Rendezvous with Destiny: Ronald Reagan and the Campaign that Changed America (17 page)

I
NSIDE THE
R
EAGAN ORGANIZATION
, power struggles continued between John Sears and anybody who had not already left the campaign in frustration. Sears had surrounded himself with his friends Charlie Black and Jim Lake, two dependable allies who had worked with him on the 1976 campaign. But things were different this time. In the 1976 quest, Citizens for Reagan was a gloriously haphazard operation where people worked long hours for little pay because they were on an ideological quest led by their hero, Ronald Reagan. An insurgent campaign against an incumbent president can't be picky about who wants to come to work for it, and Sears did not have full control of the 1976 operations. Most notably, Reagan's successful efforts in the North Carolina and Texas primaries were entirely locally run affairs, and won exclusively by grassroots “True Believers,” not because of any substantial help from the national campaign.

Sears could be a lot choosier about staffing the 1980 campaign, since Reagan went into the race as the front-runner. But the campaign manager had changed. The chain-smoking, heavy-drinking Sears of 1976 was accessible and garrulous with the staff and volunteers, and especially with the Reagans. The Sears of 1980 was inward-looking, inaccessible, and paralyzed with concerns about turf. He was walling himself off, just as his mentor, Richard Nixon, had done.

Sears didn't want anything or anyone to screw up the 1980 campaign. His obsession led to infighting. Keene was the first to go, but this was easy for Sears, as old Reagan hand Mike Deaver agreed that he should go. Nofziger was next. Then Marty Anderson walked, furious that Sears had created a clandestine research operation in Washington when all campaign researchers were supposed to report to Anderson. These researchers were also being paid large amounts, with some getting as much as $10,000 for a single white paper at a time when the campaign was bleeding red ink. Anderson, ever the model of class and loyalty, did not speak out publicly against Reagan, saying only that he was scaling back his work to part-time. Nofziger also did not often comment publicly, but that did not stop him from raging privately against Sears to all who inquired. Rumors swirled around Washington and California that other departures were imminent, including
Reagan's liaisons to the Jewish and black communities, John Erthein and Leo Taylor.

There were fewer and fewer old familiar faces around Reagan, and he grew more and more pensive. Sears was laying the groundwork for his own undoing by making unnecessary enemies. Though few Reaganites had wanted Sears back, no one was yet directly challenging his authority. Still, he was acting as if they were. In addition to Black and Lake, Sears brought in another old ally, Darrell Trent, who had battled with the 1976 Reagan campaign staff over expenses. The poor man was in an impossible position, courtesy of Sears. Trent's job was to hold the line on spending, but he couldn't stop the free-spending Sears; he could only stop the rest of the staff and vendors.

Now Deaver came into Sears's field of vision. In the power struggle of the previous August, when Nofziger fled, Deaver had sided with Sears, a clear indication of where Nancy Reagan stood in the choice between Nofziger and Sears. Mrs. Reagan liked the campaign manager and enjoyed talking politics with him over lunch. Sears was witty, erudite, cosmopolitan, and up on the latest gossip inside Washington. Nancy was less enamored with the cigar-chomping, plainspoken Nofziger.

But on the Sunday following Thanksgiving, Sears asked Reagan for an immediate meeting to discuss Deaver, who had taken over the finance director position for which Nofziger had been so ill-suited. Deaver had been invited to the meeting but, arriving a few minutes early, was surprised to walk into the Reagans' home and find Sears, Black, Lake, Mrs. Reagan, and Governor Reagan huddling together. Mrs. Reagan asked Deaver to wait in their bedroom, saying, “They are not quite through yet.” After a few minutes of waiting, Deaver figured “what the hell” and left the bedroom. Walking back into the living room, he overheard Sears, Black, and Lake accusing him of bilking Reagan out of thousands of dollars. When they spotted Deaver, however, they would not look him in the eye.
¹⁹

