Tip and the Gipper: When Politics Worked

by Chris Matthews

  While Tip’s quip welcoming him to the “big leagues” would continue to irritate the White House, it didn’t bother the Speaker a bit. Meeting with journalists right after Reagan’s visit to the Capitol, he made sure his sly put-down got into public circulation. After saying his guest had been taken aback by what he’d said, he added for good measure, “It won’t be the last time he’s surprised.”

  At the White House, Tip’s chest-thumping didn’t go down well. Even though the Speaker was the acknowledged Washington veteran of the two, he’d overstepped, the Reagan people felt, by rushing to emphasize his senior status in the pecking order.

  Yet the Democrat’s needling didn’t mean the end to Reagan’s campaign to win him over. Reagan was shrewder and more cunning than that. Soon after the inauguration, the O’Neills received an invitation to have dinner at the White House with the Reagans two weeks later. “Boy, am I in trouble,” Tip laughed. “How am I going to fight with this guy?”

  By January’s end, the Reagan team was presented with a fifty-five-page plan of action. Prepared by pollster Richard Wirthlin and David Gergen, it came to be known simply as “The Black Book.” It was intended as the administration’s road map for the first hundred days, addressing the national mood as well as outlining action: “The first fundamental economic objective of the Reagan presidency must be to restore a sense of stability and confidence, to demonstrate that there is a steady hand at the helm.” With this mission statement in hand, the president’s staff understood exactly where they needed to position their man—not just as the anti-Carter but also as a serious leader fully ready to guide the ship of state. “The second fundamental economic objective of the Reagan presidency must be to convey a sense of hope, that there is a light at the end of the tunnel.” As Jim Baker had already decided, the number-one priority was to be the economy: cutting taxes, cutting social programs. The implications for such proposals were serious and far-reaching.

  It would fall to Tip O’Neill to play Horatius at the bridge.

  For his part, Tip refused to believe in the reality of what others accepted as a populist-driven Reagan mandate; to him, the Democratic wipeout in November had been a repudiation of Carter pure and simple. In his opinion the GOP campaign promises were “so clearly preposterous” that any thinking person must reject them. Their inadequacy boiled down to a simple equation: “Surely everybody could see that you couldn’t balance the budget, cut taxes, and increase defense spending all at the same time.” But whether Tip’s idea of the math’s logic worked or not, Reagan was indeed planning a radical assault on the old liberal order.

  In early February, the new president went on TV. No longer the candidate packed with promises, he was now the tough steward, explaining to the country the price of achieving the goals he had set. Like every president before him he was making the inevitable pivot from critic to manager.

  I’m speaking to you tonight to give you a report on the state of the nation’s economy. I regret to say that we’re in the worst economic mess since the Great Depression.

  Now, we’ve just had two years of back-to-back double-digit inflation—13.3 percent in 1979, 12.4 percent in 1980. The last time this happened was in World War I.

  In 1960 mortgage interest rates averaged around six percent. They’re two-and-a-half times as high now, 15.4 percent.

  Let me try to put this in personal terms. Here is a dollar such as you earned, spent or saved in 1960. And here is a quarter, a dime and a penny—thirty-six cents. That’s what this 1960 dollar is worth today.

  To the Congress of the United States, I extend my hand in cooperation, and I believe we can go forward in a bipartisan manner. I’ve found a real willingness to cooperate on the part of Democrats and members of my own party.

  We can leave our children with an un-repayable massive debt and a shattered economy, or we can leave them liberty in a land where every individual has the opportunity to be whatever God intended us to be. All it takes is a little common sense and recognition of our own ability. Together we can forge a new beginning for America.

  So far, so good. In the Washington Post the next day, Lou Cannon, a career-long Reagan-watcher, reported: “Last night, he was carefully conciliatory toward the opposition party, which still controls the U.S. House, as he has been most of the time since taking office.” When it came to the opposition party’s own response, Tip for the moment was as smooth as any diplomat. Asked by the New York Times his opinion of Reagan’s maiden effort, Tip gave a thumbs-up. “He comes across beautifully,” he said. “He’s running high right now.”

  The day after this televised speech was Reagan’s seventieth birthday. Included in a White House celebration to which a small group had been invited, Tip took a thoughtful gift, the flag that had flown from the Capitol on Inauguration Day.

  Not long after this brief drop-in at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Tip enjoyed another, to him unaccustomed, one. The occasion was that dinner party to which he’d been invited and was to bring Millie, his wife of forty years. Among the others on hand that evening in the White House private living quarters were Jim and Susan Baker, and also chief Hill liaison Max Friedersdorf and his wife. As soon as both the host and his guest of honor had put in their requests for “strong drinks”—this was Friedersdorf’s observation—the two political leaders began swapping Irish stories. “Maybe Tip & I told too many,” Reagan admitted later in his diary.

  Parts of Tip’s history fascinated his host. Like just about every other politician he’d met, the new president wanted the inside story on James Michael Curley, the legendary Boston mayor immortalized in the bestseller The Last Hurrah. Reagan, a fan of the 1958 movie version starring his pal Spencer Tracy, craved all the juicy details. Once Tip began launching into his colorful tales of the old days, listeners would be spellbound. “There are times when real life throws up characters who are more fantastic than any that are found in books,” he liked to say. “When the good Lord made James Michael Curley, He broke the mold.”

