Rendezvous with Destiny: Ronald Reagan and the Campaign that Changed America

by Shirley, Craig

  Hannaford knew the speech cold from having worked on it so long with Reagan, but even the favored wordsmith wept when he heard Reagan deliver it.62

  Joe Louis Arena was still, the delegates rapt with attention. Helene Von Damm, Reagan's utterly devoted secretary for so many years, was crying tears of joy. She could scarcely believe that this moment had finally come63 As few other American leaders have, Reagan made Americans weepingly happy and proud. Men and women were snuffling, crying unabashedly, not only in Detroit but across the country, in saloons and firehouses, on farms and in fishing villages, in American Legion halls and college dormitories. Reagan spoke to all of them, reaching into their homes, their minds, and their hearts. Concluding, the Gipper said:

  The time is now, my fellow Americans, to recapture our destiny, to take it into our own hands. And to do this it will take many of us, working together. I ask you tonight, all over this land, to volunteer your help in this cause so that we can carry our message throughout the land …

  Can we doubt that only a Divine Providence placed this land, this island of freedom, here as a refuge for all those people in the world who yearn to breathe free? Jews and Christians enduring persecution behind the Iron Curtain; the boat people of Southeast Asia, Cuba and of Haiti; the victims of drought and famine in Africa, the freedom fighters in Afghanistan, and our own countrymen held in savage captivity.

  Reagan's voice began to crack slightly as he revealed the depth of his feelings about America.

  “I'll confess that I've been a little afraid to suggest what I'm going to suggest. I'm more afraid not to. Can we begin our crusade joined together in a moment of silent prayer?”64 He bowed his head and more than twenty thousand people fell silent. Except the low hum of the air conditioning, nary a sound was heard. As he lifted his head, Reagan's eyes misted over and he struggled to keep his composure. He gained it and ended simply, elegantly, and fervently.

  “God bless America.”65

  26

  HORSE LATITUDES

  “We are not that dumb.”

  In the early days of sailing between Europe and the New World, sea captains who navigated too close to a subtropical stretch of still weather along either side of the equator would find themselves becalmed, as the winds became insufficient to propel their ships forward. Adrift for weeks on end, they would find their water supply running perilously low. To husband what little water was left for the crew and save their thirsty animals from further suffering, the captains would order the horses thrown overboard. These waters into which they were tossed became known to seafaring men as the “horse latitudes.”

  Ronald Reagan didn't know it, but beginning shortly after the Republican convention, his campaign would drift into its own horse latitudes. Given his love of horses and George Bush's love of the sea, perhaps between the two men they should have forecast this spell that threatened to overcome their campaign in the scorching summer of 1980.

  THE DETROIT CONVENTION ENDED well enough. Joe Louis Arena went bonkers with cheering the last night of the convention when George Bush joined Reagan in a victory clasp. Then their wives, Barbara and Nancy, joined them. When former president Ford appeared, the applause and cheers continued unabated. T-shirts on the floor read, “Why not an actor—we've had a clown for 4 years.”

  The highlight of the night, of course, was Reagan's speech. Reaction was almost universally positive from the American media, political observers, and the party the Gipper now led. According to a young researcher, Mitchell Shirley, Reagan was interrupted eighty-nine times in forty-six minutes by the delirious Republicans. Just as important, this speech and this conservative leader were giving rise to a second generation of optimistic conservative leadership in politics and the culture. Names that meant nothing in 1980 were just foot soldiers in Reagan's revolution, including twenty-somethings (and even some teens) such as John Fund, Mark Levin, Grover Norquist, Mark Tapscott, Steve Moore, Frank Luntz, Tony Fabrizio, Kirby Wilbur, Jack Abramoff, Alex Castellanos, Diana Banister, Laura Ingraham, John McLaughlin, and Mike Pence. They were among thousands of young Americans touched and moved by Reagan and his message. Soon, many of these young upstarts would become the resurgent conservative establishment.

