Rendezvous with Destiny: Ronald Reagan and the Campaign that Changed America (45 page)

He had hoped to use this speech to jump-start his campaign. He also began to devote much of his time to pummeling Carter, and Republican audiences were receptive. His adman, Bobby Goodman, wanted to make commercials using Bush's recent primary defeats as analogous to having been shot down during World War II. The ads, fortunately, were never produced.
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The growing power of media advisers was bipartisan. The year before, when President Carter was having his share of problems, his adman, Gerald Rafshoon, was given an office in the White House.

The media began to toy with the idea of Anderson's running as an independent in the fall election. Not only would this make for a great story, but some liked the idea of Anderson, the liberal, undermining Carter's bid for reelection. Stories exploring this possibility began to emerge in the major newspapers, and Anderson's campaign did little to dissuade the speculation.

Publicly, Anderson said he expected to be the GOP's nominee, but after Illinois, the odds had grown long for him. Deadlines were looming to get on the ballot in forty-five states (worth 486 electoral votes) as an independent for the fall campaign. Rich and powerful liberals such as Norman Lear and Paul Newman, whose company Anderson enjoyed, were turning his head. Both Reagan and Carter revolted them.
⁴¹

Reaganites—after getting over their animosity toward the haughty Anderson—warmed to the idea of a third-party bid by Anderson. It would be a dagger aimed right at Carter, who needed the votes of liberals in New England and New York in the fall election.

Unctuously, Anderson denied that he would run as a third-party candidate, telling reporters, “I'm the only thing that stands between the Republican Party and defeat in November.”
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Vowing not to let the “Phil Cranes” push him out of the GOP, he took on Reagan: “I just cannot believe that the party will follow
them and, lemming-like, rush to the sea and drown just so they can follow Ronald Reagan's banner as it sinks beneath the waves.”
⁴³

P
HIL
C
RANE FINALLY DROPPED
out of the race—sort of. Though he released his four delegates to Reagan, Crane did not formally withdraw or endorse the frontrunner, saying he wanted to hear from people around the country before finally deciding at the end of March … once and for all … maybe.
⁴⁴

There were now five candidates remaining in the race—Reagan, Bush, Anderson, Kennedy, and Carter. All five answered media questionnaires for the
New York Times
. Reagan was clearly the most distrustful of government, at any level. He cited rent control as the reason for New York's housing crisis. He cited gun control as what made New York so dangerous, whether day or night or “only half dark.” He cited government social engineering as what had created the sad mess of the South Bronx.
⁴⁵
In a sit-down interview with
Times
reporter David Rosenbaum, Reagan explained his view of government: “Government exists to protect us from each other. Where government has gone beyond its limit is in deciding to protect us from ourselves.”
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The weekend before the Connecticut primary, a new poll out by the University of Connecticut had Reagan ahead, 43 percent to 30 percent for Bush and only 22 percent for Anderson.
⁴⁷
Reagan hadn't been in the state since earlier in the week, while Bush was campaigning furiously there. Reagan's men drew comfort from the poll, though it was wildly different from newspaper polls.

Cautiously, they began to lay out a strategy for running in the general election against Carter. They surmised that Carter would attempt to brand Reagan as a “warmonger.” Casey, Ed Meese, and Dick Wirthlin, less turf-conscious than most political operatives, discussed bringing in additional talent for the campaign. Discussions also began on a running mate for Reagan, with Howard Baker's name being floated. The Reagans liked Baker and had been guests at his home in Tennessee, but to Reagan's fire-breathing conservative supporters, Baker was the devil incarnate, mostly because of his support for the Panama Canal treaties. Other names mentioned included Congressman Jack Kemp and Senator Richard Lugar of Indiana.

