Rendezvous with Destiny: Ronald Reagan and the Campaign that Changed America (111 page)

Carter called a cabinet meeting for 7
P.M.
He did not attend, but he sent Jordan and Watson to tell the members of his cabinet that he was going to lose. No one was to criticize or attack Reagan. Just a few hours earlier, Carter had called Reagan a “right-wing Republican.”
⁵⁸

As darkness enveloped Washington, Carter was biding his time in the twenty-five-room private residence at the White House, his family somberly gathered around watching television. Understatedly, Caddell said, “No one was feeling very good.”
⁵⁹

R
EAGAN, AFTER VOTING, GOT
a quick haircut at Drucker's Barber Shop in Beverly Hills. The trim set him back $7.50. While there, he also got a $1 shoeshine and a $7 manicure. Later, over a lunch of tuna salad, iced tea, and iced milk, Ed Meese and Mike Deaver joined Reagan to discuss the transition of power in the government. The Gipper, superstitiously, knocked on wood and was hesitant to talk about such matters unless and until he actually won.
⁶⁰
Ken Khachigian had drafted a victory speech, but the ultra-cautious Reagan refused to look at it.
⁶¹

Reagan was operating under the assumption that the election would be a close one. Wirthlin had advised him that their last national sampling had Reagan ahead by six points, but Reagan knew it was now all about turnout.
⁶²
Wirthlin called Reagan just after noon to tell him about the early numbers. Reagan responded by crossing his fingers and knocking on wood at the same time. He and Nancy tried to busy themselves by taking and placing phone calls.

Carter knew he was going to lose and Reagan believed he might win, but neither man was prepared for the political earthquake that was rumbling its way across the country, precinct by precinct, county by county, and state by state.

T
HE THREE MAJOR
TV networks—ABC, CBS, and NBC—went live with their news at 6:30
P.M.
eastern time and then swung right into their open-ended election coverage beginning at 7
P.M.
In a sign of things to come, two small cable
stations were also broadcasting election-related content that evening. Ted Turner's CNN was offering its first coverage of a presidential campaign. Meanwhile, a tiny cable station called the Cable Satellite Public Affairs Network, which had a miniscule budget of $100,000 for the night, planned to broadcast old speeches by the candidates and raw footage from campaign events, interspersed with call-in shows. The concept was the brainchild of a formerly obscure staffer in the Ford White House, Brian Lamb. The phrase “low-key” was invented for Lamb, the president of C-SPAN, who rarely showed any emotion whatsoever. Lamb had assembled a network of 850 cable systems that reached six million houses.
⁶³

But it was definitely the major networks that ruled the roost. And they promised “wall-to-wall” Election Night coverage. For the hypercompetitive political junkies at the networks' news divisions, this was their Super Bowl. As the
New York Times
observed, “To television news officials, the contest between Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan almost pales beside the fierce competition among the three major commercial networks over which will name the national and statewide winners.”
⁶⁴
Nobody wanted to screw up, as CBS had in 1976, prematurely calling Ohio for Ford, only to have to withdraw the call and award it later to Carter. But this was war, as far as they were concerned, and the intense pressure to be first would lead to more wrong calls on this night that would have to be reversed.

The networks' election coverage was lavishly produced. Each network had full-fledged political units including political directors, pollsters, consultants, and aides skilled in analyzing key precincts in the states, especially those thought to be close. The “nets” had computers, calculators, runners, makeup artists, phone lines everywhere, cute little jingles, state-of-the-art graphics, and cars with drivers at the ready to fetch a guest at a moment's notice. Correspondents had been dispatched to all the important locations. These included the hotel in Washington where the Republicans were gathering, the Hilton; the Reagan hotel in Los Angeles, the Century Plaza; the Democrats' hotel in Washington, the Sheraton; the White House; the Reagans' home in Pacific Palisades; even John Anderson's command station (Anderson's inevitable concession speech being an unlucky draw for network reporters). The networks also had reporters stationed with several key Senate candidates around the country. A handful of longtime liberal senators had been under assault from independent conservative and Christian organizations, and all wanted to see if they would be able to withstand the withering challenge from the Right.

