by Henry Olsen
The Republican wipeout did not affect Reagan, however. He left office with his approval ratings on an upswing, with opinions about his performance in office higher than at any time since 1969.84 His standing with conservatives was much higher both in and outside the state. Even though a Republican, Gerald Ford, had succeeded Nixon as president, many conservatives were encouraging Reagan to launch a primary challenge. Nothing he had done as governor had shaken their belief that he and his views deserved a promotion.
Reagan would soon heed their calls, and in doing so he would rely heavily on his record to prove he could put conservative ideas into action. In announcing his candidacy he said simply that
for eight years in California, we labored to make government responsive. We worked against high odds—an opposition legislature for most of those years and an obstructive Washington bureaucracy for all of them. We did not always succeed. Nevertheless, we found that fiscal responsibility is possible, that the welfare rolls can come down, that social problems can be met below the Federal level.85
Each sentence is carefully worded; taken together, they are a succinct statement of Reagan’s philosophy of government.
The object of government for Reagan was to ensure the popular will be heard and to take care of social problems with as little federal involvement as possible. Thus he sought to make government “responsive,” not “smaller.” He fought to reduce welfare rolls, but not to make welfare “a purely private concern” as Goldwater had argued in Conscience. Note also that he argues for fiscal responsibility, not tax cuts. It’s not that he did not want taxes to be reduced: clearly his statement that “we did not always succeed” refers in part to Proposition 1’s failure. But cutting government for its own sake irrespective of meeting social problems or providing citizens with the levels of education, environmental protection, and transportation they needed was not part of his agenda.
His more detailed defenses of his record in other speeches and private letters demonstrates this more fully. He often mentioned the $5.7 billion he had been able to return to taxpayers in refunds and temporary tax breaks.86 But he also approvingly cited the dramatic increases in per student spending on K–12 education during his terms in office,87 the increased spending on college scholarships and universities,88 and California’s “national model” of mental health treatment.89 The rate of growth in both government spending and state government employment slowed under his leadership, but it neither stopped nor reversed.90
Welfare reform always figured prominently in Reagan’s self-assessment, and his main point was always the balance he struck between the needy and the greedy. He had showed, he believed, that one could be generous to those who needed help while keeping those who didn’t off the public’s payroll.91 Increasing welfare benefits might seem today like an odd thing for a conservative to tout, but neither Reagan nor his adoring audiences cared. Their conservative vision included caring for the poor at the same time as they wanted more of the able-bodied poor to enter the world of work. Self-government included responsibilities as well as rights.
Reagan’s early movie career included a recurring role in a B-movie serial as Brass Bancroft of the US Secret Service. Charming and courageous, Brass always stood up for America, fought the bad guys, and brought them home to justice. As with any movie series of its day or the present, the audience didn’t expect the character to change in each new installment. It came back precisely because it liked the star and wanted to see him meet new challenges and emerge on top.
Reagan left Sacramento to retire to his newly purchased “Rancho del Cielo,” but no one thought he was riding off into the sunset. Reagan was not the retiring type. No one, least of all Reagan, knew what the next few years would bring, but everyone knew the last installment of his new serial had not yet been filmed. His conservative Republican and working-class Democrat fans wanted to see more of their hero, and he was never one to disappoint his fans. Only this time, Brass Bancroft wasn’t going to be working for the higher-ups: he was going for the brass ring himself.
Chapter 6
Reagan’s “Death Valley Days”
Many great statesmen have periods when they appear to be done for, has-beens whose careers ended before they had done anything notable. Lincoln despaired at the age of thirty-nine, a one-term congressman belonging to a failing party. Churchill looked washed up in the 1930s, an aging pol who appeared to increasingly embrace unusual or unpopular causes in a vain effort to reclimb the greasy pole of power. Even Franklin Roosevelt went through a time like this after losing his bid for vice president on the 1920 Democratic ticket, an eight-year period in which he contracted polio and wondered if he would ever walk again, much less satisfy his ambition to emulate his cousin, President Theodore Roosevelt.
The time between leaving the governor’s office in January 1975 and winning the presidency in November 1980 was Reagan’s lean period, his “Death Valley Days.” He would run for president, openly this time, only to fall achingly short at the last actively contested convention of the twentieth century. He would nurse his wounds privately and slowly rebuild his public persona, not knowing if Republicans would accept him four years hence as a twice-defeated candidate. He would furthermore be sixty-nine years old when he ran again; if he won, he would be the oldest man so far ever to be elected president. Would Americans reject him because of his age, afraid he could not withstand the rigors of office?
