The Working Class Republican
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84. The California Poll, “Reagan’s Performance as Governor Rated Higher By California Public Than Pat Brown’s Was,” Field Research Corporation, release #829, 27 August 1974, accessed at ucdata.berkeley.edu/pubs/CalPolls/829.pdf.
85. Ronald Reagan, announcement, 20 November 1975, https://reaganlibrary.archives.gov/archives/reference/11.20.75.html.
86. Skinner, Anderson, and Anderson, Ronald Reagan: A Life in Letters, 241.
87. Ibid.
88. Ibid.
89. Ibid.
90. Cannon, Governor Reagan, 388–89.
91. Reagan, An American Life, 188–90.
Chapter 6: Reagan’s “Death Valley Days”
1. “Inside Ronald Reagan.”
2. Ronald Reagan, “Let Them Go Their Way,” delivered to second CPAC convention, 1 March 1975, http://reagan2020.us/speeches/Let_Them_Go_Their_Way.asp. All quotes, paraphrases, and discussions of this speech are taken from or rely upon this source.
3. In research for this book, I discovered that the upperclassman came from a very prominent political family in his state. His father had been a one-term member of the state legislature, where he gained a reputation as the most conservative member.
4. For the Libertarian Party 1980 platform, see http://issuepedia.org/US/Libertarian_Party/platform/1980; for the Libertarian Party 1972 platform, see http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=29615.
5. Cannon, Governor Reagan, 394.
6. Reagan, “Let Them Go Their Way.”
7. In the interest of full disclosure, Manny is a personal friend whom I met when I was the speakers bureau director for the Yes on Proposition 36 campaign in California in 1984. Proposition 36 was another tax-limitation measure sponsored by a Proposition 13 cosponsor, Howard Jarvis, and Manny was our brightest and most articulate advocate. We have had many cordial and serious discussions about politics over the years, and he is never disagreeable even when disagreeing.
8. “Inside Ronald Reagan.”
9. Klausner made clear the depth of this disagreement later in the interview. Reagan was arguing for a two-thirds supermajority to impose any taxes. Klausner responded by saying that libertarians “would like to go all the way to 100 percent requirement for taxes!” Reagan demurred, saying, “I don’t know if that would work,” but for a libertarian that was exactly the point.
10. In this case, one cannot exclude the possibility that Reagan’s father’s alcoholism weighed on his mind. Jack Reagan lost jobs or income regularly because of his affliction.
11. Reagan also explained how he came to his philosophy. Although he acknowledged reading “Bastiat and von Mises, and Hayek and Hazlitt”—all libertarian or libertarian-leaning economists—he told Klausner that he “developed his theory of individualism” by himself “by way of the mashed potato circuit.” He explained how he was giving speeches about government censorship and discrimination against Hollywood only to discover many other businessmen had similar complaints. This is exactly what he wrote twenty-four years later in his autobiography. Libertarians interested in Reagan’s views on Ayn Rand will be sorely disappointed. He told Klausner that he had not read Atlas Shrugged and that he had not read anything by Rand since The Fountainhead. That book was published in 1943 and was developed by the studio which Reagan was under contract to, Warner Brothers, into a major A-list film released in 1949. One will always wonder if Reagan’s interest in The Fountainhead was due less to an interest in Rand’s ideas and more because Reagan coveted the starring role as the handsome, heroic, and virile hero, Howard Roark.
12. Gerhard Peters, “Federal Budget Receipts and Outlays,” The American Presidency Project, ed. John T. Woolley and Gerhard Peters (Santa Barbara, CA: University of California Press, 1999–2012). Available from the World Wide Web: http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/data/budget.php.
13. Cannon, Governor Reagan, 407–8.
14. Ibid.
15. Ibid. Reagan would later add sections to his stump speech to address concerns raised by this speech. The rough draft for those added sections mentions “ed., housing, community development, manpower training, revenue sharing & welfare.” See Skinner, Anderson, and Anderson, Reagan in His Own Hand, 457.
