Rendezvous with Destiny: Ronald Reagan and the Campaign that Changed America (107 page)

AT&T was inundated with phone calls—an astonishing 725,000 in about an hour and a half, from just before the end of the debate at 11
P.M.
eastern time until
12:30
A.M.
The results of the phone-in poll were announced on
Nightline
: 483,815 votes for Reagan and 243,563 for Carter—a smashing 67 percent to 33 percent victory for the Republican.
⁴⁴

The survey provided great fodder for
Nightline
, as millions watched, anxious to learn the final results. Host Ted Koppel periodically announced that Reagan was maintaining his 2–1 edge in the voting, and he and guest commentator George Will discussed the meaning of the results. The next day the results were widely reported in newspapers and on radio; the
Washington Star
actually put the results on the front page.
⁴⁵

There was only one problem: the so-called poll was utterly worthless. In pollster-talk, it was representative only of the universe of those who participated; in other words, it did not represent the entire electorate. Plus, it did not discount multiple calls. Technical difficulties were reported as well. Cities that had crowded phone exchanges had more trouble with jammed lines than did rural areas, and the system would not accept calls from hotels or pay phones.
⁴⁶
In Atlanta, Carter supporters were appalled to find that when their calls did go through, a tape-recorded message said that they had just voted for
Reagan
.

Nor did the ABC survey account for the fact that Republicans could call the Carter phone-in line and stay on the line, preventing Carter's supporters from legitimately casting a ballot for the Democrat. Or vice versa. As it happened, some twelve thousand Carter backers complained that they had tried repeatedly to call in and vote for their man but could not do so because the lines were jammed.
⁴⁷

A Carter aide bitterly objected that the phone-in poll could allow someone to “stack the deck.”
⁴⁸
He was right. Bill Timmons, Reagan's national political director, revealed years later that the Reagan campaign had been tipped off to the Reagan call-in phone number by a source at ABC several days before the debate. The campaign distributed the number among grassroots Republicans, who in turn passed it along to family, friends, and neighbors, all urged to call in and vote for the Gipper.
⁴⁹

Other media outlets, including the
New York Times
, viciously attacked the poll, even as they were declaring Carter the winner of the debate. “On content and meaning, Mr. Carter won,” the
Times
editorialized.
⁵⁰
The president of ABC News, Roone Arledge, was so incensed he wrote a letter ripping into the paper.
⁵¹
Faced with the uproar, Ted Koppel went so far as to host a half-hour show to defend the poll.

Despite—or perhaps because of—the controversy, ABC was pleased with the effects of the poll. Interest in the results had boosted the network's ratings during the debate, and in such big markets as New York and Chicago, ABC easily bested NBC and CBS.
⁵²

What was not discussed on
Nightline
, and what was not known to viewers at the time, was that George Will, who warmly praised Reagan's performance in his role as a guest commentator for ABC, had participated in Reagan's debate preparation. Will's lack of disclosure was the second controversy that grew out of
Nightline
's coverage of the Carter-Reagan debate. This kerfuffle, however, would not emerge for another few years; Will's small role in the debate prep became known in the summer of 1983, as Congress was investigating the matter of the pilfered Carter briefing books. The revelation sparked a series of denunciations from other members of the media.
⁵³
But the “controversy” was silly, frankly. Will was a well-known conservative who in his political commentary made his support for Reagan abundantly clear. In any case, columnists had play-acted being consultants for years, dispensing advice in print and over cocktails.

T
WO DAYS AFTER THE
debate, the federal deficit for the year was announced at a staggering $59 billion—the second biggest on record (after the 1976 deficit of $66.4 billion). Normally, the Treasury Department would have made such an announcement the previous Friday. When pressed as to why the delay had occurred, a Treasury official shrugged his shoulders and said, “I can't think of a single reason.”
⁵⁴
But had the announcement been made on the usual schedule, it surely would have pushed the economy to the forefront of the debate agenda—and would have put President Carter on the defensive. Not surprisingly, tongues were wagging about the delay of the announcement. Though suppression of such government information could bring criminal charges, no formal accusations were leveled.

