Rendezvous with Destiny: Ronald Reagan and the Campaign that Changed America (29 page)

Reagan got a boost when he learned he'd won the straw poll in Alaska, trouncing Bush 1,853 to 852.
¹⁶
The poll was nonbinding in the selection of delegates, but the Reagan campaign reacted as if it were news of the Second Coming. Reagan also took seven more at-large delegates selected in Arkansas. “Uncommitted” in the Razorback State came in a strong second with five delegates; Baker got four and Bush two. Connally finally won a delegate but his campaign was fading fast.
¹⁷
Nearly all his state offices around the country were closed with the exception of South Carolina and a smattering of others, in a last-ditch attempt to save cash.

With only six days to go before the New Hampshire primary, Bush was ahead of Reagan 37 percent to 33 percent in a University of New Hampshire survey.
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Reagan's campaign coffers were nearly depleted. Reporters were now writing not only that a Bush victory was “conceivable” but that he could win “going away.”
¹⁹
But Dick Wirthlin's tracking polls showed Reagan finally creeping up on Bush, whose numbers were ever so slowly trending downward.

T
HE
C
ARTER ADMINISTRATION MADE
it official: The United States would boycott the Moscow Olympics because of the invasion of Afghanistan. The administration made the announcement even though Secretary of State Cyrus Vance had failed to marshal a unified front among America's European allies. The ayatollah announced that the American hostages could not be released any sooner than April. At Lake Placid, the underdog American hockey team continued to surprise everyone by defeating the West Germans, 4–2, helping to guarantee a place in the medal round.

While so much was occurring on the international scene, word came down that an old and legendary “Grande Dame” of Washington, Alice Roosevelt Long-worth, had died at the age of ninety-six. For more than eighty years, Alice, the eldest daughter of Theodore Roosevelt, had cut a wide swath through Washington society. When she was a young woman, her father, the president, had prohibited her from her smoking in the White House, so she went up on the roof to do
so. In 1906 she married Congressman Nicholas Longworth of Ohio, who would become Speaker of the House. Neither she nor Longworth was a fanatic about being married and they were the subjects of extramarital rumors for years. When her husband was buried in Cincinnati in 1931 she was asked whether she would be buried alongside him. “That would be a fate worse than death itself,” she replied.

Alice was beautiful and witty, and could be devastating in her humor. Though a lifetime Republican, in 1944 she described GOP nominee Thomas Dewey as looking like the “little man on a wedding cake.” She also abhorred Joe McCarthy, a neighbor, and said her garbageman could call her by her first name but Senator McCarthy could not. She was banned from the Taft and Wilson White House after making jokes at their expense while attending parties in the Executive Mansion. In retaliation, she campaigned against Wilson's League of Nations and, through her charm, convinced enough senators to oppose it.

Described as “The Other Washington Monument,” she was still entertaining guests over tea in her second-floor drawing room into her nineties. Alice had hosted prime ministers, kings, presidents, and other world leaders in her faded, five-story house.

Alice Roosevelt once said, archly, “If you can't say something good about someone, sit right here by me.” When it was suggested to Theodore Roosevelt that he get his carefree daughter under control, he tartly replied, “I can be president of the United States or I can control Alice. I cannot possibly do both.”
²⁰

N
EW
H
AMPSHIRE WAS AN
atypical state. First, there were few minorities. Second, more than 73 percent of the population was rural.
²¹
It also contained a disproportionate number of gun enthusiasts—or so the New York and Washington media crowd thought. There was no dominant television station inside the state and only one statewide newspaper, the
Union-Leader
, which was read by almost half the residents. Two hundred thousand new citizens had moved into New Hampshire over the previous decade, mostly from Massachusetts, attracted by the good schools, low taxes, and low crime rate. Still, they were Boston-centric. They read the
Globe
and watched Boston television, and the campaigns coughed up piles of dough for advertising to reach them in the southern portion of the state.
²²
New Hampshire also had a disproportionate number of elected cranks, eccentrics, and oddballs.

