Reagan Woos Youth at Rally

There were smiles, lots of thank you's, victory signs, screams and yells.

After all, it's not every day the beleaguered state Republican Party gets an infusion from a man who will outpoll every GOP candidate in the state.

And no one was happier to see President Reagan in Boston than Republican Senate candidate Raymond Shamie, who has closely aligned himself with the party's standard bearer in the hope that he can triumph in this traditionally Democratic state.

After waiting on the Logan Airport tarmac for the President, Shamie joined him in the seemingly mile-long presidential motorcade and hugged so close to him on the podium that he appeared to be protecting Reagan from his own security detail.

Reagan even appeared slightly annoyed before his speech when Shamie repeatedly grasped the President's right arm and hoisted it into a victory salute.

But when the speech began, Reagan returned in full the adulation Shamie has heaped on him throughout the year's campaigning. "[Ray Shamie] went into public service knowing the odds were against him, but the truth ultimately prevails," Reagan said.

"And he will prevail next Tuesday if you all help him. I promise you that I will work closely with him in Washington to see that the sons and daughters [sic] of Massachusetts get the kind of future they deserve," the President added.

Comparisons

The Reagan rally took place at the side of the Boston City Hall, the same spot as Democratic VP candidate Geraldine A. Ferraro's appearance last month, and it inevitably invited comparisons to the previous event and today's Boston Common rally for Walter F. Mondale.

Both the Ferraro and Reagan rallies featured fences specifically built to enclose the rally site and to control entrance to the event, though yesterday's fence appeared to run closer to the stage than the fence for Ferraro's appearance.

Reagan organizers had distributed tickets to supporters, and warned that only 6,000 would be admitted.

"They just did that because they knew they wouldn't get a large crowd and to keep out all the hecklers," charged a Mondale organizer who asked not to be identified.

But Reagan appeared not to suffer from a dearth of supporters, as thousands filled the streets around the rally site, massing in front of entrances and waiting to pass through portable metal detectors.

The tight security did not, however, filter out all the hecklers, some of whom managed to display anti-Reagan banners throughout the speech.

Before Reagan arrived, some hecklers

countered a chant of "Four more years" with their own "Four more days." And periodically, 14 protestors held aloft individual placards reading "Boston hates Ron."

Some of the other protestors holding anti-Reagan signs were seen being escorted out of the enclosed rally site