Ask the Scholar
Document scope · 1 page
Scholar
Ask about this object, its catalog metadata, its source description, or the page inventory.
For page-specific OCR and visual context, open one of the page chats.
Scholar Source Context
Document identity
localId
7345314
label
Press Conference of James A. Baker, III, Deputy Chairman/Delegates
core
doc
dtoType
document
citationUrl
pageCount
1
Source metadata
id
7345314
sourceUrl
contentType
document
title
Press Conference of James A. Baker, III, Deputy Chairman/Delegates
citationUrl
collections
White House Press Releases (Ford Administration)
Press Releases
largeImageUrl
imageCount
1
hasImages
yes
source
import
hasTranscription
no
Source extras
naId
7345314
levelOfDescription
item
productionDates
day
16
logicalDate
1976-08-16
month
8
year
1976
recordType
description
ocrSource
nara-archive
Single page context
seq
1
pageIndex
0
type
document
mediaId
17eeb3e218bdecc4
ocrText
Digitized from Box 29 of the White House Press Releases at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library
August 16, 1976
PRESS CONFERENCE
OF
JAMES A. BAKER, III
DEPUTY CHAIRMAN/DELEGATES
THE CROWN CENTER HOTEL
4:46 P.M. CDT
MR. BAKER: Ladies and gentlemen, we have an
update for you on our delegate count. There should be
some sheets of paper at the back of the room with names
and addresses of new delegates who have committed to
the President. A couple of these have been on the wire.
I think that three or four of them have not been.
We are announcing five new delegates. One that
I know has been on the wire is an alternate from the
State of New York named Odin Carlson, who is taking the
place of a delegate who will not attend from New York.
We have an uncommitted delegate from South
Carolina, Sherry Martschink, who has committed to the
President; an uncommitted delegate from the State of
Virginia, Lois Kindt; an uncommitted delegate from the
State of Pennsylvania -- I believe this has been on the
wire -- Ed Byrne; and an uncommitted delegate from the
State of Missouri, Bill Skaggs.
With those additions to our count, we now show the
President with 1139, Governor Reagan with 1033 delegates,
and with 87 delegates remaining uncommitted, including
the full 30 in the Mississippi delegation.
I will be delighted to take your questions.
Q
What effect has the withdrawal of delegate
Buckley had on your account?
MR. BAKER: It has had no effect.
Q
How many delegates has the President met
with today?
MR. BAKER: I don't know how many he has met
with today. He is still meeting with them, but my
recollection is he had some 35 to 40 on the schedule.
MORE
- 2 -
Q
What States, and also, is Mrs. Ford
meeting delegates?
MR. BAKER: The First Lady has met some
delegates. I don't have the totals on that for you.
Q
Did the President meet with Mississippi
delegates?
MR. BAKER: The President was scheduled to meet
with some Mississippi delegates at 1:30. His schedule
was running about an hour and a half late, but he did
meet with some Mississippi delegates.
Q
If the Convention forced the President to
name his Vice President before his nomination, what
effect could that have on his nomination?
MR. BAKER: I can't say that, Tom. I don't
think that is going to happen. It is hypothetical, and
I can't give you an answer.
Q
Could we go back to aprevious question?
The 35 or so delegates he met with, could you cover the
States they came from and also what was the burden of
his message to them?
MR. BAKER: He met this morning with the Hawaii
delegation and the Guam delegation. He met with some
delegates from Mississippi this afternoon. He met with
some delegates from Minnesota; some delegates from
Wyoming. He is presently meeting with some delegates from
Kansas, Arizona, Missouri, and he will meet with a few
delegates from Virginia later this evening.
Q
Are all those uncommitted?
MR. BAKER: No, they are not all uncommitted.
Many of them, as in the case of Hawaii, are committed to
the President. The Guam delegation is committed to the
President. A number of them are delegates that have not
had an opportunity to meet with the President, who have
never been uncommitted, never been in the soft
category. They are Ford delegates.
Q
Was there any discussion with themof his
possible running mate, and if so, could you tell us about
it?
MR. BAKER: I didn't sit in on all the meetings,
and I would rather imagine if there was any, he simply
told them the same thing he has been telling you; that
is, he is going through an orderly process, considering
a large number of people. He will pick someone with
whom he is philosophically compatible, and someone in the
mainstream of the party.
MORE
- 3 -
Q
One of the Mississippi delegates is quoted
as having said he told the President he was for him in the
hopes it would produce a Ford-Reagan ticket. What statement
did he reply?
MR. BAKER: I don't Know. I was not in that meeting.
Many delegates have expressed, as you know, over the past
two months in their meetings with the President, their
preference for the Vice Presidency. That would not be
an unusual expression.
