Rendezvous with Destiny: Ronald Reagan and the Campaign that Changed America (61 page)

Blue-collar voters who had supported Carter in 1976 were ready to abandon the president, and the erudite Anderson was not their cup of tea, but they worried whether Reagan was up to the task. “He's articulate, smooth, handsome, but just too old,” a female union worker lamented.
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A
FTER LONG AND GRUELING
fights among many competitors, the parties' candidates for the presidency—along with a rare independent competitor—were finally in place. Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter, and John Anderson would now slug it out through the summer and into the fall.

At this point the financial assets of Reagan, Carter, and Anderson were released. Anderson, after a lifetime in the public sector, was worth around $350,000. Carter, the thrifty and successful farmer, was worth just over $1.3 million. Reagan, for all the criticism about his being for the rich, was worth just a bit more than Carter, with $1.5 million in assets.
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Both the Democrats and the Republicans had staged thirty-four primaries in 1980; Carter had won twenty-four primaries to Kennedy's ten, while Reagan had won twenty-eight to Bush's six.
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At first blush and from the safe perch of history, Reagan's nomination seemed as if it was a cakewalk. But in fact, it had been the toughest and most grueling street fight of Reagan's career—a fight he had nearly lost because of his own inattentiveness to his campaign, because he underestimated Bush, because of the infighting and incompetence of some of his staff, and because the Republican establishment and elements of the media were in league to destroy him.

Reagan, having faltered badly, had been compelled to fight with all his might to get back in the game. He had gritted his way back into the race, but he did so with his customary aplomb.

He only made it look easy.

“
Dr. Jimmy Carter is fixing to carve up Mr. Reagan and show the voters he hasn't got what it takes to be President.
”

T
he gaffe and age issues collided into one big mess in mid-June 1980, when Ronald Reagan announced to the media that if elected president and later found to be senile, he would resign.
¹

The Gipper had been given a better-than-clean bill of health by six physicians. He proclaimed that he “never felt better.” According to the actuarial tables, he could expect to live to almost eighty-one years of age.
²
Reagan was simply trying to reassure Americans that he understood what was at stake. Among the bloodhounds of the national media, however, the statement resurrected all the long-festering concerns about Reagan's age and mental acuity. Pack journalists were always sniffing around for an issue to sensationalize; Reagan's age filled the bill yet again.

Jimmy Carter could only watch and smile as his opponent committed another faux pas. Carter's campaign had yet to develop any positive reasons why he should be reelected, but it was fine-tuning its line of attack on Reagan. The president's men were bent on sowing panic among the electorate by suggesting that Reagan suffered from incipient senility, and Reagan's remarks—together with the media's tabloid fixation on the issue—only aided their cause.

Joining in Carter's anti-Reagan efforts was the Chinese Communist government. Beijing blasted Reagan for daring to suggest that America pursue a “two-China policy”—that is, recognizing both the pro-Western government on Taiwan and the Communist government on the mainland.
³
Reagan had been on record for the past year and a half opposing the Joint Communiqué issued by the Carter administration and China renouncing American diplomatic relations with Taiwan.

Attacks by Communist leaders may have helped Reagan with voters, but the foreign-policy establishment was in high dudgeon, convinced that Reagan simply didn't understand. Establishmentarians thought that his notions of morality and righteous indignation over Communist aggression were out of touch with the modern world. Sophisticated people didn't think in such black-and-white terms. The “striped-pants set” at the State Department didn't approve of Reagan, whom they viewed as a simpleton and a cowboy. Strobe Talbott of
Time
magazine (who would later become a key Clinton administration adviser on Russian affairs) reflected the prevailing attitudes about Reagan within the foreign-policy establishment. Talbott called Reagan's anticommunism “visceral, unequivocal and global,” a “Manichaean view of a struggle between the forces of light and the forces of darkness [that] is … old-fashioned and yet also very much back in fashion.”
⁴

