Fight ‘will be vicious’

Press, 22 July 1980, Page 8

Fight ‘will be vicious’

NZPA-Reuter Los Angeles A “vicious and duplicitous” campaign by President Carter against Mr Ronald Reagan was foreseen by Republican strategists, the “Baltimore Sun” reported yesterday. Mr Edwin Meese, Mr Reagan’s chief of staff, said that Republicans expected the President to use all the weapons of the incumbency, including politically selfserving public deception about the Iranian hostage situation, in his fight to cling to the White House. Mr Meese emphasised Republican awareness of the power embodied in the White House and of how far Mr Carter might be prepared to go to save himself. He said that Mr Carter already had shown what he was capable of in campaigns

by the style of his attack on Senator Edward Kennedy, and also by his announcement on the morning of the Wisconsin Democratic primary that the Iranian Government was likely to take control of the hostages. who were still held by militants in Teheran. That White House announcement was believed to have contributed to the President’s primary victory in Wisconsin. High-level strategy sessions would be launched at Mr Reagan’s headquarters in Los Angeles this week. “Nowhere will we act as if we have taken a state for granted nor will we concede any state,” Mr Meese said. He acknowledged that obviously Mr Reagan was in much better political shape in some states than in others.

The Republicans traditionally had problems in the north-east, and as far as the South was concerned. Mr Reagan’s hopes of success were based on indications that some Southerners felt that Mr Carter had betrayed them. .

Mr Meese said he thought Mr Reagan had “a good chance” in Texas, especially with the added bonus of his running-mate, Mr George Bush, a former Texas congressman in addition to being an accepted and influential figure in upperincome circles. Mr Reagan’s campaign role was more likely to focus on what polls had shown was. his appeal to the blue-collar middle-class, leaving Eastern establishment voters to be wooed by Mr Bush.