massachusetts and Florida.)

By the best rough estimates, Wallace last week had perhaps 35% of the vote, Carter 30% and Jackson 20%. But, reports TIME Atlanta Bureau Chief James Bell, "there is no discernible upward movement in Wallace's Florida campaign, although there is movement toward Carter. The New Hampshire win may have caused the undecided voters to shift his way." If Carter edges out Wallace in Florida, the Georgian's drive would be difficult to stop.

For the two Republican contenders, the next few weeks could well be decisive. Little is at stake for them in Massachusetts; neither Ford nor Reagan is actively campaigning there, but the President is supported by such popular state Republicans as Senator Edward Brooke and Secretary of Commerce Elliot Richardson. He is expected to get at least 55% of the vote. Florida, on the other hand, has become the critical battleground for Reagan.

As in New Hampshire, Ford shows signs of coming from behind. So Reagan must work even harder at a most difficult task: persuading Florida's tradition-minded residents to stifle their qualms about deserting the holder of an office they respect and take a chance with a challenger whom they admire.

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