16. Ibid.
17. Morris, Dutch, 397–99; Cannon, Governor Reagan, 407–15.
18. Cannon, Governor Reagan, 412; John Elmer, “Reagan Recants on $90 Billion, but Not Spending Cut,” Chicago Tribune, 13 January 1976, http://archives.chicagotribune.com/1976/01/13/page/2/article/reagan-recants-on-90-billion-but-not-spending-cut.
19. Skinner, Anderson, and Anderson, Reagan in His Own Hand, 459.
20. Ibid., 458–59.
21. Ibid., 461.
22. Ibid., 462.
23. Reagan’s biographer Edmund Morris notes that Reagan’s practice of spelling “bureaucracy” this way was not an example of illiteracy or stupidity; rather, he was merely following the dictates of the “simplified spelling” approach employed in public schools when he was young. See Morris, Dutch, 704.
24. Skinner, Anderson, and Anderson, Reagan in His Own Hand, 463.
25. Ibid., 465–66.
26. Cannon, Governor Reagan, 411.
27. Reagan’s view largely prevailed within conservatism and the Republican Party in the decades since this speech. The landmark welfare reform bill, passed in 1996, was essentially a Reaganesque turning over of federal funds to states with few regulations attached as to how state welfare programs were run. Today’s GOP proposes applying this “block grant” approach to a host of social service programs in the very areas Reagan discussed over four decades ago.
28. Reagan, An American Life, 196–98. All subsequent quotations regarding his motivations for running in 1976 are taken from these pages.
29. On this point, see Reagan’s letter to Lorraine Wagner, 13 July 1961. (“You won’t find the threat of socialism spelled out in the bill—it never is. It comes through the rules and regulations the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare puts into effect to administer the bill.”) (Skinner, Anderson, and Anderson, Ronald Reagan: A Life in Letters, 579.)
30. Ronald Reagan, “To Restore America,” 31 March 1976, accessed at https://reaganlibrary.archives.gov/archives/reference/3.31.76.html.
31. Gerald Ford was a longtime Congressman from Michigan and the House Republican leader when President Richard Nixon appointed him pursuant to the Constitution’s 25th Amendment to succeed Vice President Spiro Agnew after Agnew’s resignation in October 1973. Ford became president when Nixon resigned on August 9, 1974.
32. Reagan, An American Life, 200.
33. Ford authorized a public-affairs campaign to mobilize anti-inflation sentiment, which included printing millions of “WIN” buttons people could wear on their clothes. I remember having one of those buttons myself as a middle schooler, but apparently adults thought they were a bit more foolish than a thirteen-year-old did, and they were quickly removed from circulation.
34. In the 2016 race, Texas senator Ted Cruz became the second major candidate to do this, selecting his former rival Carly Fiorina as his running mate in the days before the crucial Indiana primary.
35. Skinner, Anderson, and Anderson, Ronald Reagan: A Life in Letters, 589–90.
36. Ibid.
37. One Republican elector cast his ballot for Reagan.
38. Reagan, An American Life, 203.
39. Ibid., 203–4.
40. Ronald Reagan, “The New Republican Party,” 6 February 1977, accessed at http://reagan2020.us/speeches/The_New_Republican_Party.asp. All subsequent quotes or paraphrases of this speech are taken from this source.
41. Skinner, Anderson, and Anderson, Reagan in His Own Hand, p. xiii.
42. The Italian prime minister Aldo Moro was kidnapped and murdered by the Red Brigade in 1978. See ibid., 128n.
43. Ibid., 23.
44. Ibid., 30.
45. See, for example, ibid., 101–2.
46. Ibid., 75–98 (seventeen commentaries opposing SALT II or arms control in general).
48. Ibid., 113.
49. Claremont McKenna College was then known as Claremont Men’s College. The school went coed in 1976 but did not change its name until 1981.
50. Skinner, Anderson, and Anderson, Reagan in His Own Hand, 272.
51. Reagan, speech to California Fertilizer Association.
52. Reagan, speech to Phoenix Chamber of Commerce.
53. “Historical Inflation Rates: 1914–2017,” Coin News Media Group LLC, www.usinflationcalculator.com/inflation/historical-inflation-rates.