The anchors were in New York and Washington. For ABC, Frank Reynolds and Ted Koppel were in the pilot and co-pilot seats. ABC had a small army of other commentators, including Max Robinson, Barbara Walters, Peter Jennings,
and Robert MacNeil, along with columnists George Will and Tom Wicker and correspondents Catherine Mackin, Lynn Sherr, Steve Bell, and Brit Hume. Barry Serafin was with the Reagan entourage in LA and the irrepressible Sam Donaldson was with Carter at the White House.

Venerable Walter Cronkite was manning the desk for CBS along with his designated replacement, Dan Rather, whom Cronkite treated like an errand boy. This would be “Uncle Walter's” last election. It was also his sixty-fourth birthday. Correspondent Bill Plante was with Reagan and Phil Jones with Carter, while Lesley Stahl was on hand as well. For commentary CBS had Bill Moyers, who had worked for Lyndon Johnson, and Jeff Greenfield, who had worked for Bobby Kennedy, along with conservative columnist James J. Kilpatrick, whose famous “Point-Counterpoint” exchange on
60 Minutes
with liberal Shana Alexander had been uproariously parodied on
Saturday Night Live
.

Over at NBC, John Chancellor was holding down the fort, aided by David Brinkley and Tom Brokaw. It was an open secret that Chancellor and Brinkley detested each other. Brinkley was under doctor's orders not to push it too hard, as he had just gone through gallbladder surgery.
⁶⁵
The greatest of all the presidential campaign biographers, Teddy White, was on hand to lend his substantial presence for NBC. Jessica Savitch was covering the congressional race, and Heidi Schulman and Chris Wallace were in Los Angeles with the Reagan campaign.

None of the networks had any political consultants in the wings to pontificate. All three used their own correspondents or print journalists and elected officials.

The networks' political directors—the bookish Hal Bruno at ABC, the quietly charming Marty Plissner at CBS, and NBC's Gordon Manning, who kept a lower profile—had been relentlessly preparing for this one big night. They had been running the numbers for days now, looking at all possible election scenarios. They also had the private phone numbers for all the high-ranking officials of the Reagan and Carter campaigns. Throughout the day they had been gathering tidbits, rumors, and anecdotes from around the country. ABC had interviewed voters in three hundred key precincts. CBS, together with the
New York Times
, interviewed 15,000 voters that day. NBC conducted an astounding 28,500 exit interviews with voters.
⁶⁶

For sheer glitz and exceptional content, ABC led the way. This was the era of the legendary Roone Arledge, whose creative stewardship had turned ABC into a broadcasting juggernaut. The network's round, two-tiered set looked like the bridge of the starship
Enterprise
, filled with analysts; giant, brightly lit maps; television and computer monitors; and colorful graphics. NBC was not far behind
in the department, featuring a massive, twenty-four-by-fourteen-foot Plexiglas map that was being operated by a squad of electricians in charge of 7,324 tiny lightbulbs.
⁶⁷

All three networks employed colored maps, taking advantage of the fact that by 1980 most Americans had color television sets. States on the ABC board that might go for Reagan would be lit in a bright red while those that might go for Carter would be lit a bright blue. For NBC and CBS, it was just the opposite: Reagan states would be blue; Carter states, red. But Democrats complained about being so closely identified with red, the color of Communism. Within a few years, all three networks would make the GOP the “Red State” party.

The elaborate studios were hives of activity. For every person in front of the lens, there were hundreds working in support of him or her, behind the camera. Tables groaned under the weight of shrimp, sandwiches, fruit, and other delectables for staff and guests. Wine and beer was even available, though it was discouraged for those going on camera. Despite the amenities, the atmosphere wasn't entirely comfortable. To counter all the equipment and the klieg lights, the studios had been super-cooled. Woe to those who sat still too long; their feet got cold.

The huge armies covering the election were gearing up for a long night.

It wasn't to be.