  That night, however, it was a two-way street. For Ronald Reagan cast an equal spell over the Massachusetts congressman, as Tip would freely admit. The Irish anecdotes and jokes—Reagan was always well stocked with new ones—enhanced the sense of camaraderie as he kept the group well entertained. “He’s a terrific storyteller, he’s witty, and he’s got an excellent sense of humor,” pronounced the Speaker afterward. It had, according to Friedersdorf, been the president’s own decision to invite the O’Neills to be his and Nancy’s first White House guests. That fact was of no little significance given the battle lines now being drawn.

  The next morning Tip let the press know what an “enjoyable evening” he’d spent with the Reagans. “We didn’t discuss politics.” Nonetheless, it was obvious he didn’t want anyone to think that one pleasant get-together might ever affect his principles. “We are not just going to let them tear asunder the government programs we have created,” he said. “In the last thirty years middle America has been built up. When I was young there was rich and poor, and that was all. . . . My priority is to see that some people don’t suffer for the good of others.”

  That afternoon the Speaker’s schedule called for his return to the White House to attend a meeting about U.S.-Soviet trade policy. It was apparent both men still were feeling the goodwill of the previous evening. The topic now under discussion was the grain embargo put in place by Jimmy Carter the year before in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. But getting tough with the Soviets wound up punishing farmers here at home more than it harmed the Soviet Union, which simply went wheat-shopping elsewhere. Responding to the anger of the suffering midwestern agricultural states, Reagan had promised during his campaign to end the embargo.

  At this point occurred one of those paradoxes of political life: Tip O’Neill and Ronald Reagan each held what would have normally been the other’s position. The liberal Speaker, champion of relief for the little man, urged the hard-line anticommunist to beware of deciding the issue merely on th
e complaints from the farm states. Before making a concession, Reagan should demand a quid pro quo. “What are the Soviets giving us in return?”

  “Tip had last word & it was a good one,” Reagan jotted in his diary that night. “He told me I was Pres. and had to think of all the states. The gist was—was lifting the embargo good for the U.S. and our security vis a vis the Soviets?”

  Here was a moment when Tip seemed as much advisor as adversary. And he’d been right when he’d told the Times that Reagan was riding high. Now the Washington Post reported that “by 77 to 17 percent, an overwhelming majority gives him positive marks on inspiring confidence in the White House.” In other words, three-quarters of the American people—including a great many Democrats—were rooting for him.

  O’Neill was perceptive enough to understand the country had a new leader that it wanted to believe in. After the tragedy of Dallas, after the quicksand of Vietnam, the scandal of Watergate, and the “malaise” of Jimmy Carter, it needed one. He realized how wrong it would be, even dangerous, to diminish such faith. Anyway, the most important job Tip had right now involved defense, not attack—at least for the moment.

  He now needed to man his battle station on the Hill. From the bully pulpit of his regular daily press briefing, he stoutly warned that the Democratic House wasn’t going to “rubber-stamp” whatever Reagan proposed. “I have been up here long enough,” he stated, “to know that legislation in haste makes for a lot of waste.” He was starting to signal the way he was going to deal with President Ronald Reagan.

  Although not quite ready to take on Reagan mano a mano, Tip was slowly getting used to the new American political arena. “With a Republican in the White House and the House still controlled by the Democrats, I now assumed a new role—leader of the opposition,” he’d later explain. “And with Jimmy Carter back in Georgia and Ted Kennedy now stuck in a Republican-controlled Senate, I also became the chief spokesman for the Democrats.”

  Two nights after the O’Neills had dined at the White House, Reagan presented his economic program to both houses of Congress. As custom dictated, the Speaker of the House introduced him. After Tip had performed these honors, the president fired his opening salvo. The size of the national debt, he said, was a looming danger.

  “A few weeks ago, I called such a figure, a trillion dollars, incomprehensible, and I’ve been trying ever since to think of a way to illustrate how big a trillion really is. And the best I could come up with is that if you had a stack of thousand-dollar bills in your hand only four inches high, you’d be a millionaire. A trillion dollars would be a stack of thousand dollar bills sixty-seven miles high.”

  From there he moved on to the meat of his address, which dealt with why he had come to Washington, and called for a list of spending cuts that would come to include education, the arts, food stamps, and college loans, sparing only the military; now he threw down the gauntlet. “I would direct a question,” he proposed, “to those who have indicated already an unwillingness to accept such a plan: have they an alternative which offers a greater chance of balancing the budget, reducing and eliminating inflation, stimulating the creation of jobs, and reducing the tax burden? And, if they haven’t, are they suggesting we can continue on the present course without coming to a day of reckoning?”

  It was a one-two punch: one, we have a big challenge here, and two, you Democrats don’t have an answer to it, do you?