54. See, for example, Ronald Reagan, “Losing Freedom by Installments,” speech to the Conservative League of Minneapolis, 29 January 1962, listened to at RPL, July 2016.
55. Skinner, Anderson, and Anderson, Reagan in His Own Hand, 367.
56. Ibid., 371–73.
57. See, for example, Kurt Schuparra, Triumph of the Right: The Rise of the California Conservative Movement, 1945–66 (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1998), 37; Skinner, Anderson, and Anderson, Ronald Reagan: A Life in Letters, 359 (letter to David Denholm of Californians for Right to Work explaining his opposition to right-to-work laws, 22 September 1970).
58. “Ronald Reagan Supported Right to Work ‘Wholeheartedly,’” YouTube video, posted by “Right2WorkCommittee,” 24 October 2011, www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxlFOR_Ro8w.
59. For Reagan’s belief in the average American, see Skinner, Anderson, and Anderson, Ronald Reagan: A Life in Letters, 18 (the common American is in fact “very uncommon”).
60. Ibid., 297.
61. Ibid., 263.
62. Reagan argued that these standards allowed “anyone unemployed” to collect checks without also forcing those people “to take any job which he or she is capable of performing.” See ibid., 266.
63. Ibid., 268.
64. Ibid., 392–93.
65. Ibid., 390.
66. Ibid., 393.
67. Ibid., 271.
68. Ibid., 394–95.
69. Ibid., 10.
70. Reagan had been faced with abortion in 1967 when a bill legalizing the practice reached his desk. He agonized over the decision but ultimately signed the bill. For descriptions of that episode, see Morris, Dutch, 351–52; Cannon, Governor Reagan, 208–14.
71. Jon Nordhelmer, “Reagan Criticizes U.S. School Role,” New York Times, 3 June 1976, www.nytimes.com/1976/06/03/archives/reagan-criticizes-us-school-role-makes-campaign-vow-to-get-federal.html.
72. Skinner, Anderson, and Anderson, Ronald Reagan: A Life in Letters, 366–67 (letter to Mr. Henri Lagueux, June 1976).
73. Skinner, Anderson, and Anderson, Reagan in His Own Hand, 351.
74. Skinner, Anderson, and Anderson, Ronald Reagan: A Life in Letters, 361 (letter to Luella Huggins, 5 February 1979).
75. www.upi.com/Archives/1984/10/07/EQUAL-RIGHTS-AMENDMENT-Reagan-Im-for-the-E-and/4346465969600/.
76. Skinner, Anderson, and Anderson, Ronald Reagan: A Life in Letters, 365 (letter to Reverend Gay).
77. See Gerard Magliocca, “Ronald Reagan and Gay Rights,” 18 October 2010, Concurring Opinions, https://concurringopinions.com/archives/2010/10/ronald-reagan-and-gay-rights.html, which contains a copy of the op-ed Reagan wrote for the 1 November 1978 Los Angeles Examiner. Subsequent quotes and paraphrases of the op-ed are taken from this source.
78. Skinner, Anderson, and Anderson, Ronald Reagan: A Life in Letters, 210–11 (letter to Mr. Squires, 5 May 1979).
79. Ibid., 340–41 (letter to Mr. and Mrs. Fitzgerald, November 1980).
80. See ibid., 365, 366–67 (letters to Reverend Gay and Mr. Henri Lagueux).
81. Ibid., 257.
82. Ibid., 269 (letter to the Cleaver family, 16 December 1974).
83. Ibid., 578–79. All subsequent quotes and paraphrases of this letter come from this source.
84. Ibid., 344.
85. See Ronald Reagan, “Announcement for Presidential Candidacy,” 13 November 1979, https://reaganlibrary.archives.gov/archives/reference/11.13.79.html . All quotes or paraphrases of this speech come from this source.
86. Reagan, An American Life, 205.
87. Ibid.
88. Ibid.
89. Ibid.
90. Theodore H. White, America in Search of Itself: The Making of the President, 1956–80 (New York: Harper & Row, 1982), 237.
