Fitzgerald may have been right in his time, but his poignantly tragic aphorism didn't apply to Ronald Reagan—certainly not in Detroit. The Republican Party's convention in 1980, for Reagan, represented his third presidential act, after he had tried and failed to gain the GOP's nomination in 1968 and 1976. Considering his many successes, failures, and varied careers, along with his divorce and second marriage, Reagan had had many debuts, both triumphant and otherwise. Much like the protagonist Jay Gatsby in Fitzgerald's novel The Great Gatsby, Reagan had chosen through sheer force of will to rise above his difficult roots and, in the classless and upwardly mobile landscape of the New World, invent himself, though without Jay's corrupt past or fallen future.
In this sense, Ronald Reagan was quintessentially American.
The question in the 1980 election was whether America itself would begin a new act, or whether the same troubling scene was unceasing. Rarely had two presidential candidates been so diametrically opposed on virtually every public policy issue. Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan disagreed on everything from the size and scope of government, to U.S.–Soviet relations, to military spending, to the conduct of foreign policy, to abortion, tax cuts, and the free market. “Make no mistake about it: the election of 1980 is one of those critical events that will shape this country's future for many years to come,” wrote leading conservative theoretician Irving Kristol as the Detroit convention was reaching it climax. He elaborated, “The Republican Party too is on its way to changing its character, and the nomination of Mr. Reagan … will ratify the permanence of this change.”2
BEFORE REAGAN WOULD FACE Carter in the fall, he had to first convince his doubting supporters of the choice of Ambassador Bush as the stand-in running mate, and clean up the mess left over from the day before over the whole co-presidency nonsense.
On Thursday morning, just hours after the drama of the announcement, the Bushes headed to the Reagan suite in the Detroit Plaza Hotel for a private breakfast.3 It was the first time Reagan and Bush had been together since their contentious debate in Houston several months earlier. They hit it off fine, but when network cameras were invited in to record the meeting, Reagan did not yet look altogether comfortable with his last-minute choice. Mrs. Reagan seemed even less comfortable with the Bushes. The fact that both she and Barbara Bush had attended Smith College did little to break the ice between the two women.
Some conservatives in Detroit shared Nancy Reagan's doubts about George Bush. The Texas delegation was in near revolt. But Reagan's state director, Ernie Angelo, told the delegates they would be “nuts” if they cut and ran on Reagan on the very first decision he made as the party's nominee. “I don't want one negative vote on the floor,” Angelo warned. The room went silent, and that night the entire delegation voted for Bush.4
Weeks before the convention, a number of New Rightists, such as Richard Viguerie, had given signs that while Bush would not be the conservatives' ideal choice, he was acceptable. That was then. Now that the choice was official, many were openly displeased. Almost all the leading members of the New Right endorsed a plan to try to draft Jesse Helms as the vice-presidential nominee. On Thursday, seventeen conservatives met with Senator Helms, who called Bush “unpalatable” and “unacceptably liberal.”5 Other conservatives wanted to stage a walkout at the convention. Helms buttonholed a young convention page, Quin Hillyer, to go find Tom Ellis, his chief political aide, to discuss the draft or a walkout.6
Terry Dolan, head of NCPAC, fired a salvo at Bush: “For 30 years the Republicans have tried to convince people they aren't a party of country clubs and prep schools. I find it ironic that the party is now nominating an absolute stereotype of that image.”7 Dolan, from the wrong side of Connecticut, would make himself a bête noire to Bush.
One group pleased with the messy selection of Bush was the Carter White House. The notion of a Reagan-Ford tandem had terrified Carter's people, even though it would have been the oldest ticket in American history. The Democrats were relieved that Ford was out of the picture, though one aide to Carter got it right when he told the New York Times that a Reagan-Ford ticket “would have been a disaster. It would have all fallen apart within two days because of turf battles, ideological upheavals, even fights between Nancy Reagan and Betty Ford.”