  Watching the president deliver the address, as he sat behind him in the Speaker’s chair, O’Neill could spot the difference between the enormous confidence Reagan had with a prepared script and his performance in meetings. For an old Washington hand like Tip, proficiency at the latter counted for much more. In the White House meetings they would now have regularly, he would watch Reagan and be fascinated by what seemed the president’s near-total reliance on “3×5 cards” when discussing policy. Moreover, O’Neill said he had never sat down with a chief executive who so relied on cabinet officers to set out administration positions. What Tip had trouble understanding was how anyone so complete as a public personality could be so lacking in the substantive details of his chosen career.

  What the Speaker failed to see was how complete a self-creation Reagan really was, how anchored he was by a short list of basic beliefs, those concepts that both inspired and animated him. Not everything, it turns out, was contained in those index cards. It was a lesson Jim Baker had learned for himself soon after coming on board; he was astute enough to recognize early on how sharp Reagan could be when it came to matters both large and small as long as they linked to his core philosophy. “You want to talk to him about taxes or spending or the big stuff, the macro stuff. He can talk to you all day with no cards, no nothing.”

  As a committed Cold Warrior, Ronald Reagan would always be fully engaged when it came to the long struggle with the Soviet Union. Richard Allen, his newly named national security advisor, had once asked him to set forth his general view of U.S. policy with regard to Russia. Reagan’s answer, given long before he would run for and win the presidency, could not have been more trenchant. “How about this? We win. They lose.”

  It’s easy to see, if you know what you’re looking for, that the differences between Tip O’Neill and Ronald Reagan were not personal but political. Their initial meetings show they would have gotten along smoothly had the moment in history been different. With all their differences in background, looks, and life experience, the fact is, they liked each other and would freely say so. But for all their Irish fellowship and bonhomie, something vitally important set the two apart, something too important ever to be ignored. Each was an idealist, yet each had settled on beliefs that stood fiercely opposed to the other’s.

  Now, on a very public stage, with enormous consequences that each understood differently, they were about to have it out.

  Tip’s guys.

  Gary Hymel (middle) was the Speaker’s AA, his key guy with both members and the press. Kirk O’Donnell (right), the Speaker’s chief counsel, had the best day-to-day political mind I’ve come across. You wanted him in your corner. Thank God I had him in mine.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  JOINING THE FIGHT

  “I’ve learned that people only pay attention to what they discover for themselves.”

  —PRETTY POISON, 1968

  As a politician Tip O’Neill beautifully fit the classic mold. He’d come of age and learned the rules in a legislative world where his man-to-man skills paid off. In all the time-honored ways, he kept his constituents back home satisfied while gaining friendship and respect among his peers down in Washington. In both worlds, he’d learned how to take care of himself. He knew how to wheel and deal, trade favors, and use his anger when necessary. Most of all he understood the advantages of having a trick or two up his sleeve.

  In the first month after Reagan’s inauguration, the president and Congress faced the nasty but predictable chore of having to raise the federal debt ceiling. It’s a ritual requiring members to put their names not to new government spending but to the settling of old accounts. In other words, it mandates that a majority of the national legislators behave the way individual citizens must: you agree to pay your bills. While every recent president has had to regularly sign off on a hike in the debt ceiling, it had become over the years a regular occasion for partisan blame-pointing. In the previous year, 1980, not a single GOP House member had cast a vote agreeing to a raise in the ceiling, a partisan tactic well understood by O’Neill. It left the Democrats solely responsible for the higher national debt, and gave Republican candidates free rein to finger their Democratic rivals as out-of-control Washington spenders.

  Now the situation was different: a Republican was in the White House. But no matter the reigning ideology, the buck stopped where it always had. Therefore, just like his much-mocked predecessor, Jimmy Carter, it was now Ronald Reagan’s job to raise the debt ceiling. He couldn’t do it without the Democrats, the majority party in the House of Representatives. Bottom line: there
was no way for the new administration to accomplish the job without asking the Speaker to help round up the needed votes.

  When Reagan’s top lobbyist asked his support in getting the debt ceiling raised, the Massachusetts Democrat made a simple request. He wanted Max Friedersdorf to relay back to his boss precisely what the deal would be, which was that he, Tip O’Neill, wanted a personal note from the president to each and every Democratic member of the House asking for his or her support in the matter of raising the debt ceiling. Friedersdorf agreed on the spot and carried the message back to Reagan. The asked-for letters arrived the next day—all 243 of them.

  It was a small, telling episode. Here was the Democratic congressional leader proposing a wholly pragmatic cease-fire. The debt-ceiling vote had offered each side a chance to discredit the other. O’Neill proposed avoiding harm to either party. Rather than have the House Democrats all vote “Nay,” as he might have allowed, throwing a monkey wrench into Reagan’s first-month agenda, the Speaker agreed to let as many as were necessary vote “Aye.”

  The sole condition he’d made stemmed from his desire to help protect the sitting members from their opponents’ likely attacks come the next election. To accomplish this, he needed Ronald Reagan’s cooperation. Looking to the future, if a Republican challenger were to slam one of O’Neill’s Democrats for big spending, pointing to his vote to raise the debt ceiling as evidence, the note from Reagan would give him adequate cover. As an effective solution, it was an arrangement that worked, for both sides—and the republic moved on.