T
HE END CAME QUICKLY
, but not mercifully, for Jimmy Carter. At 6:30
P.M.
eastern time, ABC's Frank Reynolds announced that Reagan had already carried the state of Indiana and that a thirty-three-year-old GOP congressman, J. Danforth Quayle, had defeated three-term incumbent Democratic senator Birch Bayh. The polls were still open in parts of Indiana. Over at NBC, John Chancellor came on at 7
P.M.
and predicted, “Ronald Reagan will win a very substantial victory tonight—that's our projection.”
⁶⁸

At the top of the hour, Reynolds called Ohio for Reagan. The ABC newsman hadn't even had a chance to tell viewers that Reagan had also taken Virginia and Kentucky. Carter had won West Virginia and, as expected, Georgia and the District of Columbia. The polls were still open in some of these states. Florida fell quickly for Reagan—the first breach of Carter's “Solid South.” At seven minutes after seven, Reynolds called New Hampshire for Reagan.

Barbara Walters, widely known to have a nuclear-powered Rolodex, came on at 7:12
P.M.
to report on a startling phone conversation she'd just had with Caddell. “He did say that last night he told President Carter he was going to lose.” She said she had pressed Caddell, asking if there was any chance, and he replied, “Look up at the board and you can see it spelled out.”
⁶⁹

Oklahoma and its eight electoral votes quickly fell into the Reagan column, and minutes later Tennessee went for the Gipper, as did New Jersey. States were falling as if autumn leaves. Maine, North Carolina, and Wisconsin went for Reagan too, adding to his electoral vote total.

When the national ABC broadcast came back on at 8
P.M.
, Reynolds said that Carter had carried Massachusetts and that in North Carolina, incumbent Democrat senator Robert Morgan had staved off the challenge of Professor John East. ABC later had to reverse both calls. East won a huge upset in North Carolina and Reagan, astonishingly, won Massachusetts by a razor-thin margin. Reagan was aided heavily in the Bay State by the 23 percent Anderson took there.
⁷⁰

When NBC came back on at 8
P.M.
, David Brinkley and John Chancellor called in rapid- fire succession Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, and, a few minutes later, Michigan, Ohio, Illinois, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania for Reagan. In the Keystone State, Reagan had taken 25 percent of the Democratic vote.
⁷¹

By 8 o'clock NBC had 295 electoral votes in the Reagan column—twenty five more than was needed to clinch the election. A few minutes later, Reagan took Texas. A rout was on and the on-air reporters were speculating that Carter's surrender was imminent.

I
N THE PRIVATE RESIDENCE
of the White House, Carter bitterly wanted to give his concession speech and be done with the whole thing. Jody Powell was in his office in the White House complex when Carter called him at 8
P.M.
, demanding that he go to the hotel and concede. “It's ridiculous,” Carter stormed to his press secretary. “Let's go and get it over with quickly.” Powell talked Carter out of it, urging him to “wait a little longer.”
⁷²

Fifteen minutes later, at 8:15 eastern time, NBC gave up the charade and called the election. Not just one state, but the entire national election. Only 5 percent of votes had actually been counted. Chancellor, unsmiling, intoned, “Ronald Wilson Reagan, former sports announcer, a film actor, a governor of California, is our projected winner.”
⁷³

A
N HOUR AFTER THE
president's testy exchange with Powell, the phone rang in the Reagan home in Pacific Palisades. Phone numbers had been exchanged by the two campaigns for this perfunctory but all-important call. Reagan was taking a long shower. Nancy Reagan said he liked to take long showers because he could do some thinking in private, then write down his thoughts later.
⁷⁴
He'd already taken a phone call from John Anderson. Henry Kissinger had also called to offer his best wishes.

Mrs. Reagan was luxuriating in a hot bath in her own home after months of strange hotels. In the background, she heard John Chancellor “saying Ronnie had won the election,” she later remembered. “I banged on the shower door, and Ronnie came out. We stood before the set wrapped in our towels and listened. ‘I don't think this is the way it is supposed to happen.’”
⁷⁵

It was 8:35 on the East Coast and only 5:35 in the afternoon in California when the phone rang in their bedroom. Mrs. Reagan answered it. It was the White House calling. Reagan, clad in only a towel, took the phone. A White House operator said, “Governor Reagan? Please stand by for the president.”