Regardless of the merits of a Reagan-Ford pairing, Democrats were excited by what had happened in Detroit, especially because the no-deal/deal/no-deal spectacle had played out on national television. They believed that Reagan had badly flubbed his first test as presidential nominee.8 The Democratic National Committee produced talking points bashing Reagan for almost choosing Ford—points that were almost precisely the same as those that some Republicans had made the night before in opposing the ticket, including doubts about the constitutionality of a “shared-power arrangement with Ford.”9
Lyn Nofziger, during a morning briefing on Thursday, tried to turn aside doubts raised by the events of the day before. He said with nearly a straight face that George Bush was the only one Reagan had asked to be his running mate and that the campaign was “a very well-run operation.”10
Many in the press, perhaps defensive about their own appalling performance the day before, pronounced that Reagan had blundered. Jack Germond and Jules Witcover of the Washington Star started right in: “Ronald Reagan has managed to achieve the worst of both political worlds by his off-again, on-again handling of his decision on a vice-presidential nominee.” They lambasted Bush as a “wallflower” and Ford for “his own penchant for seizing the limelight.”11 James Dickenson, also of the Washington Star, turned in the most creatively descriptive prose about the events of Wednesday, calling it “a fiasco that made [Reagan] and almost everyone else prominent enough to get on television look like people who should be wearing caps and bells and hitting each other with inflated pig bladders rather than posing as saviors of the Republic.”12
John Sears offered his own take on how his old boss Reagan would be affected by all the confusion over his VP process: “He's shot himself in the foot.”13
In the wake of the Ford affair, questions were being raised about Bill Casey's capacity to run the fall campaign. Casey had been an instigator behind the co-presidency idea. Rumors of friction between Bill Timmons and Casey were already making the rounds, and it was an open secret that Casey was disdainful of Bush, thinking him “too liberal and his character too soft.”14
Reagan knew he needed to rewrite this script. On Thursday morning, he and Bush, together with their wives, held a press conference. The first six questions, not surprisingly, were about the failed “Treaty of Detroit.” Reagan spoke warmly about Ambassador Bush, saying that he wasn't his second choice but only that the Ford opportunity was “so unique.” Bush, for his part, was touchy about the nonsense of the day before: “What difference does it make? It's irrelevant. I'm here.”15
The Reagan campaign was sufficiently worried about the reaction to the Bush selection that it sent out emissaries to plead with various delegations to support the ticket. Helms sequestered himself in his suite with Congressman Bob Bauman of Maryland, head of the American Conservative Union, and Phyllis Schlafly, longtime conservative leader and organizer. Bauman made his displeasure with moderate Republicans such as Bush well known, saying, “They are elitists. They are out of touch with the supermarket counters. Their view of Communism is that it is a market to be sold to, not a system that may destroy their children's freedom.”16 Helms then appeared on ABC and seemed to stick to his guns, saying, “We are still holding the option of … having my name placed in nomination tonight.”17
But in the end, Helms countenanced no official effort on his behalf or an organized walkout over Bush. Helms was given a prime-time speech at the last minute as a reward for calling off his troops. In it, he announced to the delegates that he would not permit the VP draft to go forward, because Bush had pledged to support the entire platform. One more disaster was averted. While a small cadre of hard-liners continued to deliberate offering Helms's name f
or the vice-presidential nomination, to do so would require negotiating a thicket of rules, which included getting a certain number of state delegations to support such a floor action. In the end, conservatives pulled back their threats and reluctantly supported the ticket. Frankly, Helms didn't have enough time or the troops to mount any real insurrection. He could, however, have embarrassed Reagan, which Helms never would have done. He'd been a close friend for too long, a conservative soldier in arms with the Gipper.18
Far more Republicans openly endorsed the Reagan-Bush pairing. Even Jack Kemp, who had been subjected to all that malicious old gossip and then passed over for the number-two spot, pronounced the ticket to his liking. He pointedly said that Bush was an asset to Reagan.19 If Kemp was bitter about being passed over or the generally rude treatment he had received from some of the Reaganites, he didn't betray it. Reagan aide Paul Russo said years later that much of the fanning of the womanizing and gay rumors against Kemp had been by Ford operatives.20
Kemp was a team player, but his assessment also happened to be accurate. Bush was the best choice for Reagan, as Jim Baker had asserted all along.21 He'd come in second for the nomination, had deep roots in the party, was more moderate than Reagan, had more foreign-policy experience than Reagan, and in the primaries had won several big industrial states, including Pennsylvania and Michigan. With the possible exception of Kemp himself—who was, of course, far less experienced—Bush was the best choice to unify the convention.
