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Pool report - Visit to President's Suite
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7345343
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Pool report - Visit to President's Suite
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White House Press Releases (Ford Administration)
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1976-08-19
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1976
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Digitized from Box 30 of the White House Press Releases at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library
August 19, 1976
Pool Report Visit to President's Suite
We spent a lot of time in a holding room and we
weren't actually taken into the working study until the
beginning of the roll call vote. The President was seated
immediately in front of a bank of three televisions. He
was listening to Chancellor, to NBC. He was in shirt sleeves,
without a tie on and pinstripe pants. He was smoking his
pipe. He had a little coffee table next to him on which
was a small elephant, we were told, made out of banana
leaves, if I heard it correctly.
Then, there was a microphone wired up into the
banana leaf elephant. They were shooting campaign film, and
it was to pick up the President's remarks as he made remarks.
Seated around him on a couch immediately to the left were
Jack Marsh, Bob Teeter, Stu Spencer -- Teeter is the pollster
for the President Ford Committee -- and Cheney was on his
immediate right. I will go around the room counterclockwise.
Marsh, Teeter, Spencer, later Nessen came in and sat down
next to Spencer, then the President sitting in the middle on
a chair and to his right were Cheney and Bryce Harlow.
All were in shirt sleeves except Cheney and Harlow.
They had coats on.
The President had an open briefcase at his feet.
I couldn't tell what was in the briefcase, but it was filled
with notebooks and briefing papers and that kind of thing.
He was working from a Xeroxed tallysheet and for
the first 20 minutes or so of the roll call vote he sat rather
impassively with a yellow pencil occasionally ticking off
States, but not all of them by any means.
We didn't get in at the beginning of the roll call.
We came in in just about the D's. The first quote from the
President that I got was when Louisiana -- there was an
abortive attempt to get Louisiana to poll all of the
delegates. The President turned to Marsh and said, "Did
this surprise you, Jack?" He said, "What did they do, try
to withdraw that count?" Marsh said, "Yes."
The next quote was, 'he' saw his son Steve' on the
screen with a cowboy hat and he turned from the screen and
said, "That is quite a cowboy hat Steve has on."
Then, when it came time for Minnesota to vote and
Anchor Nelson stood up to announce the vote, the President
said, "Anchor Nelson, he is a great guy." Then, Mississippi
came up and the vote was announced, 14 Reagan, 16 Ford.
Bryce Harlow leaned over and said, "That represents just
a little bit of endeavor," and everybody laughed. Then,
Tom Curtis, of Missouri, stood up and the President said,
"Tom has almost lost his voice."
MORE
- 2 -
There were numerous football jokes, as you recall,
from the chairman of the delegations, Nebraska, and the
President laughed at all of them. Just before that, the
Montana guy stood up and mentioned his State was the last
of the big-time spenders and the President said, "He has
to pronounce that pretty carefully."
At the New Jersey count, the President said, "That
is two better," and then for New York, when the camera was
on Rosenbaum, he said, "Look at old Rosie." In New York,
Richardson got one vote and Stu Spencer commented, "Richardson
is killing us."
New York was the State that put him ahead and, as
it was called, Harlow said, "Here it comes," and then it
was the President who said, "Look at old Rosie," and then
somebody referred to him as the Chancellor, the Iron
Chancellor. Then Spencer made the line about Richardson
killing them.
In New York City the still photographers and the
TV crew came into the suite. When New York was called,
Harlow said, "Here it comes," indicating New York was
going to put him ahead. At that point the President said,
"Look at old Rosie," when he came on the screen. I think
it was Marsh who referred to him as the Iron Chancellor,
just dropped it in, and then they listened to the vote count
in New York and that is when Spencer said, "Richardson
is killing us."
When the Pennsylvania count was announced at 93 for
Ford, he said, "Drew Lewis said that two months ago, he
sure did." Then he turned to Marsh and said, "He did a
great job," speaking of Lewis.
In Nebraska there was the first reference to the
football thing about number one, they said they were number
one in football games and the President laughed at that
and then Oklahoma came up and the fellow said, "Nebraska
knows we are number one in football." The President
laughed and then Oklahoma cast its vote unanimously for
Reagan and Harlow said, "At least you are right on the
football."