Then, of course, there was the ongoing saga of the Billy Carter investigation. Had the White House been obstructing the Justice Department's inquiry? The Reagan campaign weighed in. Jim Baker issued a statement saying that a subpoena might be necessary to force President Carter to cooperate, while Reagan told a local Pittsburgh television station that the president “does seem to be dragging his feet.”
⁵⁵

It didn't help Carter that the Abscam scandal continued to cast a pall over his party. All but one of the Abscam targets were Democrats, and the story was still alive. In fact, one Democrat caught taking a bribe from FBI agents, Senator Harrison Williams of New Jersey, was indicted day just six days before the election.
⁵⁶
Williams wasn't up for reelection, but others implicated, including Congressman John Jenrette of North Carolina, were fighting for their political lives.
⁵⁷

So was Jimmy Carter.

R
EAGAN'S SCHEDULE WAS JUST
as hectic as Carter's, but the Gipper was having a good time. He took wing to Texas after the debate for an appearance with his old friend Roy Rogers. Rogers was a good sport and sang a few lines from “Happy Trails” at the behest of the traveling press corps. Reagan pointed out how Carter liked to mention other Democratic presidents, then added, “You know there's one Democrat president he doesn't talk about and that's Jimmy Carter.” In Fort Worth, when Reagan asked rhetorically whether someone else had been in charge at the White House the way Carter was talking, the audience spontaneously yelled out, “Amy!” Reagan lost it. Laughing, he replied, “Maybe.”
⁵⁸

He had fun telling crowds in the final days that Carter reminded him “of someone who can name the fifty parts of an automobile—he just can't drive it or fix it.”
⁵⁹
Mrs. Reagan was also having fun, telling women to “let the dust accumulate” at home and get out and campaign for “Ronnie.”
⁶⁰

Reagan went to Dallas and as he walked onto the stage, the band struck up “Happy Days Are Here Again,” which had been the Democratic Party's unofficial official song since 1932. It was the final insult of the campaign. Check that. It was the next to last. The last was when someone in the crowd yelled out, “Give 'em hell, Ronnie!” The phrase had oft been associated with Harry Truman's upset campaign of 1948.
⁶¹

Joining Reagan on stage were Dallas Cowboys quarterback Roger Staubach and head coach Tom Landry. The men, as far as Texans were concerned, could have been the thirteenth and fourteenth disciples. The Cowboys cheerleaders were on hand too. A giant American flag adorned the background and red, white, and blue streamers and balloons dropped. A sign among the boisterous audience read, “Amy for Secretary of Defense.”
⁶²

It was not all festivity. On a local Dallas television show, Reagan betrayed how angry he was about the personal attacks by Carter: “Criticizing each other belongs in a campaign … but I think Carter has lowered himself to a personal type of attack against me. And it's an attack based on falsehoods and distortions.” He elaborated, “He doesn't know me enough to charge me with being a racist. He doesn't know me enough to suggest that I am trigger-happy and would cause a war and so forth, such things as saying if I were President I would separate Christians from Jews, blacks from whites and so forth. This is a personal type of campaign that's unworthy of the office he holds. I can hardly have a warm feeling in my heart for someone who's been attacking me on a personal basis for many months now in the campaign.”
⁶³

Like Carter, Reagan had to deal with controversy in the final hours. A minicrisis came up when allegations arose in the
Wall Street Journal
about the business
dealings of his national security adviser, Richard Allen. Some of the charges went back to Allen's days in the Nixon administration, including a suggestion that Allen had used inside information to assist some clients, including the shady Robert Vesco.
⁶⁴
Reagan said Meese would look into the allegations. Allen took a leave of absence from the campaign until the matter was cleared up, but both Meese and Nofziger publicly stood by their old friend.
⁶⁵

As newspaper stories appeared about Allen's problems, reports began popping up about a possible role for Henry Kissinger in a Reagan administration. The two sets of stories closely tracked with one another, but only a cynic would suggest that enemies of Allen had coordinated the whole thing. It was widely known that Kissinger and Allen despised each other and had for years. The two badmouthed each other constantly. Observing the mortal enemies in the same room, a campaign staffer said, “It was like a scene from a Fellini movie.”
⁶⁶
Conservatives gagged on the idea of Kissinger being let even in the back door of a Reagan administration instead of their friend Allen.