In fact, the last-minute pick of Bush was already proving beneficial to Reagan. A new Gallup survey, taken the weekend before and testing hypothetical running mates for Reagan, showed that the addition of Bush increased the Republicans' advantage over the Democrats. Running alone against Carter, Reagan was ahead 38–32, but the ticket of Reagan-Bush versus Carter-Mondale was leading 43–34.22 Another poll, by the Associated Press and NBC, showed Bush helping Reagan more than Gerald Ford did.23 Though the margin was small, the irony was deep: much of what had spurred the frenzied momentum behind the Dream Ticket was an early poll by Dick Wirthlin that showed Ford helping Reagan more than anyone else.
Better still for the Republicans, the Reagan-Bush team was unifying the GOP, and was competitive or leading in all regions of the country and even tied with Carter in his beloved South. And according to polling done for the Republican National Committee, majorities of Americans thought the Republicans were better at holding the line on government spending, better on tax cuts, better on standing up to the Communists, and better on reining in inflation. Adding insult to injury, a majority of Americans thought it would be better if the Republicans controlled Congress. Four years earlier, who'da thunk it? Sampling conducted by CBS and the New York Times in April 1980 confirmed that respondents “by wide margins” supported “cutting taxes, balancing the budget.”24
Even some in the mainstream media recognized that the Bush choice could be a boon for Republicans. The lead editorial in the New York Times reviewed the madness of July 16 in Detroit and, while questioning Reagan's pursuit of Ford, still praised the Republican candidate for acting “decisively” at the last and asking the convention to nominate Bush. Bush also came in for praise from the paper: “He is a serious, able and likeable man. Ronald Reagan's second choice is not second-rate.”25
Meanwhile, some of Bush's consultants tried to spin the media, saying that for the past two years Bush had in fact always been running for vice president, not president. The story—made up out of whole cloth—got the attention of some reporters; it appeared in at least one major national publication.
For all the drama surrounding the vice-presidential pick, Bush himself had a levelheaded assessment of the job of veep. He'd seen the daily reality of several vice presidents up close and knew the talk about expanding the duties of the office was so much hooey. The day before he was chosen by Reagan, he told a reporter, “Everyone says they are going to reinvent the wheel, that their Vice President is going to be in on developing North-South strategy and other great projects. But it never happens. Two years later, you wake up and find he's still going to funerals.”26 Still, Bush hoped for more than casting tie-breaking votes in the Senate and wondering about the health of the president. Certainly more than Richard Johnson, Martin Van Buren's second banana, who one summer had so little to do that he went home and managed an inn. Woodrow Wilson's vice president, Thomas Marshall, couldn't get a private audience with Wilson for a year and a half.
THE LONG, AGONIZING DECISION over a running mate, along with the introduction of Bush to the media, was finally behind the Reagan campaign. Still, Reagan and Bush had plenty of work ahead of them. Both had speeches to give that night.
For Bush, there was almost no time to prepare for such an important address. While the running mates did their meet-and-greet in the Reagan suite that morning, Vic Gold was sequestered in his room, furiously writing Bush's acceptance speech. He'd already written Bush's speech to the convention the night before, and now he and the other Bush aides were pulling a double shift, without any shop steward to complain to.