  Plenty of Americans, of all ages, were called to join the “crusade” Reagan spoke of in his acceptance speech. People such as Diana Evans, a fifty-two-year old housewife from Oregon. Before 1964 she had barely given any thought to Reagan, but then she saw Reagan's speech for Goldwater. That was it. She became a Reaganite and volunteered on his 1968 campaign. She rose through the ranks through hard work to become a Reagan delegate in 1976 and again in 1980. As a reward for her years of thankless effort, Diana was asked to give a short speech in Detroit seconding her hero, Ronald Reagan. According to Time magazine, she was “superb.” She cried tears of joy as she watched Reagan up on the stage giving his acceptance speech.1

  The Gipper's speech succeeded because Reagan knew that campaigns and conventions and all the minutiae they entailed were not about the candidate or the party or the media. Ultimately, politics was about what a politician was going to do for the voters and where he wanted to lead them. Reagan told the American people he trusted them to trust themselves—which meant, in turn, they could trust him.

  Wall Street was pleased by the speech. Traders went on a buying spree and sent the stock market up nearly 9 points to a three-year high of 923. Brokers openly told the media that Reagan's talk of massive tax cuts coupled with giant increases in defense spending helped push the market up.2

  The media widely commended Reagan's speech. The network anchors, to a person, were impressed. Speaking for all, John Chancellor of NBC said of the address, “Well, Ronald Reagan has done it again.” The lead editorial in the New York Times the Sunday after the convention was headlined “Franklin Delano Reagan.” Quite a statement coming from a pillar of the liberal eastern elite. The paper called Reagan's handling of the convention and his speech “audacious, even brilliant,” noting that “if Ronald Reagan casts himself as the latter-day equivalent of Franklin Roosevelt, guess which part Jimmy Carter is meant to play.” The Times even praised Reagan's attempt to coax Ford onto the ticket, saying it “demonstrated a clear Reagan willingness to reach out. So did the ultimate choice of George Bush.” Tongue-in-cheek, the paper added, “So did the effort to kidnap Franklin Roosevelt.”3

  The same Sunday, the Washington Post's lead editorial said that Reagan had unleashed an “intellectual revolution in American politics” and that “there could be no better political news than that one of the country's major parties in fact had something new to say.”4Time magazine's cover story was an illustration of a GOP elephant as a convention delegate tearing off his shirt and tie, Superman-style, to reveal the familiar red “S” and blue superhero outfit. “Feeling Super in Detroit” shouted the headline. An accompanying story said, “The great strength of the speech was Reagan's relaxed but forceful delivery.”5 The publication called Reagan's speech “very likely the best” of his career.6

  One of the most talented political cartoonists of the era, Jeff MacNelly, whose cartoons tended to favor the Republicans (unlike those of virtually all of his brethren), humorously drew a horde of hungry GOP elephants breaking into a barn labeled “The Carter Record” to find it full of peanuts, plenty for them to munch on.7

  Even the very liberal Meg Greenfield of the Washington Post said that “Reagan's lack of guile is one of the things that he has going for him” and that he'd run “what seems to have been an unusually aboveboard, uncrooked and uncompromised campaign.”8

  Only overseas was Reagan routinely panned. Britain's Daily Mail eviscerated the Republicans, while the Times of London called the convention a “debacle.” The Egyptian media predictably blasted Reagan and the “Zionist forces surrounding him.”9

  Everyone else, it seemed, was suddenly reevaluating his opinion of the Gipper. Corporate America, long skeptical of Reagan's populism, was taking a closer look and consoling itself with the notion
that Reagan's record in Sacramento wasn't nearly as conservative as his rhetoric. The venerable Veterans of Foreign Wars, representing millions of former American GIs, broke with their tradition of sixty-six years of neutrality and went to battle stations for Reagan. There were approximately thirty million vets in the country in 1980.

  Remarkably, the Reverend Jesse Jackson hinted just days after the GOP convention ended that he could “support Republican efforts to take over the White House this year.”10 Black Americans had voted overwhelmingly Democratic for decades, but Reagan aides reached out to Jackson for a meeting, and not without reason. As part of Operation PUSH (People United to Save Humanity), Jackson went into inner cities to exhort young black children to hit the books, get good grades, and pull themselves up by their bootstraps. At the time, too, Jackson was pro-life. In the 1960s and 1970s, African-Americans consistently polled more pro-life and more conservative on cultural issues than whites. Even if Reagan could not make major inroads with the black community, open relations would at least comfort moderate Republican and independent voters.