Reagan made one more pass at New Jersey and picked up the endorsement of the Democratic mayor of Lodi, a heavily blue-collar town in Bergen County. He stopped by Barrett's, a local gin mill popular with Democrats. Reagan, who almost never swore in public, slipped and said of Carter, “I'll be damned if we'll let him get reelected!”
⁶⁷
He told the mostly Democratic crowd, “I know what it's like to pull the Republican lever for the first time, because I used to be a Democrat myself, and I can tell you it only hurts for a minute and then it feels just great.”
⁶⁸

With just a few days to go, the Reagan plane, LeaderShip '80, had become a moveable feast of wine and song. Drinks were being consumed at all hours. The chase plane was even more of a rollicking good time. Lyn Nofziger, who sometimes preferred to travel on this plane, could always count on a bottle of Bombay gin waiting for him.

Reagan was on high octane, but his staff was running on fumes. At one point, an exhausted Michele Davis fainted in the aisle of the plane. Like most of the other campaign aides, she had been burning the candle at both ends, working all day, drinking all night, dating on the run. She was surprised to wake up and find a compassionate conservative, Ronald Reagan, hovering over her, trying to revive her.
⁶⁹
Davis wrote in her diary that people were “getting kind of punchy.”
⁷⁰

Meals were served endlessly to the press—steaming platters of macaroni and cheese, pots of beans and sausage, giant frankfurters. Upon every takeoff, Mrs. Reagan would go through the press section handing out chocolates. Not everybody wanted the chocolates and some reporters complained of the poundage they had gained since being assigned to the Reagan campaign. But they knew it was
best to accept the proffered candy, even if it meant depositing it in the pouch in front of them.

Some women in the press corps just didn't like Mrs. Reagan for whatever reason—she was old-fashioned, they didn't like her clothes, she didn't have a cause, whatever. Judy Bachrach of the
Washington Star
wrote a vicious column about her for handing out chocolates!
⁷¹
After the column, Mrs. Reagan jokingly wore a sign around her neck as she handed out the candy. It read, “Take One! Or Else!”

Bachrach might have been more open-minded had she known how little the Carter White House thought of the press corps. One Carter campaign memo went so far as to refer to the reporters as a “flock of sheep.”
⁷²

T
HE CHEER AND OPTIMISM
that had dominated the Carter campaign immediately after the debate was gone, finito. By the weekend, his aides were quietly conceding that Reagan had “profited the most” from the debate. One Carterite said that Reagan “came across as appearing much more credible … as we're all now discovering.”
⁷³
Pat Caddell grudgingly accepted that maybe Reagan had gotten a “slight advantage.”
⁷⁴
Caddell was relentlessly spinning, but privately, he buried his head in his hands and lamented, “I just wish we hadn't debated.”
⁷⁵

The momentum had shifted abruptly. Dick Wirthlin's internal polling suggested that Reagan had overtaken Carter in the race, and Reaganites were feeding these tidbits to reporters. The media's own polls showed motion toward Reagan also. In addition, the press could see on the ground the ever-swelling throngs for the Gipper, and the morale of the campaign staff and the candidate himself as he effortlessly worked a crowd.

Carter's fall offensive was faltering. In Mississippi just three days before the election, Carter bluntly told the crowd that his reelection was “very much in doubt.” One aide, in an understatement, said that there was “a pause in the momentum” for Carter.
⁷⁶
While Carter was getting great receptions from black audiences, the whites who came to hear him speak now were underwhelming, listless. Mondale, who had as good a feel for the game of politics as anyone, later remembered, “It was after that debate you could feel it drifting away.… You can see it in their faces.… You can see it in the way they applaud.… You can tell when they're kind of dispirited.”
⁷⁷