Q What do you think about a floor test on 16-C?
MR. BAKER: We feel any floor test on 16-C we
would win.
Q What is your nose count on that?
MR. BAKER: We think we have a satisfactory
margin without getting into the actual numbers on that
count, but we have done a lot of counting over the course
of the last 24 hours.
Q What are you going to do on the foreign
policy plank?
MR. BAKER: We heard about that, or saw that, I
guess, for the first time at 1:30 or 2:00 this afternoon.
I personally have not seen it. I think our people are
still studying it.
Q
Do they favor it?
MR. BAKER: We are still looking at it. I don't
believe we have taken a position on it.
Q Is there any common denominator on those
five new delegates that you are announcing that caused
them to announce for Ford?
MR. BAKER: I don't think SO. A couple of them
were people who had leaned -- they were in the uncommitted
category, but we felt they were leaning pretty heavily
our way. They indicated they would make their decision
shortly after they got to Kansas City.
Q Would you tell us what the division of labor
is among the people around the Strategy Committee? In advance
of the voting on the floor, you have a number of people on
the Strategy Committee. We all know what you do, but
what does Bryce Harlow do? What do the others on the
Strategy Committee actually do? What has been their
responsibility?
MORE
- 4 -
MR. BAKER: Many of them, as you know, like Bill
Timmons, Dean Burch and Dick Herman, have been out here in the
pre-Convention week, working the Rules Committee, working
the Platform Committee, working the Credentials Committee.
We have been meeting late every evening and we will now
meet every evening after the Convention sessions, as a
committee, to discuss the strategy meetings for the next day.
Q With the President?
MR. BAKER: We meet with the President normally
around 8:00 or 8:30 in the evening.
Q Can you hazard any guess as to how many --
MR. BAKER: Excuse me. We won't, of course,
be doing that during the sessions.
Q Have you any idea of how many of those
remaining 87 uncommitted delegates you expect to be
committed by the time the nomination vote comes?
MR. BAKER: I said two days ago I thought we would
get roughly half of the then uncommitted and it seems to
me it has broken out pretty much that way. I still think
we will get roughly half of those uncommitted. I don't
think we have to get half of them to win on the first ballot.
Q
Mr. Baker, do you think that Reagan has lost
any delegate votes because of picking Schweiker?
MR. BAKER: Yes, we do believe he has. We have
picked up some votes in Virginia; we have picked up some
votes in Louisiana; we have picked up votes in Mississippi
that, of course, are not now counted as committed delegate
votes, but we do believe he has lost some strngth in the
South and in the West as a result of that selection.
Q Do you still count 20 in West Virginia?
MR. BAKER: We still count 20 in West Virginia and
we will stand by that until it is proven erroneous, Rudy.
I might say that after our statement of two days
ago, I noted a report in The New York Times by one of those
delegates who calls himself uncommitted, Robert Harmon, in
West Virginia, saying he was still uncommitted. We didn't
mention any names and I don't plan to mention any names here
today, but I might suggest that you might want to recheck
with Robert Harmon to see where he stands in West Virginia.
MORE
- 5 -
Q
What discussions have you had with the
President about how 16-C would affect you if it were passed.
How have you begun to approach it?
MR. BAKER: We oppose 16-C, without getting into the
question of how it might affect' the nomination.
Q
If it did get approved, you would have
overnight, according to the way it is written, just overnight
in order to disclose a choice and you would have to handle
the delegates in that eventuality. Have you done no planning
on that at all?
MR. BAKER: He has done a great deal of planning
on the selection of his running mate and I think we have a
pretty good feel on who the delegates prefer. I think we
would be in a position to make a choice were that required,
but we don't think that will be required.
Q
The five delegates, or six if we add Robert
Harmon, is not a very big flood given the fact many of those
delegates were simply paid to be waiting until they got here.
Why are you not producing more?
MR. BAKER: We are producing more than they are
and we are 80 to 90 delegates ahead of them. I think we are
doing pretty good with the hard-core uncommitted.
We may have a few more for you here, shortly.
Q
Jim, what is the strategy behind not telling
us who will nominate the President?
MR. BAKER: I didn't realize there was a strategy
there, Bob. Has that announcement not been made?
Q
No. Maybe you could make it for us.
MR. BAKER: It is not mine to make.
Q
Do you know who it is?
MR. BAKER: Yes.
Q
Who?
MR. BAKER: It is not my announcement to make.
Q
Who will make the announcement?
MR. BAKER: Either the chairman of the campaign
or the President will make it.
MORE
- 6 -
Q Why not give us a count on 16-C? What
is your reason for not giving us a hard count on your
assessment of the way the votes will go on 16-C?