Gun Owners of America sponsored a New Hampshire forum that all the GOP candidates attended. All the Republicans save John Anderson supported gun rights. Anderson, thinking of his friends in the national media, decided to challenge the crowd, half of whom were booing him and the other half yelling “bullshit!”
²³
Bush was well received except when one questioner asked him
whether he wanted “one-world” government, a reference to the Trilateral Commission. He sloughed it off and instead told the attendees of the time he tried to register his gun in Washington but was told by a government clerk that criminals did not register their guns, “just a bunch of suckers like you from Northwest Washington.” Reagan received the warmest greeting when he told the gathering, “Thank you … my fellow members of the NRA.”
²⁴

Jimmy Carter sent his son Jack to the forum. Surprisingly, Jerry Brown opposed gun registration based on his objection to more government involvement in private lives.
²⁵

T
HE EYES OF
A
MERICA
were fixed on two usually snowy locations: New Hampshire and Lake Placid, New York. Speed skater Eric Heiden was the pride of America, winning five gold medals, the most ever won by an individual in singles competition events in the winter games.

But even Heiden was just a spectator at the greatest, most thrilling, and most shocking upset in the entire wide world of sports, when the U.S. hockey team, led by the great coach Herb Brooks, defeated the Soviets, 4–3. Sportscaster Al Michaels called the game for ABC and joyously cried out as the seconds ticked down, “Do you believe in miracles?” American exceptionalists yelled out in reply, “Yes!” The crowd in unison counted down the last ten seconds as if it were the final countdown for the Soviet empire.

Eight thousand, five hundred flag-waving Americans went bonkers in the Lake Placid arena. Across the nation, Americans wept, honked their automobile horns, danced in the streets, and clinked beer glasses toasting America's newest heroes, believing again in the miracle of America.

In the opinion of many, it was the greatest moment in all of sports. The Soviet hockey team had been undefeated in the Olympics since 1968, and had won the gold medal five of the past six Olympics. They were professional athletes, their average age in the thirties, and they had played together for more than six years; they'd been beaten by a bunch of American college kids whose average age was only twenty-two and who had been playing together for a mere six months.

The fact that the team was led by two alumni of Boston University—Mike Eruzione, who slammed home the winning goal in the final period, and Jim Craig in goal, who stopped a phenomenal thirty-nine shots—made the upset even more special for the people of Beantown and all of New England, including New Hampshire.

The Americans had to beat Finland the next night for the gold medal, 4–2, but the win over the Soviets was the first heartwarming, patriotic news for the
battered American psyche in many years, possibly since the first moon landing in 1969. Many churches across the country let their parishioners leave early so they could be home to watch the gold medal contest. At the win over Finland, someone hung a sign, “Defectors Welcome,” and listed a telephone number.
²⁶

Everybody in America saw the game for what it really was: a metaphor for the Cold War. The thuggish Soviets cheated while the clean-living Americans played by the rules. Yet in the end, right triumphed over might and truth was indeed stranger than fiction. Better, too.

Vice President Mondale was there for the gold medal victory over Finland. It was especially meaningful for him, as Coach Brooks and several of the players were from his native Minnesota.

The youthful American team gave their fellow citizens the same misty feeling they got when they looked at a Norman Rockwell painting. America, they believed, was a great country because America was a good country.

And no one believed this more than Ronald Wilson Reagan.

T
HE NIGHT OF THE
win over the Soviets, Colin Clark, a twenty-year-old aide to Reagan and the son of Reagan friend William Clark, nervously approached the candidate with a handwritten message as the Gipper was giving a speech in Windham, New Hampshire. Mrs. Reagan, seated on the dais, looked at young Clark, wondering what the hell he was up to. But Reagan took the note, read it, smiled, and interrupted his speech to tell the audience, “Soviet Union 3, United States of America 4!” The hall went ballistic.
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A man in the audience asked Reagan whether he too was going to win and Reagan replied, “You bet we are!”
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Reagan was ready to rumble.