T
WO DAYS BEFORE THE
primary, the
Hartford Courant
reviewed the remaining candidates in a long and thoughtful editorial. There were no gratuitous shots and the paper endorsed no one, but pleasing to the Reagan folks, the editorialists did not bash the Gipper as many others had done. He was praised for being specific on the issues and for his ability on the stump, and the paper went on to state that Reagan
stood a better chance against Carter in the fall than was thought at the time. The paper actually gave local-boy-made-good Bush a bit of a going-over for not being specific enough, for not offering ideas, and for coming across as more conservative than he really was.
⁴⁸

The media had turned sour toward Bush. He simply didn't wear well with the ink-stained wretch crowd. A new, asinine theory was floated that Bush was not qualified to be president because he had not suffered sufficiently. Bush had had enough. When pushed, he testily asked the reporters whether they had ever had to watch a child die. They had not. “I did, for six months,” Bush said irritably.
⁴⁹
The Bushes had lost a little girl, Robin, to cancer in the 1950s. Of course, Bush was also a hero of World War II as the youngest flyer in the U.S. Navy, had built a successful business, and had risen in life mostly in spite of his upbringing and not because of it. The whole issue was absurd.

A
LTHOUGH
C
ONNECTICUT AND
N
EW
York were looming, the candidates had to keep their eyes on Wisconsin, whose primary was scheduled for April 1. Anderson journeyed there, where he made his disdain for Reagan even more evident. He said he was going to “peel” Reagan's “fingers away from the nomination one by one.” He called Reagan a “throwback” who was “simplistic, even primitive” in his views on foreign policy. Anderson then administered the coup de grace, calling Reagan's thinking “naïve and utterly misinformed.”
⁵⁰

Early polling had Anderson scoring well in the Badger State, tied with Bush just behind Reagan.
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Wisconsin, significantly, allowed for crossover voting. Reagan also made a trip into the state, and gave a barnburner of a speech in Waukesha to a thousand cheering Republicans. Congressman James Sensenbrenner endorsed Reagan on the spot and the crowd cheered wildly when he said he'd already cast his absentee ballot for Reagan.
⁵²

Reagan had been to Wisconsin dozens of times, including the night in 1976 of his stunning primary win over Gerald Ford in the North Carolina GOP primary. He was with Peter Hannaford and Marty Anderson that night to speak to Ducks Unlimited. When Hannaford asked Reagan if he wanted a speech prepared, the Gipper replied, “No, that's okay, I know what to say to a bunch of drunken hunters.”
⁵³
Reagan went out and told jokes that would have had the men laughing even if they'd been sober.

W
ITH NOTHING TO LOSE
, Kennedy went on the offense, hard. In speech after speech, he desperately thundered, “America means hope; America means opportunity; America means inspiration!” He ripped into Carter over the economy
and foreign policy. The media had run out the string on Chappaquiddick and the trials of his campaign. All there was left to do was actually report on what Kennedy said. As the
Washington Post
observed, “Kennedy hasn't really recovered his political footing, but he has found his voice—and his themes.”
⁵⁴
Kennedy, after his incoherent start in the fall of 1979, had developed into a polished and effective speaker.

Bush was fighting off queries from reporters about when he would get out of the race. He pointed out that he had the money to keep going for a very long time. Bush still had coming $2.6 million in matching funds from the FEC. “Hell with 'em. We're going to win this nomination,” he told a supportive crowd in Connecticut.
⁵⁵

Reagan spent the day before the Connecticut primary in Oklahoma, speaking at several rallies. He poked the Panamanian government for possible violations of the Canal treaties and told reporters that “millions of patriotic Democrats” would vote for him in the fall.
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It was also announced that Reagan would stump in Texas the next day, accompanied by John Connally. Connally wasn't about to endorse Anderson or Bush, both of whom he detested. The next day, Connally urged all his supporters, including his lone delegate from Arkansas, Ada Mills, to swing their support to the Gipper.

Earlier in the day, Reagan had journeyed to Buffalo to put in a campaign appearance with Jack Kemp. Reagan was asked about the possibility of Kemp's going on the ticket with him, but demurred, saying only that he had “great admiration” for his young friend. Kemp was asked also but wisely ducked the question.
⁵⁷

T
HE DAY OF THE
Connecticut primary was rainy, snowy, and otherwise miserable. But the sun shone on George Bush as he pulled out a surprise victory. Over the past week, some polls had put Reagan ahead, some had put Anderson ahead, but none had put Bush ahead. The unexpected win revived Bush and kept him in the race.