One thing was certain as he entered this next-to-last phase of his political life: he would run as Ronald Reagan, on the ideas he had formed in days when atomic power and trips to the moon were mere fantasies presented in Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers, and other science fiction movie serials. Many who encountered Reagan for the first time in these years would hear the searing critiques of government, the calls for less bureaucracy and more freedom, and the firm, determined anti-communism and think there was little that government did that Reagan liked aside from fighting Russians. For the young antigovernment right, he was like Moses ready to lead them to the Promised Land. The progressive left, however, viewed him more as a false prophet.
It is easy to see why one could come to these conclusions. Many of Reagan’s most memorable lines were uttered in these years: “The very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism”;1 “Raise a banner of no pale pastels, but bold colors.”2 Taken alone and out of context, these lines could create an impression that Ronald Reagan was an anti–New Deal conservative out to topple Roosevelt’s legacy.
Context, however, matters, and in each case Reagan’s most famous lines were part of an argument that was little different from the one he made in the 1950s and 1960s. If the heart of conservatism was libertarianism, reading the full interview in which he uttered that line made clear that his “libertarianism” was not what libertarians meant by that word. The “bold colors” Reagan offered were merely his innovative, New Deal–friendly conservatism.
The real Reagan was there for all who had eyes to see. In the 1975 interview he gave to the libertarian Reason magazine; in the speeches he gave during his 1976 run for the White House; in the speech he gave in February 1977 to the fourth annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), in which he gave his vision for the “New Republican Party”; and in speeches he gave in the 1980 campaign—in each case the man who had both attacked the growth of government and supported the goals and many of the programs of the New Deal was on full display.
Some on the right saw this. I recall one conversation I had as a freshman in college with an upperclassman who was supporting Illinois Congressman Phil Crane. Crane was running to Reagan’s right, a much younger man who opposed government as much or more. As I waxed rhapsodic about Reagan, the upperclassman told me to look at Reagan’s record as governor. If I did, he said, I would find that Reagan wasn’t really in favor of cutting government. I laughed him off at the time, but I’ve come to see that from his ultraconservative perspective he was absolutely correct.3
Others took more concerted action. The t
hen-new Libertarian Party nominated David Koch, one of the now-famous Koch brothers, as vice president on its ticket so that he could finance its presidential campaign. Running on a platform that was even more antigovernment than that of The Conscience of a Conservative, the party’s presidential candidate, Ed Clark, made clear that if you wanted to really cut taxes and government, Ronald Reagan just wasn’t good enough.4
Another Reagan quality was also on full display during this time: his rejection of ideology. Reagan’s conservatism was founded on principles but rejected the type of litmus-test thinking that forced people into political boxes. Principles were not the enemy of compromise for him, but purity was the enemy of victory. This is especially clear in his 1977 speech to the CPAC convention. In 1960, Barry Goldwater had told conservatives to “grow up” and fight for their principles rather than simply complain. In 1977, Reagan essentially told conservatives to grow up and accept they had to work with people whom they disagreed with on many issues if they were going to save the country they loved.
You wouldn’t be reading this book if the attacks on Reagan from the left and right had succeeded. The fact that they didn’t, the fact that against all odds Ronald Wilson Reagan became the most important and consequential political leader of the last half of the twentieth century, was due entirely to what had started his political career to begin with: his ideas.
One would have received very low odds from a casino in early 1975 on the prospects of Ronald Reagan ever becoming president. The oil crisis, recession, and Watergate scandal had intensified the Democratic Party’s dominance of American politics. Indeed, a GOP pollster, Robert Teeter, told the Republican National Committee that only 18 percent of Americans identified as Republicans.5 Many of those considered themselves moderates or even liberals, and if Reagan did plan to run he would likely have to go through the sitting president, Republican Gerald Ford. The odds were indeed not in Reagan’s favor.
Those poor odds did not deter Reagan, however. He immediately hit the mashed potato circuit, only this time he focused not on paying gigs before local groups but on talking to the conservative activists he would need if he were to run. His first major speech in this effort was made to a new gathering, the annual Conservative Political Action Conference. Addressing its second convention in March, Reagan laid out his agenda and his vision for a conservative future.
This speech is best known for his stirring phrase that a “revitalized” Republican Party should “rais[e] a banner of no pale pastels, but bold colors” that highlight the difference between the parties.6 This is often considered to be a clarion call for hard-core conservatism. In fact, the principles Reagan discussed were quite mild in comparison with what Barry Goldwater had called for just a few years before.