But Reagan did not back off his anti-Soviet views. He sat down for a two-hour meeting with the editors of the
Washington Post
and elaborated that his plan for a military buildup would put undue strain on the Soviet economy and “force the Soviets to the arms control bargaining table.” Nor did he back down when questioned about an apparent conflict of interest within his campaign: it had been disclosed that two of his close aides, Mike Deaver and Peter Hannaford, had a long-standing lobbying contract with Taiwan. Coming to Deaver and Hannaford's defense, Reagan told the
Post
, “Hell, I was the one who was selling them on Taiwan.”
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T
HE
D
EAVER
-H
ANNAFORD FLAP WASN'T
the only public-relations headache for the Reagan campaign. Eyebrows were raised when it was revealed that Frank Sinatra had listed Reagan as a character reference in an application to buy a casino in Las Vegas.
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Sinatra had long been rumored to have close ties to organized crime, and newspaper stories and photos started to appear about the shady characters—“wise guys” with pinkie rings and surnames that ended in vowels—who were good buddies of the “Chairman of the Board.”

Reagan advisers surely would have preferred to avoid another round of bad press, but in fact Sinatra and Reagan had a lot in common. They were roughly the same age and they had both been New Deal–worshipping, Democratic Party liberals in their youth. Walter Winchell and other newspaper columnists had smeared Sinatra in the 1940s as a Communist. Sinatra had been particularly close to the Kennedys, pulling many strings to help get his friend and party-mate Jack elected in 1960. But after the election, Bobby Kennedy's callous and ungrateful treatment of Sinatra, as well as the advent of the rock 'n' roll counterculture, soured Sinatra on anything that smacked of liberalism. The Kennedys had broken his heart; the
Beatles and their ilk had threatened his career. Sinatra rejected those on the Left who had rejected him, and he embraced the Republicans.

Despite the Reagan campaign's continuing hiccups, Jimmy “The Greek” Snyder, the famous Vegas oddsmaker, was laying odds on the Gipper to win in November and to choose George Bush as his running mate.
⁷
The folks who published the
New Webster Encyclopedic Dictionary
seemed to agree. Their new edition listed Reagan as the fortieth president, despite the fact that the encyclopedia was released in the summer of 1980, when the election was still months away.
⁸

R
EAGAN GRUDGINGLY DECIDED TO
keep Bill Brock as chairman of the Republican National Committee. Stories had been leaking out yet again that Brock's days were numbered. Jerry Carmen had written a scathing report about Brock's stewardship of the committee, and Carmen had a powerful ally in Paul Laxalt, who wanted Brock ousted. Brock, however, whipped up a public-relations campaign to fight off the insurgency, persuading elected officials and friends to contact Reagan to plead for clemency. They included Jack Kemp, Bill Timmons, and Howard Baker.
⁹
The gambit worked.

Reagan did not, however, give Brock carte blanche. He installed another aide—Drew Lewis, from his Pennsylvania operation—as his eyes and ears at the RNC to ensure that the committee worked in good faith for his election and to “ride herd” on Brock, according to Ed Meese.
¹⁰
Moreover, two other irritants to the Reaganites, RNC cochair Mary Dent Crisp and top aide Ben Cotten, were severely marginalized, though not fired as the conservatives wanted.

Brock had already written the loquacious Crisp a memo warning that she “should adopt the lowest profile possible.” She had become an embarrassment: she had claimed her offices at the RNC were bugged, but when police investigated they discovered that the wires in question were part of the building's Muzak system. Frustrated, Brock now ordered Crisp not to talk to the press, and two events in her honor scheduled for the convention were canceled. Rumors still ran that the Reagan-loathing Crisp was on the verge of endorsing John Anderson.
¹¹

Brock was bloodied and slightly bowed, but the fact that he was still at the RNC came down as a big loss for Carmen, Laxalt, and Lyn Nofziger, who had been gunning for Brock since the Panama Canal fight. Reagan's close confidant Ed Meese had also supported Brock's ouster, but had been less public about it than the other three.