The President said something about, "They might
change that. They didn't last fall." Texas, when it
called itself a humble State, the President laughed. When
the member of the Virginia delegation called for a poll, the
President turned to Marsh and said, "Whose side is he on?"
Marsh replied, "He is against us and it is probably because
of this Sprinkle thing."
MORE
- 3 -
There was a lot of joking back and forth from the
time we got into the room about a delegate named Eliza
Sprinkle and Stu Spencer, or somebody, said, "Well, Eliza
Sprinkle is finally going to vote in public." She is
an 80-year-old delegate from the NiNth District of
Virginia. She had been the last uncommitted hold-out in
Virginia. She is the oldest delegate at the Convention.
She finally stood up and when they called her name, she
just said, "Governor Reagan."
There was a lady in the Virginia delegation,
'irginia Lampe, if you were listening, who said she had
to fight her way through the press to get to the micro-
plone and indignantly walked UD and cast her vote for
President Ford, and he said, "Thata girl, Virginia," and
laughed.
Also during the Virginia polling the President put
down his tally sheet, stood up and stretched and walked
arount over to his desk to get some pipe tobacco. For
most of the way through the polling he didn't make any
attemp: to log in the votes. He just set his tally sheet
aside.
There was also one Virginia delegate who stood
up and said he got no free meal from the White House.
Therefore, he was voting for Governor Reagan. The President
put his head back and laughed when the fellow said that.
There was also a Virginia delegate named Marsh and when
his name was announced and he announced his vote for Reagan,
Ford shook his finger at Marsh and Marsh said he was the
wrong one and said, "They would have to Doll this delegation,"
speaking of Virginia.
At one point a delegate, whose name escapes me, got
UD and voted for Food and the President said, "Atta boy,
Paul.' It was a phrase he used more than one time. That
was Paul Johnson and a middle name.
When it got to West Virginia, Ford laughed when
Arch Moore got up and it became apparent that that was the
vote that was going to put him over, and then when Moore said,
"Twenty votes for Ford," There was applause by the staff
members. Kennerlv was snapping pictures of Ford, asked him
to turn around so he could catch him smiling, and get the
flashing "Ford Wins" in the background. Ford said nothing.
He remained seated, he smiled and remained
smiling while Kennerly snapped the pictures. The next
quote I have is, "I have to watch my wife getting through
all these kisses."
MORE
- 4 -
Then he turned back around to the TV scrven
and the photographers were standing behind him and they
kept trying to get him to turn around and he said, "I
have to see my wife getting all these kisses." He turned
back around and Sonny Bono was apparently laying one on
Bettv about that time and he turned around and said, "Is
that Sonny Bono?"
Then the President said, "I hope nobody demands
a recount." Let me throw in one thing here. Dr. Lukash
was in the room from the beginning, but he was sitting
over at a conference table at the far end having a snack
or something. It wasn't until West Virginia came up that
he wandered over and joined the President to watch him go
over the top.
Don Penny and a lot of people were shaking hands
and one thing and another after he went over the top.
Penny came in and shook hands and Ford said, "Well, I guess
we don't have to change the speech." We got a look at the
tally sheet he was working with during the thing; the total
he was working against was 1179.
After several minutes, when they were taking
pictures, the President did shake hands, stood and shook
hands around the room with his aides that were there.
The quote I got when he turned to Spencer, he said, "Stu,
it has been long and tough. It was great." He also said,
"Poor Wisconsin and Wyoming," referring to the two States
who just missed out putting him over the toD.
His own tally by the way, was 1179, the sheet
he was working from, He smiled and very definitively
reached over and ticked off West Virginia on his
tally sheet.
Dick Cheney said there would be two briefings
Thursday and Friday, On Thursday, Ed Schmultz of the
Counsel's Office, and perhaps one or two others, would
give a step-by-step briefing on the Vice Presidential
selection. The briefing will be at mid-afternoon. On Friday,
Stu Spencer will brief in the campaign before the
President's party leaves for Vail.
-- Rudy Abrahamson, L. A. Times
John Mashek, U.S. News & World
Report
Strobe Talbott, Time
Tom DeFrank, Newsweek
Charles Gibson, ABC