Reagan listed nine principles that represented what a conservative Republican Party should stand for. They were
“fiscal integrity and sound money and above all an end to deficit spending”;
“a permanent limit on the percentage of the people’s earnings government can take without their consent”;
“a genuine tax reform” that would allow people to figure out their tax payment “without having to employ legal help”;
indexing of income tax brackets so people would not be penalized by inflation;
“our belief in a free market as the greatest provider for the people,” a call that included “an end to the nit-picking, the harassment, and over-regulation of business and industry”;
“ways to ward off socialism . . . by increasing participation by the people in the ownership of our industrial machine”;
“holding those who commit misdeeds to personally accountable”;
“mak[ing] it plain to international adventurers that our love of peace stops short of ‘peace at any price’”; and
“maintain[ing] whatever level of strength is necessary to preserve our free way of life.”
There’s nothing here that any conservative today would find objectionable. There’s also, however, nothing here that reiterates the attacks on the size and the scope of government that conservatives had made just a few years before—or that many make today. Reagan was softly presenting conservatives the same argument he had made ten years before in “A Time for Choosing”: we could be for limiting the scope and growth of government without challenging the principles of the public New Deal.
Both Reagan’s discussion of his record as governor and his critique of existing federal policy reinforce this conclusion. He presented his record as one of cutting welfare, implementing “a policy of ‘cut, squeeze, and trim’” to reduce the cost of delivering government services, and returning over $5.7 billion in savings from both to the taxpayers in “rebates, tax reductions, and bridge toll reductions.” While he did not tell his audience he had to raise taxes, he did mention that his welfare reform had increased welfare checks for the needy by an average of 43 percent while reducing the rolls by over 400,000. The clear implication was that conservatism in action was about getting more for less, precisely the attitude Goldwater had criticized as inadequate in Conscience.
His critique of federal policy was similarly limited. He argued for a free-market economy over socialism. He blamed then-rampant inflation on record-high deficit spending and argued for a balanced federal budget—without identifying any programs or spending that he wanted to cut. And he focused on foreign policy, contending that defense spending was being cut too much and that Congress’s refusal to send sufficient arms to the South Vietnamese and Cambodians would embolden Communists and imperil US security. The direction he offered was clearly in opposition to the Great Society and its principle that only government planning, direction, and redistribution could solve America’s problems. But that itself was merely proof that the descendants of Henry Wallace’s Progressives were gaining more control over the Democratic Party itself. It was not proof that Reagan’s conservatism represented a fundamental challenge to the New Deal doctrines underlying the shift away from pre-1932 Hoover Republicanism.
Reagan implied as much early on in his speech. He told conservatives that “our task is to make [the people of America] see that what we represent is identical to their own hopes and dreams of what America can and should be.” Proof that this was possible was provided by a poll that showed a wide gulf between what delegates to the 1972 Democratic convention believed and what Democratic voters believed. Presumably these loyal Democrats had not suddenly been converted to Goldwaterism. Reagan is implying that conservatives believe the same things these Democrats do, which in turn implies that conservatism itself is consistent with the New Deal’s social guarantees.
Conservatives received his message happily, but not all friends of liberty were so appreciative. Libertarians were wary of Reagan and wanted to find out just how far Reagan was willing to go in his attacks on government. They sent one of their leaders, Manny Klausner, the cofounder and then editor of Reason magazine, to interview the former governor to see just whose side he was on.7
The Reason magazine interview is today mainly remembered for a single Reagan line, “The very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism.”8 As one might expect, this quote is often used by libertarian organizations in their fund-raising to imply that Reagan supported their goals. But the truth is more elusive. To paraphrase Inigo Montoya from The Princess Bride: “Libertarian. I do not think Reagan thinks that word means what you think it means.”
Reagan made clear throughout the interview that conservatism might share the libertarian love of individual freedom, but it differed sharply in its willingness to use government for positive ends. Whether the issues discussed concerned domestic and economic policy, social issues, or national defense, Reagan disagreed with his interlocutor on principle every time.
Their disagreements started at the outset over the very purposes of government. In response to a question to state what he believed the “proper functions of government” were, Reagan mentioned police and fire departments. Many libertarians believe th
at fire protection is simply a service that would be better provided on a private market, and it was no surprise to Reagan when Klausner jumped in to question his assertion that public fire departments were a “necessary and proper function of government.” Reagan replied that he was aware of the libertarian argument that fire services had once been privately provided and funded, but that “because of the manner in which we live” public fire departments were justified “because there are very few ways in which you can handle fire in one particular structure today without it representing a threat to others.”
This seemingly minor difference in fact exposed a major principled disagreement. For conservatives like Reagan, the social consequence of an individual’s behavior was a legitimate justification for collective and government action. If an individual could harm you in the future, it was just and proper to restrain that person in some way so that the potential harm never came to fruition. Thus, because a person could choose not to insure himself against harm from fire, and hence could cause you harm if a fire erupted and inevitably spread to your insured dwelling, it was just to force that person to “purchase” fire insurance through taxation to establish a mandatory public fire department.