The Democrats were coping with their own internecine fighting. Jimmy Carter's aides referred to Ted Kennedy as a “fat, spoiled, rich kid.” Teddy's staff returned the kindness, calling Carter “that redneck Southern Baptist.”
¹²

Carter was struggling to get support. In Miami, he was booed lustily, obscene gestures were made in his direction, and bottles were thrown at his motorcade—including his own limousine—by out-of-work blacks. One sign read, “Hail to the Chief Racist.”
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In Washington, his proposal for a new oil import fee was pilloried by members of his own party. At an event on the South Lawn, Carter asked his fellow Democrats for a round of applause supporting the proposal but “the silence was so resounding the English boxwood could be heard growing,” in the words of the
New York Times
.
¹⁴

Though Carter labeled Reagan's economic proposals as “facile” and “ideological nonsense,” he hinted at minor tax cuts and budget cuts to stimulate the economy, a plan that sounded suspiciously like a pale version of “Reaganomics.”
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This time the president was undercut by a member of his own cabinet. Commerce Secretary Philip M. Klutznick said that he “saw no possibility” for tax cuts in 1980.
¹⁶
Federal taxes were scheduled for another rise in January 1981, up billions.

Reagan's men, especially his new ad team, led by Peter Dailey, were only now starting work on their own anti-Carter themes. After four years, there was an embarrassment of riches for the Republicans to mine against the incumbent, but the Gipper's campaign was drifting. Dailey, though talented, was getting little direction from Bill Casey.

Reagan had won the nomination, and now no one seemed to know what to do to gear up for the summer and fall campaigns. The first tier of advisers—Meese, Casey, and Dick Wirthlin—was talented, but the only media schmoozer on the team was Nofziger, who was irreverent to the point of sometimes making jokes at his candidate's expense. With no national political director in place, regional directors went without guidance and the campaign was downright listless. The candidate was being poorly briefed or not at all. The Reagan campaign was making embarrassing mistakes, too. The Gipper had been invited to address the annual meeting of the NAACP, but Reagan's scheduling office and the RNC dropped the ball and left the invitation unanswered for weeks.
¹⁷
By the time the mishap was discovered, there was nothing to do except to politely decline. Carter, Kennedy, and Anderson all spoke before the influential group. The Reagan campaign scrambled to accept the invitation of another African-American organization, the Urban League.
¹⁸

Reagan was in New York for important editorial board meetings with the
New York Times
, but the aides there were vacillating. Reagan was angry, telling them he didn't want any “yes men” around him and “that if they did not level with him, he would take drastic physical retaliation against them.”
¹⁹

Efforts to bring in a top political director were also ineffectual. Bill Timmons had been brought aboard to direct the convention, but was unavailable to
help with anything else. Charlie Black, who had been fired four months earlier, was offering his services to come back, but no one was returning his phone calls. John Sears's onetime protégé David Keene, Bush's former political director, had made too many enemies in the Reagan camp to be seriously considered. He had been “blackballed” by a few Reagan advisers, reported the
Wall Street Journal
.
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And Mrs. Reagan had never been fond of him. Years later, at a Washington dinner, when told she would be seated between Keene and conservative polemicist Pat Buchanan, Mrs. Reagan rolled her eyes heavenward and said sarcastically, “Oh great!”

The Reagan team eventually wised up and let it be known that Timmons, once his duties were done at the convention, would become the campaign's de facto political director.
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The national media liked the soft-spoken Tennessean. He was seen as conservative, but not someone likely to grab you by the lapels. The media backed down on the issue of Reagan's campaign staff—for a time.

J
OHN
A
NDERSON'S INDEPENDENT QUEST
was qualifying for the ballot in more and more states, so the Democratic National Committee set up a $225,000 fund to stop Anderson from succeeding any further.
²²
DNC chairman John C. White, normally unflappable, charged that Anderson and Reagan had hatched a “plot” to stick it to Carter.
²³
Nothing could have been further from the truth; Anderson thought Reagan was not up to the challenge, while Reagan returned Anderson's malice, telling a group of editors that the only Anderson “difference” was “an ego trip.”
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