MR. BAKER: We just prefer not to get into
giving you as hard figures as we are giving you here
on procedural counts. In the first place, they are not as
exact. In giving you our counts and in doing it on a
State-by-State basis, we have given you names and addresses
of delegates when we bring them in and ask that you go
check with them.
It is a little bit different when you are
counting or polling on a procedural issue.
Q
Who will announce who the nominator will
be?
MR. BAKER: I said I thought it would be either
the Campaign Chairman's announcement to make or perhaps
the President's announcement to make.
Q
Did the President see today any delegates
that are committed and, in addition, if he did, were any
of the five delegates brought on board today among those
he saw committed to Reagan?
MR. BAKER: The President didn't see any of
these delegates today. He did see delegates today that
were committed to Governor Reagan and, by the way, our
announcement - the paper you can pick up in the back
of the room also includes two Reagan delegates in
Arizona that have switched to the uncommitted status.
Q
Without mentioning the names of the person
who will nominate the President, do you know how many
seconders there are?
MR. BAKER: Yes, I do, but that is not my
announcement to make.
Q
Besides 16-C, does your organization
anticipate any other tests of strength with Reagan before
the balloting begins?
MR. BAKER: That is the one I think, Tom, that
everyone is talking about, and that is the one we most
anticipate. I like to think we are going to be prepared
for wherever the test comes. If it is platform, it could
be.
MORE
- 7 -
Q
You said the President saw some Reagan
delegates today. Does that mean two or 35?
MR. BAKER: He saw roughly 35 to 43, and I would
have to go through a name list to tell you exactly.
0
Just running down yourself, could you, at
a glance, tell who the Reagan delegates were?
MR. BAKER: No, because I don't have a list
of the delegates he saw. All I have is the States and
numbers. The majority of the delegates he saw today, as
I indicated earlier, were Ford delegates or uncommitted
delegates.
Q
Are you concerned about the black delegates
who have suggested they might abstain unless they get to
see the President? Will they see the President?
MR. BAKER: I thought they were going to see
the President. I thought that announcement had already
been made.
Q
Have you just made it?
MR. BAKER: I have just made it.
Q
When are they going to see him?
MR, BAIER: I would have to check the schedule.
I don't have it with me.
Q
They are going to see him?
MR. BAKER: He has promised to see those black
delegates to this Convention who support his candidacy.
Q
How many is that?
MR. BAKER: I think there are 76 delegates to
the Convention, and I think 74 of them support the
President.
Q
Is there an oversight in the lateness of that
invitation?
MR. BAKER: No, that was one of the first things
on the schedule.
Q
When will it take place? You say it is on
the schedule. Presumably you know when he will meet with
them?
MR. BAKER: My recollection is it will be Tuesday
afternoon, but "I wouldn't want you to hold me to that
until I get a copy of his schedule and look at it.
MORE
- 8 -
Q
Is he going to address the Illinois
delegates tomorrow morning at a breakfast?
MR. BAKER: I think so. Again, I will have
to check the schedule. I will do it right after we
are through here. I am pretty sure he is.
Q
On this foreign policy plank the Reagan
people are going to try to push through, you say you are
studying it now, but you don't seem to have any immediate
reaction of opposition to it?
MR. BAKER: That is because I personally haven't
seen it. It was only announced, as I understand it,
at 2:00 this afternoon.
Q
You seem to be toying around again today
with figures on delegates. What is your strength in
Mississippi?
MR. BAKER: I think our strength in Mississippi
is substantial. I think it has been building over the
last five or six weeks, and without presuming to tell
Mississippi how to cast their vote, I think we have an
excellent chance to carry the State under the unit rule.
If they choose not to vote, as a unit, I think we will
get a substantial proportion of the vote.
Q
Why was the President an hour and a half
late?
MR. BAKER: I don't know, Margaret. I don't know
what happened that bogged the schedule down.
Q
How do you figure out which delegates he
should meet with? I am not talking about the small
group of delegates like Hawaii and Guam, but the ones
from Illinois and the ones from Virginia. How do you
select them?
MR. BAKER: These decisions were made a week or
ten days ago, John, in the light of the importance which
we put upon those delegates at that time, and I believe
that is holding up pretty well. Some of them he is
seeing frankly because he hasn't had an opportunity to
see them. Some of them, as in the case of Hawaii and
Guam, are loyal supporters he has had and has had no
opportunity to see.
MORE
- 9 -
Q
Mr. Baker, how many delegates has
John Connally met with on your behalf in the last
24 hours?
MR. BAKER: Do you want an exact number? Can
I give a ball park figure?
Q
If you include today.
MR. BAKER: Sure. Louisiana, North Dakota,
Vermont, West Virginia, and Virginia. There are
probably at the outside 16 to a dozen.