  The eventual meeting with Jackson was a washout, though. Reagan flew to Chicago and met in private with the Reverend Jackson. All seemed to go well—that is, until Jackson walked Reagan to his car. Spotting the television cameras, Jackson embarrassed Reagan by asking him in front of the media if he would renounce the endorsement of the Ku Klux Klan, which Reagan did not seek, did not want, and found detestable. Reagan told Jackson he was unaware of the odious endorsement and denounced the organization.11

  Reagan's progress with African-Americans was slow, but with Hispanics, especially the heavily anti-Communist Cuban, Nicaraguan, and Salvadorian communities in America, who had fled Communism, he had hero status. It wasn't unusual for Reagan, when he campaigned in front of Hispanic audiences, to see signs such as “Only Reagan can halt Communism.”12

  Despite all the good signs, Reagan had only a mere twelve hours after his acceptance speech in Detroit before he hit another bump in the road. On Friday morning, July 18, he met in private with his field staff, most of whom had wanted Jack Kemp on the ticket and felt little compunction about saying so to Reagan. When Roger Stone, the campaign's regional political director in New York and Connecticut, pointedly asked why Reagan hadn't picked Kemp, the nominee shrugged his shoulders and made an oblique reference to the rumors.13 Later, Lyn Nofziger told reporter Bob Novak that Kemp had been passed over because of “that homosexual thing. The governor finally said, ‘We just can't do this to Jack.’” Reagan wanted to spare Kemp and his family from the vicious and untrue rumors that surely would have come up had he chosen the tax-cutting acolyte.14

  Reagan's meeting with his field staff ended uncomfortably. Kenny Klinge, another member of the field staff, remembered Bill Timmons saying at the time, “I'm going to get fired because I'm going to have to say something to the governor about this. I mean, we can't have him making these kinds of comments.”15 Ed Meese concurred.

  Reagan's comments seemed even less politic in light of claims made by many sources that what ultimately kept Kemp from real contention was not any rumor but that he was “uncontrollable.” What ultimately put George Bush on the ticket was that he was controllable, according to Kemp aide Dave Smick.16

  The same day that Reagan met with his field staff, the Republican National Committee met in Detroit for its annual election of officers. RNC chairman Bill Brock was basking in the glow of a well-fashioned convention, for having the vision to choose Detroit over many objections, for turning the party around over the past three and a half years, and for raising millions for the GOP. As much as anybody, Brock had helped to bring his party back from the dead. Since the disastrous 1974 elections, the GOP under Brock's leadership had regained 358 state legislative seats, a net of six governorships, and a handful of congressional seats.17

  For all this, Brock was rewarded with an embarrassing, temporary reelection that would allow him to serve as chairman only until after the election, at which time a permanent replacement could very well be chosen. Brock still had two members of Reagan's campaign team looking over his shoulder at the RNC, Jerry Carmen and Drew Lewis. Conservatives were delighted to see their old adversary Brock continue to lose face.18

  ON THE FRIDAY AFTER the convention, the Reagans jetted off to Houston to join the Bushes. After a private lunch at the Bush home in the wealthy enclave of Memorial, the running mates appeared at a public rally at a shopping center. Both Reagan and Bush wore white cowboy hats. The appearance was indoors, and good thing, too, because the temperature outside was 103 degrees. Apparently, not everybody had gotten comfortable with the Reagan-Bush ticket. Former ambassador Anne Armstrong mistakenly introduced the “Reagan-Ford ticket” to gasps, but quickly corrected herself.19

  After the Houston appearance, Reagan headed west to his ranch in Santa Barbara and Bush headed north to his family's oceanside estate in Maine. They both needed some rest. The previous week—indeed, the previous three years—had been a roller coaster ride. They needed time to reflect on recent events, the swirl of history and fate that had brought together two vastly different men—two men who, up until just a few hours before, really didn't know each other, had little use for each other, and often didn't like each other.

