Ford, Reagan were definitely no bosom buddies

Since sex sells, it’s no surprise that much of the initial buzz over Tom DeFrank’s new book, “Write It When I’m Gone: Remarkable Off-the-Record Conversations with Gerald R. Ford,” has focused on the 38th president’s diagnosis of the 42nd president as the Monica Lewinsky scandal exploded.

“He’s sick,” Jerry Ford said of Bill Clinton. “I’m convinced that Clinton has a sexual addiction. He needs to get help.”

The New York Daily News (DeFrank’s own newspaper, where he’s the longtime D.C. bureau chief) spotlighted the Clinton angle in a story last week.

The book is chock-full of other intriguing material, however, including a fascinating chapter on what DeFrank terms the “uncharacteristic bitterness” that Ford felt toward California’s own Ronald Reagan.

To Ford’s “dying day” (last Dec. 26), he “blamed Reagan for his 1976 loss to Jimmy Carter,” DeFrank writes. It was bad enough that Reagan launched a bid to deny him the Republican presidential nomination. But even worse, after Ford prevailed, Reagan (in Ford’s view) barely went through the motions of helping the GOP ticket in the general election.

For Ford, the consummate party man, that was unpardonable. And he remained convinced that with Reagan’s help, he would have edged Carter in their close 1976 contest.

Ford didn’t think much of Reagan. “He considered Reagan a superficial, disengaged, intellectually lazy showman who didn’t do his homework and clung to a naive, unrealistic and essentially dangerous world view.”

DeFrank also reveals that Ford continued to harbor White House ambitions after 1976. Said Ford: “I knew I could beat Jimmy Carter; I wasn’t sure Ronald Reagan could. I would have liked to run if I could have run without a bitter Reagan-Ford pre-convention battle. But for Ronald Reagan and me to get into another head-to-head confrontation, I was not prepared to do that.”

Bush 41 says what?

George H.W. Bush -- the 41st president and father of the 43rd -- has joined the chorus wondering whether some of Hillary Clinton’s recent stumbles could dramatically redirect the course of the Democratic presidential race. But as he discusses the matter, in an interview airing on “Fox News Sunday” this weekend, he provides a useful reminder that Clinton isn’t the only one who sometimes struggles with an answer.

Bush pere kicks off a new “American Leaders” series on Fox, and the cable network sent excerpts to The Times’ James Gerstenzang. Chris Wallace asked whether the former president agreed with the much-publicized prediction by his son that Clinton would be her party’s White House nominee.

The elder Bush replied: “I thought a few weeks ago that she was almost a ‘gimme,’ as we say in golf, for the nomination. I’m not sure I feel that way now. Well, there seems to be more kind of internal -- in her own party there seems to be more willingness to take her on and to argue about stuff. But she’s a formidable opponent and she’s done very well, in my view. . . .”

So far, so good. The flow of thought is somewhat herky-jerky, in classic Bush fashion, but we can follow what he’s saying. He lost us, though, as he continued:

“I’m not sure that -- you know, again, I want to be on record as just saying I don’t necessarily believe Hillary is going to win the primary, to say nothing of the general election. But the American people have a way of sorting these things out. And they go to caucuses or go to the primaries and just work, grind your way up the -- to whatever lies ahead, and that’s what’s happened. There hasn’t been any anointing in the process.”

Dana Carvey, fresh material awaits you.

Naming the acolytes

So, now that we’re up to our bellies in the presidential nomination battles, we’ve been wondering -- well, musing is probably more accurate -- about a key aspect of vital importance to the electorate: What do you call the candidates’ supporters?

For Barack Obama’s people, Obamans seems a natural fit. For Hillary Clinton, it’s a toss up between Hillaryites which, frankly, doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue or the keyboard, and Clintonites, with its echoes of the stuff that could bring down Superman. John Edwards? Well, with his poverty push it seems cruel to call them Edwardians, but then, there’s the haircut and the house.

Bill Richardson? Too many syllables in the name to begin with, so adding -ites or -ists doesn’t work. Richardsonian? Like Jeffersonian? Could work, given both men’s predisposition to diplomacy. Chris Dodd doesn’t have an easy fit, either. Dodderers? We doubt the image folks would approve. And speaking of image folks, what does one do with Dennis Kucinich’s backers? Call them the Kucini?

On the other side of the aisle, the Republicans offer a similarly mixed bag of potential. Rudy Giuliani could be backed by the Rudees, Giulianians (though that sounds like a salad), or, perhaps most fitting for the ex-federal prosecutor, G-men (if you ignore the gender-specificity). Mitt Romney offers up both the Mittites, with its echo of ancient civilizations, and Romneyans, which sounds like “Star Trek” figures.

The easiest fit: Fred Thompson’s Fredheads. A tougher fit: John McCain. McCainiacs?

Biden scores debate zinger

Even if Joe Biden fails to overcome the long, long odds he faces in his bid for the presidency, his legacy may survive with the crack he delivered about Rudy Giuliani at the recent Democratic debate.

Asked about his experience compared with Hillary Clinton’s, Biden short-circuited the effort by MSNBC’s two questioners, Brian Williams and Tim Russert, to make the debate’s first hour-plus all about her.

“I’m not running against Hillary Clinton,” he began. “I’m running to lead the free world. I’m running to lead this country.”

That, in itself, was a refreshing change of pace from what had been the relentless focus on Clinton. Then Biden turned his sights on Giuliani -- a shift probably welcomed by Democrats who had been watching their bickering candidates.

First, Biden termed Giuliani “probably the most under-qualified man since George Bush to seek the presidency.” That garnered laughter and applause, but Biden was merely setting up the night’s sound bite.

“Rudy Giuliani,” he went on. “I mean, think about it. Rudy Giuliani. There’s only three things he mentions in a sentence: a noun and a verb and 9/11.”

That sparked a huge response from an otherwise restrained audience. And if Giuliani emerges as the GOP nominee, it’s probably a line that Democrats reprise again and again.

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Times staff writer Scott Martelle contributed to this report.

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Excerpted from The Times’ political blog, Top of the Ticket, at www.latimes.com /topoftheticket