Like Nofziger, Deaver realized too late that he had been set up. He was no more a fundraiser than Nofziger was. Sears made it clear to Reagan that it was a “him or me” proposition; either Deaver had to go or Sears would, along with Lake and Black. Reagan was furious at the ultimatum, but Mrs. Reagan indicated her position when she said, “Honey, it looks as if you've got to make a choice.” Recognizing that he'd lost the power struggle, Deaver said, “No, Governor, you don't have to because I'm leaving!” He bolted out with Reagan and Nancy following him, arguing for some other accommodation. Deaver declined. Reagan stomped back into the room, red-faced, furious. He hated blackmail and ultimatums.
²⁰
Roaring at the three, he shouted, “You bastards! The biggest man here has just left the room!”
²¹

Lake later said, “It was the blackest day of my life. I hated that day. I hated being there.” He told Reagan he was siding with Sears for Reagan's own good.
²²
Deaver's dramatic exit was marred a bit because his wife, Carolyn, had dropped him off and he had no way to get home. He sheepishly knocked on the door to borrow the Reagans' station wagon.
²³

The meeting with the others was over quickly and the Reagans showed little warmth toward the three as they departed. From then on, Sears was in Reagan's doghouse. Nancy Reagan later said, “I've never known Ronnie to carry a grudge, but after that day I think he resented John Sears.”
²⁴
Just a few more mistakes and Reagan would throw him to the wolves. Reagan's old friend and press aide Nancy Reynolds called the governor later to protest Deaver's departure and it was the first time that she remembered Reagan being ill-tempered with her.
²⁵

Deaver was crushed. He'd been with Reagan since 1967. He and Hannaford had traveled with Reagan for years, making him a pile of money with the radio commentaries, the syndicated columns, and the speakers' circuit.

Deaver was at his office the next morning when he bumped into Reagan, who'd had an office at Deaver & Hannaford since early 1975. Reagan was deeply bothered by the matter—he hated tension among the staff. He went into Deaver's office, shut the door, and said, “You know, if I knew yesterday what I know today, this would never have happened.” Deaver replied, “You'd better be careful because I have been watching your planning and [you] have nobody now to watch your planning.” Ominously, he said, “These guys, they do not believe what you believe.”
²⁶

Reagan was truly between a rock and a hard place. For ten years, Sears's reputation had grown in the national media's estimation—often nurtured by Sears. To fire Sears now meant that Black and Lake would go, possibly along with many more staffers. The last thing Reagan needed at this point was more embarrassing news stories.

Deaver, as a small consolation, would become the Reagans' “personal representative” to the Kitchen Cabinet. But he was out of the campaign. The body count of old Reaganites strewn in Sears's wake was growing, but this one really stung Reagan. In many ways, Deaver was a surrogate son to him. More than anybody else, he had devoted his life to the needs of Ron and Nancy Reagan. Yes, the association had been financially advantageous for him, but he also had helped make the Reagans a great deal of money, while providing vital advice and counsel for many years. He'd earned a reputation as an SOB to some, but he also knew that every successful political leader needed such a person to do the nay-saying.

Deaver had once even saved Ronald Reagan's life. During the 1976 campaign, Reagan was on his campaign plane, playfully tossing peanuts into the air and
catching them in his mouth. When one got caught in his throat, some thought the wildly gesticulating Reagan was having a heart attack, but Deaver knew better. He quickly seized Reagan from behind and performed the Heimlich maneuver, sending a fat wad of partially eaten peanuts shooting out of Reagan's mouth.
²⁷

Deaver's departure meant his partner, Peter Hannaford, another friendly face, also was gone from Reagan's orbit. Richard Wirthlin and Ed Meese were about the only familiar faces left around the campaign. Meese was at this point a seemingly nonthreatening issues adviser, while Wirthlin's polling operation was based in Salt Lake City, so Reagan saw him only sporadically—especially since Sears had told him not to do any polling in Iowa because “we've got it locked up.”
²⁸
Sears was trying to keep Meese in his place by making cutting remarks behind his back about his organizational skills.

