The Reaganaut

HOW MUCH will Ronald Reagan win by?

While they won't all admit it this has to be the question on pundits minds this year as they take a candid look at the upcoming presidential year. Few incumbents have ever entered their reelection campaigns in as commanding a position as Reagan does this year: certainly even fewer have so easily convinced the media and the general public of it. Three years into his presidency, Reagan still is coasting on an approval rating that hovers in the 60 percent range. He has posted an impressive series of legislative victories and is gaining a lion's share of the credit for the current economic recovery.

All this of course could go poof in the wake of say a foreign policy disaster in Lebanon or Central America. But what really makes the professional handicappers hanker to place their bets on the Reagan Bush team is a campaign machine that is one of the best greased and best organized in history.

Democratic front runner Walter F. Mondale has garnered a lot of attention for the nearly $5 million he has raised thus far. But compared to the bulging Reagan coffers, the Mondale money is practically peanuts. Just since Reagan filed his formal candidacy papers with the Federal Election Commission last October, his campaign has raised nearly $8 million. Campaign officials think they'll raise the rest of the $21 million they are legally allowed to spend on the campaign by April. Furthermore, they will have the luxury of not having to spend all this loot acquired mostly through a state of the art direct mail fundraising campaign on a series of primaries and caucuses. Instead, the GOP will be able to use most of it to bash the Democratic nominee over the head come fall.

What's more, Reagan will be helped significantly by a host of independent spending campaigns by conservative groups around the country. Campaign laws have allowed groups like the National Conservative Political Action Committee (NCPAC) to spend as much money as they like in support of a candidates as long as they are not in cahoots with the regular campaign, NCPAC, for instance has budgeted $2 million for an independent campaign for Reagan as well as a $2 million campaign "to expose the liberal voting record of Walter F. Mondale," says NCPAC spokesman Craig Shirley. While some observers believe the negative campaign against Mondale might backfire, the Reagan campaign can't help but be boosted by the positive NCPAC expenditures, part of which are going to fund a half hour film, Ronald Reagan's America, and a 200 page book tentatively entitled Reagan: A Record of Achievement.

Reagan also has the entire resources of the Republican Party a his disposal not least of which are the sophisticated PR, media, and high tech skills of its top strategists. The Reagan '84 campaign boasts many of the same key players that carried the '80 juggernaut like campaign chairman, Sen. Paul Laxalt (R-Nev); campaign manager, Edward Rollins; the pollster Richard Wirthlin; and White House advisers James Baker and Michael K. Deaver.

"There is only one Republican candidate," says one campaign yet who's not around for the ride this time the ex White House Communication Director, David R. Gergen. He says, "All the sharpshooters are in the same fort Reagan will derive tremendous benefit from this." The one major campaign post yet unfilled is that of media coordinator though Republican officials predict the job will likely to Peter Daly, who did the job in 1980.

JUST AS Reagan has had an uncanny ability to define the political agenda over the last three years, he is going fortnightly about making himself the issue in the upcoming campaign. He's turned around the economy, he has America "standing tall again," and he's not going to let the voters forget it. Still, Reagan has to get enough people to pull the lever for him come November. Pollsters estimate that the incumbent commands a devoted following among about 35 percent of the electorate a larger base than either Gerald Ford of Jimmy Carter had at the time of their election.

But that's not enough to win the whole thing either in terms of popular or electoral vote and the last three years have seen an erosion of support for Reagan in some of the key groups and regions that carried him to victory in 1980. Reagan's relative lack of support among women, Blacks and labor unions could mean the loss of large industrial states like Pennsylvania, Michigan and Illinois, which Reagan was able to carry narrowly in 1980. This would in turn increase the pressure on Reagan to hold his bedrock conservative constituencies in the South and the West.

Throwing a monkey wrench into all the GOP calculations is the extensive voter registration efforts going on around the country on behalf the Democratic. "We're the minority party in the country," says Reagan campaign side Buckley. "If the Democrats register one voter for every Republican they'll have a chance in November."

Republican operatives, however, have started registration delivers of their own and believe they can make in reads into some heretofore untapped sources of support. As one official puts it, "with a 58 percent approved rating, it's possible to expect that there are a lot of people who have not been involved in the political process out there who are pro-Reagan. "Republican certainly aren't expecting to make significant inroads into the Black community, where Reagan's standing is at about the worst it could possibly be. A recent Gallup poll shows that only 10 percent of the Black community approved of the way Reagan is preferring his. But GOP operatives think that they gain some new votes from groups. The Hispanic Asian Americans evangelical Christians and people in the armed forces.

In 1980 for instatance, Reagan resolved only a third of the Hispanic vote. But record polling indicate he has gained some strength in the community and extra work there could pay off especially in states like Texas and California. "Issues of interest to Hispanic such as the family, education and enterpreneurship actively and Reagan issues," says Buckley. Buckley adds that in Texas, Florida and California, there are 650,000 members of the armed forces who are not registered to vote, but who he says likely Reagan supporters.

On top of the money organization and strategy, of course lies the Republicans' biggest asset--Reagan's enormous personal charisma. and style. But exactly when he takes that style out of the Rose Garden and goes directly to the voters remains unclear. For the meantime, while there are no contested Republican primaries this year both Reagan and Bush will make appearances in states at the time of the Democratic contests.

"Come fall, he'll be out among the voters," predicts Gergen. "It was a tactical mistake in 1980 to hide Reagan early. People underestimated him. He's a lot more effective out in the open.