Q
Jim, you may have been asked this earlier,
but did Buckley's withdrawal produce any delegate votes
for you?
MR. BAKER: It didn't produce any delegate votes,
but we hadn't lost any to his entry.
MORE
- 10 -
Q
When Buckley announced, or when the announce-
ment was made on Buckley's behalf, the PFC said, this really
clinches it for the President. Now that Buckley has pulled
out, is it unclinched or clinched tighter?
MR. BAKER: It certainly isn't unclinched. I think,
at the time he entered, or said he might let his name go
in, was absolutely correct, that is that it hurt the
Reagan campaign or would tend to hurt it far more than it
would hurt ours.
Q
Will the nominator be from your home State?
MR. BAKER: That is not my announcement to make.
I might say, I have been passed a note here that
Roger Campbell, an uncommitted delegate in Pennsylvania,
has just re-announced his support for the President.
Q
Re-announced?
MR. BAKER: Yes, he was in our column at one time and
moved to uncommitted and we reduced our count. I am told
that he is now back with us. I don't have that on personal
knowledge.
Q
Just as a matter of simple arithmetic, I thought
you said before you had 1135.
MR. BAKER: That is right.
Q
Then, I think you said you had 1139.
MR. BAKER: That is right.
Q
Then, you picked up five today. That should
be 1140.
MR. BAKER: That is right.
I moved one in North Dakota out of our column
today.
Q
Who was that?
MR. BAKER: John Skelley.
Q
Is it 1139 or 1140?
MR. BAKER: 1139 is what we are claiming.
Q
How about Inez Eddings of South Carolina?
MR. BAKER: Dr. Inez Eddings is a Ford delegate
who may not attend the Convention. Until we resolve the
question of the seating of her alternate, we count that
vote.
MORE
- 11 -
Q
What about this Campbell? Doesn't that
bring it to 1140?
MR. BAKER: This would. This would bring it to 1140.
Q Where did the other delegate go, to uncommitted
or Reagan?
MR. BAKER: Uncommitted. He had been carried in
some of the public counts in uncommitted for a period of
time and we had not confirmed that and had not moved him
out of our count. We are doing it now. We talked to him
last night.
Q
What about the three men who formed the Buckley
Steering Committee? It was a New York delegate for Reagan
who said, if Buckley didn't go he would vote for the
President.
MR. BAKER: I am not aware of who you are talking
about.
Q
He was a former Reagan delegate from New
York.
MR. BAKER: He said he was a Ford Delegate who --
Q
He was a Buckley delegate but said if
Buckley didn't run, he would vote for the President.
MR. BAKER: It sounds good to me. I wasn't
aware of that.
Q
A moment ago, you held up that piece of
paper. I take it that is the Roger Campbell vote?
MR. BAKER: That is the Roger Campbell note.
Q
With that, you are making it a tentative 1140?
MR. BAKER: I am not really. I am just saying I
was passed a note that says Roger Campbell is back on board.
Until I talk to Roger Campbell, we won't put him in our
count.
Q Could you tell us something about the narrowing
down of the Vice President popularity contest, the five or
six candidates?
MR. BAKER: As I indicated two days ago, that is
a matter, really, for the President. He is the person
that is really involved in that.
MORE
- 12 -
Q
What about what the surveyors are showing?
MR. BAKER: I am not sure I understand your
question.
Q
This morning, we were told that the survey of
the Vice Presidential popularity contest had shown that
five or six persons out of what, 20, 22, 18, however many
were named, were in the lead, bunched together. I am asking
you to tell us about those five or six.
MR. BAKER: I am not the person that ought to
comment on the Vice Presidential selection. That is the
President's responsibility and he would be the guy to ask
that question.
I might say one other thing. There has been some
question of our Wyoming count and I think John Oslen today
made an announcement on the Convention floor that he does
indeed support the President, as we have claimed all along.
Q Will this alternate delegate replace a Reagan
delegate? Was the New York delegate that was replaced on
your list, was the original delegate a Reagan delegate?
MR. BAKER: Yes, the original delegate was a delegate
named Muldoon.
Q
Was Howard Baker asked to delete a line on
Watergate from his keynote speech?
MR. BAKER: I have no knowledge of that. I don't
know anything about the keynote speech.
Q
How do you explain the difference between
your count and the count given by the AP and the major
magazines?
MR. BAKER: Our count doesn't differ significantly
from the major magazines, both of which, or at least Time
and Newsweek, have right up there at 1130. I am claiming
only 1139. That is not a whole lot of difference. As I
pointed out, two days ago, maybe six of the difference is
West Virginia. We are standing by our count in West Virginia
and you might want to check with those West Virginia
delegates.
THE PRESS: Thank you.
END
(AT 5:10 P.M. CDT)