With Gold's help, Bush pulled off the important task that had been handed him. In a five-minute speech accepting the nomination for vice president, Bush both signaled to conservatives that he was on board with Reagan and the muscular platform and reached out to voters outside the party. First he proclaimed, “I enthusiastically support our platform. It's up to each and every one of us to help carry Ronald Reagan's message of a strong, free America the length and the breadth of this land.” That message was unmistakable, as was his next one, in which he called on “disillusioned Democrats and disappointed independents” to join Reagan's cause.27
Unlike Bush, Reagan had had plenty of time to prepare for his acceptance speech, but his challenge was far greater than that of his new running mate. Indeed, the speech he gave that night would be the most important of his life up to that point. He was not simply accepting the nomination of the Republican Party and trying to unify his own party; he also needed to speak directly to the American people. A recent AP–NBC poll showed that Americans, by a slim margin of 44–42, thought Carter would win the fall election.28 With the news media blasting Reagan for the chaos of the day before and questioning his decision-making abilities, the credibility issue was all the more pressing. Reagan had his work cut out for him. He would have to put on a stellar performance to ensure that Ford and the co-presidency fiasco didn't overshadow his convention.
Recognizing the importance of the moment, Peter Hannaford had worked on the speech with Reagan for six long weeks.29 It would run for approximately forty-five minutes.
THAT NIGHT, CONVENTION PLANNERS thought it would be a good idea to put the Reagan and Bush families into one room together so they could get to know one another. Jeb Bush recalled that the older Reagan children, Mike and Maureen, could not have been nicer, “completely gregarious, nice, easy to deal with.” The same could not be said for “the two other children, who were quite unhappy,” sitting “off in the corner.” “I walked over and tried to introduce myself,” Bush said, “and they were basically rude.”30
Jeb's father got a warmer reception from the delegates. That night, George Bush's name was placed in nomination for vice president of the United States. The “Reagan-Ford” handmade signs from the night before had disappeared and Joe Louis Arena was now filled with professionally printed “Reagan-Bush” signs in red, white, and blue. Since no other names were placed in nomination, the delegates got down to business quickly. Bush won 1,832 votes, with only 162 diehard conservatives voting against him.31
Four years earlier, when Gerald Ford accepted the GOP nomination in Kansas City, a cloud of blue smoke choked Kemper Arena from cigarettes, pipes, and cigars. Now only an occasional puff of smoke could be seen in Joe Louis Arena. The air had cleared for the Republicans in more ways than one. In 1976, in the wake of Watergate, there were few real heroes left in the Republican Party to join Ford at the dais on the night of his nomination. This time a galaxy of GOP stars wa
s out for Reagan. President Ford and Mrs. Ford were seated in the hall in a place of honor. All the contenders for the Republican nomination were in Joe Louis Arena as well. They had been allowed to address the convention—all except for Phil Crane, that is. The snubbing of Crane was punishment for past offenses against Reagan.
One VIP sadly not in evidence for Reagan's acceptance speech was Paul Laxalt, who had been as responsible for this moment as anyone. He was still angry that he hadn't been consulted on the choice of Bush and felt the whole mess of the previous day could have been avoided.
Laxalt had a legitimate beef. Since 1975, he'd been Reagan's campaign chief. Laxalt traveled endlessly for his friend, whom he'd known since 1966, when both were running for governors of their respective states. Laxalt had pushed for Reagan, argued for Reagan, defended Reagan, and campaigned for Reagan. The night that his friend who owed him so much was nominated, Laxalt went out to dinner. The next morning, he skipped the all-important Republican Party meetings and flew back to Washington.32
Laxalt was far too polite to go public with his frustrations. When queried as to why he went to dinner rather than attend Reagan's acceptance speech, he said he just got sick of “eating a hot dog every night” for a meal. No one in the press corps was buying that.33 Yet another rumor made the rounds that Laxalt had quit the campaign. As if Republicans hadn't already overdosed on unsubstantiated rumors.
Rendezvous with Destiny: Ronald Reagan and the Campaign that Changed America Page 53