Once again, though, he was somewhat overshadowed. The real story of the day was Ted Kennedy's astonishing victories in the New York and Connecticut Democratic primaries. He trounced Carter 59–41 percent in New York and won Connecticut 47–41 percent. No one had seen Kennedy's upsets coming—not even the Kennedy campaign.
⁵⁸
Before the results came in, speechwriter Bob Shrum had been drafting a withdrawal speech, and Kennedy himself apparently had been ready to call it day.
⁵⁹
After the victories, old Kennedy hand Steve Smith was overheard in a Manhattan hallway saying to another old Kennedy hand, Eddie Martin, “What the f—happened?” to which Martin replied, “How the f—should I know?”
⁶⁰

Kennedy, grinning like the cat that just ate the canary, told the assembled press, “I love New York,” quoting the Empire State's slogan in a national ad campaign. He did not overlook the Nutmeg State, adding, “And I love Connecticut too!”
⁶¹

Kennedy had benefited greatly from the Jewish vote, which constituted 30 percent of Democrats in New York. Indeed, he won their votes by a 4–1 margin. For the first time, too, he won the Irish and the Catholic vote. New York had never been hospitable to Carter. He'd lost the primary badly in 1976, coming in a poor fourth.
⁶²
He won it in the general over Gerald Ford, but by a margin far less than the percentage of registered Democrats.

At a press conference, State Department operative Hodding Carter unconvincingly dismissed Kennedy's twin victories as a meaningless “protest vote” against the president. The truth was that Carter had been deeply wounded, even if the president got nearly as many delegates as Kennedy that day, because of New York's proportional delegate selection. Carter's losses meant that he could not consolidate his party around his renomination before the convention. Of course, it would still be an uphill battle for Kennedy. He'd have to win three out of every five delegates up for grabs in the remaining primaries—a very tall order.

George Bush's victory on the Republican side in Connecticut—he took 39 percent to Reagan's 34 percent and Anderson's poor 22 percent—was overshadowed not just by Kennedy's wins but by his own loss in New York as well.
⁶³
In New York, Reagan seized 73 of the 123 available delegates—more than expected—while Bush won only 6; the balance were uncommitted. Despite losing in Connecticut, Reagan took only one fewer delegate there than Bush did. Overall, Reagan now had 293 delegates to 68 for Bush and 46 for Anderson.
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Bush was nonetheless cheered by the results in Connecticut. The win would keep his campaign alive for another month. He had money in the bank, and the forthcoming Pennsylvania primary, where Anderson was not competing, would give Bush another crack at the Gipper, man-to-man. Bush would have around $1.5 million available for the next month, and even better, he had no debts. Reagan's campaign, in contrast, was still in debt, though treasurer Bay Buchanan had whittled the shortfall down from nearly $1.5 million to about $340,000.
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Reagan's campaign had made a major mistake in not contesting Connecticut harder. Had Reagan won, Bush would have been out and Reagan would have had months to consolidate the GOP. With Bush revived, Reagan had to continue working to win the nomination. The silver lining in all this was that Reagan, when tested, was a far better candidate than when he was coasting.

Bush headed right for Wisconsin to build on his renewed mini-momentum. He'd won the endorsement of the
Milwaukee Sentinel
, which called him “the best
equipped” of all the candidates.
⁶⁶
Dave Keene bluntly assessed the chances for his candidate, saying that it was “improbable but not impossible.”
⁶⁷
Bush would have to come back very strongly in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Oregon, and other upcoming contests. Keene pointed out that if Bush's fortunes changed in these states, it could break loose some Reagan delegates in New York and Illinois, who were not compelled legally to vote for Reagan at the convention in Detroit. Kennedy's men believed the same, that Carter's delegate strength was soft.

A
S A RESULT OF
the March 25 primaries, the networks reported that both Kennedy and Bush had been “born again.”
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Brit Hume of ABC was more realistic, saying that Connecticut had given Bush's “campaign not so much a rebirth as a reprieve.”
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