91. Ibid.
92. Ibid., 240.
93. Ibid., 303–4. See also Cannon, Governor Reagan, 459.
94. Ibid., 31–32.
95. Ronald Reagan, acceptance speech at the 1980 Republican Convention, 17 July 1980, accessed at https://reaganlibrary.archives.gov/archives/reference/7.17.80.html. All subsequent quotes or paraphrases from this speech are taken from this source.
96. Reagan was the first Republican nominee to mention Roosevelt by name in his acceptance speech, positively or negatively, since FDR’s death in 1945.
97. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, acceptance speech at the 1932 Democratic Party Convention, accessed at https://fdrlibrary.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/1932.pdf.
98. See http://issuepedia.org/US/Libertarian_Party/platform/1980.
99. “What About the Libertarian Party?”, American Institute for Economic Research, Research Reports 47, no. 43 (27 October 1980), www.aier.org/sites/default/files/Files/Documents/Research/584/RR198043.pdf.
100. Joel Kotkin, “Libertarian Party,” Washington Post, 31 March 1980, www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1980/03/31/libertarian-party/51c8296b-b03c-4b2d-a093-5bfbe6602158/?utm_term=.1f3c71ba6ad8.
101. “Libertarian Candidate Clark Attacks Reagan and Carter Stands,” Harvard Crimson, 10 October 1980, www.thecrimson.com/article/1980/10/10/libertarian-candidate-clark-attacks-reagan-carter.
102. Cannon, Governor Reagan, 487; Morris, Dutch, 409.
103. Cannon, Rise to Power, 491.
104. Hayward, Age of Reagan: Fall of the Old Liberal Order, 698–99.
105. See Reagan, An American Life, 221, for Reagan’s description of the pent-up frustration that led to his restrained outburst.
106. Commission on Presidential Debates, Transcript of 28 October 1980 Debate, www.debates.org/index.php?page=october-28-1980-debate-transcript.
107. Ibid.
108. Roosevelt, fireside chat 5.
109. You can watch this for yourself at “NBC News Decision 1980 Reagan Wins,” YouTube video, posted by “haiker16,” 16 March 2009, www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsDe-8cOSYY.
110. John Anderson’s independent campaign received 6.6 percent of the vote.
111. The states in question are Maryland, Delaware, Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, Kentucky, Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, and Texas. West Virginia was part of Virginia in 1861, but split from it to join the Union in 1863. Carter lost only Virginia among these states in 1976.
112. Reagan’s extreme gain in Arkansas may have been partly due to President Carter’s decision to house Cuban refugees at a military base near Fort Smith. Tales of crimes committed by these refugees turned the state so heavily against national Democrats that voters even defeated the young Democratic governor running for reelection. Bill Clinton made his first comeback two years later, beating the Republican who had turned him out in 1980.
113. New York City Jews were particularly incensed by the Carter administration’s vote in the United Nations to condemn Zionism as racism.
114. Reagan, An American Life, 221.
115. Michael Barone and Grant Ujifusa, Almanac of American Politics, 1982 (Washington, DC: Barone & Company, 1981). By contrast, thirty-six of the fifty-four Republican senators received ACU ratings above 80 in 2014–15; eighteen had ratings above 90. For more information on ACU ratings, see the organization’s website at http://acuratings.conservative.org/acu-federal-legislative-ratings/?year1=2015&chamber=13&state1=0&sortable=1.
116. Barone and Ujifusa, Almanac of American Politics, 1982. Only two Republicans (Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine) had AC
U ratings below 50 in the most recent Congress. No Republican senator had an ADA rating above 50 in 2015. See www.adaction.org/media/votingrecords/2015.pdf.
Chapter 7: President Reagan
1. See Skinner, Anderson, and Anderson, Ronald Reagan: A Life in Letters, 511 (for legal immigration from Mexico) and 369 (for immigration quotas for people “coming to this country for economic betterment” “because that kind of immigrant is to be found in every corner of the world and there is no way we could, without limit, take all who want to come here”).