Meese grew frustrated. Unbeknownst to Sears and company, he hopped aboard a red-eye flight from Los Angeles to Washington for a worried meeting with campaign chairman Paul Laxalt. Laxalt had his own ax to grind, as Sears had already tried to supplant him as chair of the campaign. Meese was steamed about how Sears had forced out Deaver and other old friends, and especially about how he treated Reagan; Lou Cannon wrote in
President Reagan: The Role of a Lifetime
that Sears “had little respect for Reagan's intelligence or work habits.”
²⁹
Sears had gone too far and had made too many adversaries. For the time being, he was in total control of the campaign, and the headquarters was being moved from Los Angeles to Washington, per his instruction. But Reaganites around the country were sticking pins in voodoo dolls bearing his name.

While Sears had driven out many of Reagan's old advisers, it was certainly not true that, according to a certain mythology that had grown up over the years, Reagan was a pawn of his campaign operatives. Reagan never cared much about the intricacies of a campaign operation. He did care passionately, though, about his freedom-based ideas and about America. If Reagan toned down his message it was because he knew what was at stake. He wasn't running for chairman of the conservative movement. He already had their votes. Reagan understood that millions of Democrats and independents were culturally conservative but that the GOP had repelled them with its country-club image and past corruption. He would direct his message to these people as well. After all, Reagan had grown up a New Deal Democrat.

T
HE POLITICAL SEASON WAS
roaring along like an eighteen-wheeler, picking up speed, and the best anyone could do was either hang on or get out of the way. Ending up as roadkill was always an option, but not a pleasant one. Howard
Baker's campaign was looking more and more like it would be carrion, but he fought on. No one was more affable and kindly in the GOP field than Baker. But his duties as Senate minority leader had kept him from the retail campaigning in which George Bush had been able to engage; he wasn't a telegenic orator like John Connally; nor did he have the deep well of grassroots conservative support to call upon like Ronald Reagan. To jump-start his flagging effort, Baker fired his campaign manager, Don Sundquist, and replaced him with Wyatt Stewart, who had made his bones working for Richard Viguerie and later raising millions for the House Republicans.
³⁰
Still, the media were beginning to write Baker off. It was very odd that of the four leading candidates—Reagan, Connally, Bush, and Baker—the last was the only one who had won an election over the previous ten years.

Bush, meanwhile, was on high octane. He was barnstorming all the important early primary states, and where his speeches and coffees a year earlier would draw a half dozen folks, he was now getting fifty and more at these events. The local media, which had been ignoring Bush, were now sending reporters out to cover him, a sure sign of progress. Even national reporters were beginning to go out on the road with him.

Bush was having a good time. He had outworked and outhustled the rest of the GOP field, having spent five weeks stumping in New Hampshire, nearly as much time in Florida, and more than three weeks in Iowa in 1978 and 1979. He was following the model of Jimmy Carter, who simply campaigned longer and harder than anyone else did in 1976. Adam Clymer of the
New York Times
got off one of the best lines of the 1980 campaign, writing of Bush, “There is no track record to suggest that the Republican Party is equally susceptible to guerrilla warfare, even if the Che Guevara of the movement is Yale, oil and banking and a former national party chairman.”
³¹
George Will observed that Bush was “this year's happy warrior, the candidate having the most fun. This nation needs a demonstration that public affairs can be cheerful.”
³²
Bush was having an especially good time because his son Jeb was traveling often with him. The peripatetic elder Bush had frequently been away from his family over the years and it was in this race that he was able to spend so much personal time with his children, four of whom worked full-time on the campaign.
³³

Not all was perfect in Bushville. Bush was not in Reagan and Connally's class as a public speaker, and when this was pointed out, he bristled. Bush said, “To beat ‘the bigger shots’” he would “outorganize 'em, outwork 'em, outspell-out-the-goals-of-the-country 'em.”
³⁴
In his now-familiar script, Bush talked to the media and crowds like a campaign manager instead of a leader, rattling off information about his fundraising, his name identification, his experience, his organization.

The Bush campaign experienced some low drama as well. A married major national political reporter was carrying on affairs simultaneously with two of Bush's female staffers, one in Iowa and the other in Washington. The reporter thought he had them at a safe distance, but when the two women crossed paths on the road and compared notes, they discovered to their surprise that they were sleeping with the same married man. The two ended up in a hair-pulling, screaming fight.
³⁵