  Bill Timmons, having successfully run the convention, moved over to become the political director for Reagan-Bush. He was already in combat mode, as he gleefully expressed to the media. “We will charge the Carter administration is dumb, dangerous and deceitful,” Timmons told the Wall Street Journal.20

  President Carter was not letting Republican attacks go unanswered. Upon Reagan's nomination at the GOP convention, Carter called his opponent and sent him a congratulatory telegram.21 But just as quickly he began bashing the Republicans and challenging Reagan to a series of debates. He reminded an audience of Democrats at a fundraiser in Florida that Republicans “brought us the disgrace of Watergate.”22 Carter's record as president was open to question, but as a politician in the hunt, he was relentless.

  Ted Kennedy, still hanging on for the Democratic convention, also attacked Reagan and the GOP. He compared Reagan's tax-cut proposal to Laetrile, a substance long touted as an anticancer agent that clinical trials and other investigations had shown to be useless—and dangerous to boot. In other words, Kennedy was calling Reagan a snake-oil salesman. His analysis of the Democrats' situation displayed a bit more concern than did Carter's, however. Kennedy said, “We have only four more months to convince the voters that America is not Hollywood, the Republicans are not the party of the future, and Ronald Wilson Reagan is not Franklin Delano Roosevelt.”23

  Reagan and Bush met back up in Los Angeles toward the end of July with some staff to review their strategy for the summer and fall effort. But before battling with the Democrats, the two former combatants had to referee the battles between their respective staffs. Lyn Nofziger, now firmly ensconced as the campaign's spokesman and chief punster, said of merging the two campaigns, “It's a hell of a mesh, I'll tell you.” The Los Angeles meeting took place in the Tokyo Room of a Travelodge across the street from Reagan's original campaign headquarters. Nofziger said the room “would be a good place to orient people.”24

  Some members of the Reagan staff were attempting to dictate personnel policy to the grafted-on Bush team—or what was left of it. Nofziger was gunning for Pete Teeley, Bush's press secretary, whom he didn't like and whose liberal politics he despised. Nofziger tried to supplant him with Jim Brady, who had come aboard after his candidate, John Connally, had nosedived. Nor did Jim Baker want Teeley back. But other Bush aides intervened and Teeley ended up staying on with Bush.25

  Baker didn't want David Keene back either. Keene was long gone from the Bush operations, having earned the enmity of Mrs. Bush over his personal life and of Ambassador Bush for being a profligate leaker and for verbally abusing the campaign staff, according to sources. Keene had reportedly tried to rejoin the Bush campaign in Detroit after learning that Bush had been chosen for
the Republican ticket.26 Mike Deaver, Keene's “bête noire within the Reagan camp” (as the Washington Star reported), was keeping him out of the Gipper's operation as well.27 Keene was regarded as having one of the best minds in Republican politics, but he'd dealt himself out of the high-stakes game of 1980.

  The group assembled in Los Angeles included fifteen or so Reaganites, among them Ed Meese, Marty Anderson, Nofziger, and Peter Dailey, who had worked with the legendary Roger Ailes producing ads for Richard Nixon in 1972. The meeting was light on Bush aides. Bush attended the meetings only with the beleaguered Teeley and Dean Burch, a gray eminence of the GOP who hadn't played a significant role in Bush's campaign. The rest of Bush's staff was three thousand miles away back in Washington, dry-docked. An aide on the Reagan plane, Michele Davis, dropped by the campaign headquarters in Arlington, Virginia, which the Reagan team had taken over in a sublease from John Connally's long-expired campaign. Davis later confided in her diary, “Not too many happy faces around there.”28 She also noted that between the Reaganites and the Bushies there existed “a real ‘we’ ‘they' attitude.”29

  Dick Wirthlin briefed the L.A. group on the fall campaign strategy. He had written a two-hundred-page plan titled the “Great American Team” that detailed the regions of the country he believed were ripe for Reagan, many of which had been only sporadically available to the Republicans before. One key step of Wirthlin's plan had already been taken: he had urged picking a moderate running mate at the convention in order to unify the party.30