To the national media, though, it seemed that Reagan was bound to lose. Two new polls showed Reagan continuing to collapse nationally among Republicans. Where a month earlier Reagan had held a commanding lead of 40 points over Bush, a New York Times/CBS poll and a Time magazine survey showed his lead over Bush shrinking to 6 percent and 4 percent, respectively. In fact, Bush was leading among GOP voters most likely to vote in primaries. Even worse, Reagan had shot up to a 46 percent unfavorable rating, with only 38 percent of Republicans rating him positively.
²⁹
Seeing such polls,
Boston Globe
columnist Robert Healy wrote, “Reagan does not look like he'll be on the presidential stage much longer.”
³⁰
Similarly, Germond and Witcover, never high on Reagan, said that “a rough consensus is taking shape … that George Bush may achieve a commanding position.”
³¹

But in fact, Reagan was gaining in New Hampshire, while Bush was losing votes to Baker and Anderson. One new poll, conducted by WNAC, had Bush
ahead of Reagan by just 2 points, 34–32 percent.
³²
The glow of Bush's big Iowa win was dimming. The
Union-Leader
produced a poll showing Reagan ahead by 5 percent, but the media discounted it, as the paper was in essence the house organ for the Reagan campaign.
³³

With his lead shrinking, Bush once again changed his mind on debating. Now it was he who wanted the debate restricted just to himself and Reagan. Giving any attention to the other candidates would simply drain away anti-Reagan votes. The Reagan camp knew what Bush needed—and that Bush and his team were becoming inflexible in their position that no other candidates could participate in the Nashua debate. By being so stubborn, Bush was about to set himself up as a patsy in a morality play by Reagan. Bush was assuming the role of the “Model Boy” Willie Mufferson, and Reagan was, of course, Tom Sawyer.

The other campaigns yet again vented their ire about being excluded from any debates. Howard Baker's press secretary, Tommy Griscom, angrily said, “Before this is over, the
Nashua Telegraph
is going to wish it never heard the word 'debate.'”
³⁴
The candidates fired off telegrams to Reagan, citing “fairness.” This weighed on the Gipper. Of the group, he was most fond of Dole and Baker, especially when they politely asked him to reconsider. He had nothing against Anderson, but Connally, Bush, and Crane were not high on his hit parade.

Just one day before the Nashua showdown, however, Jerry Carmen confirmed that the Reagan campaign still wanted a direct confrontation alone with Bush and not a multicandidate forum. “There are real differences … and we think people will be able to see those differences a lot better in a one-on-one debate than in a seven-way debate,” he said.
³⁵

The
Nashua Telegraph
, Bush, Bush's men, Reagan, Carmen, Reagan's men—all had been boxed into the one-on-one debate format. All, that is, except for John Sears. He was looking outside the box. Sears had been keeping a low profile across the state line in Andover, Massachusetts, mostly dining and drinking in private with Jim Lake and Charlie Black or with national political reporters at the Wayfarer Hotel. He was in high dudgeon. ABC's Barbara Walters had already reported that if Reagan lost New Hampshire, Sears “may well be fired.”
³⁶
But before it was all over, he would give Ronald Reagan a final gift, one that would help open the front door to the White House for the Gipper.

And show to the world one last time the creative conceit of John Patrick Sears III, Esq.

The canny Irishman smelled an opportunity for Reagan to get the upper hand with a last-minute change to a multicandidate debate. His plan was to embarrass Bush into allowing Dole, Crane, Baker, and Anderson onto the stage, while making
Reagan look magnanimous. Or perhaps the maneuver would create such chaos as to prevent Bush from winning the debate. Years later Charlie Black described Sears's strategy as “Let's put Bush under pressure.” Black added, “We knew he would choke … in the debate.”
³⁷
Sears was blunter: “Our job was to show that Bush was not capable of being president.”
³⁸

Sears reasoned that Reagan could have his cake and eat it, too. He could appear noble by relenting and inviting the other candidates at the last minute to participate while also dividing the anti-Reagan vote by giving them the spotlight to share with Bush. Sears also understood what no one else did: for one priceless moment, Reagan and the other candidates had a shared interest against Bush.