Reagan
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“a lovefest” packed: “They treated him like a rock star.” Peter Hannaford, interview with author, July 18, 2014.
“who cheered themselves hoarse”: Witcover, Marathon, p. 73.
“He is perceived as a man”: Mary McGrory, “Nixon Could Still Win in New Hampshire,” Washington Post, Sept. 9, 1975.
“He was a hard-right-wing guy”: Jim Lake interview with author, Feb. 25, 2014.
“Once we got Gregg”: John Sears, interview with author, Jan. 30, 2014.
“His heart is in the right place”: Sears, quoted in Jim Lake interview with author, Feb. 25, 2014.
him as “a racist”: John Sears, interview with author, Jan. 30, 2014; also, Jim Lake interview, with author, Feb. 25, 2014.
“Finally, I took him aside”: John Sears, interview with author, Jan. 30, 2014.
TWENTY-SEVEN: “MOMENTUM”
“It’s been said”: RR, from stump speeches, 1974–75, quoted in Craig Shirley, Reagan’s Revolution (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2005), p. 80.
“a horse race”: Jules Witcover, Marathon: The Pursuit of the Presidency, 1972–1976 (New York: Viking, 1977), p. 84.
“stomped out of a strategy”: “He felt it was wrong for Ronald Reagan to be opposing an incumbent president.” Edwin Meese, interview with author, Dec. 19, 2014.
“his candidacy would lead”: Witcover, Marathon, p. 96.
“Well, Governor, I’m very disappointed”: Gerald R. Ford, A Time to Heal (New York: Harper & Row, 1979), p. 333.
“After much thought, I have decided”: Gerald M. Ford, press conference, Nov. 3, 1975, the American Presidency Project, UC–Santa Barbara.
“his presence had become detrimental”: Philip Shabecoff, “Mutual Decision: Vice President’s Letter Gives No Reason for Withdrawal,” New York Times, Nov. 4, 1975, pp. 1, 27.
“Unfortunately,” Spencer says: Stu Spencer, interview with author, July 21, 2014.
“Mr. Nice Guy image”: Peter Goldman, “Can Reagan Stop Ford?” Newsweek, Nov. 24, 1975.
“he plays Presidential politics”: Ibid.
“Polls show the President”: Tony Fuller, “The First Real Test,” Newsweek, Oct. 20, 1975.
“one of the most conservative”: “Reagan Zeroes in on New Hampshire,” Boston Globe, Jan. 4, 1976.
“New Hampshire would establish”: John Sears, interview with author, Jan. 30, 2014.
“was his knockout strategy”: Charlie Black, interview with author, Feb. 25, 2014.
Politics is motion: “The Campaign: A-a-a-a-n-d They’re Off!!! Time, Jan. 19, 1976.
“He was a natural”: John Sears interview, Jan. 30,2014; also Jim Lake interview, Feb. 25, 2014.
“I was scared to death”: Stu Spencer, interview, July 21, 2014.
“He was still harping”: John Sears, interview with author, Jan. 30, 2014.
“a vision of the future”: “Come up with a vision of the future and put it into a speech.” John Sears, quoted in Jeffrey Bell, interview with author, Dec. 19, 2013.
“The press treated the whole thing”: Peter Hannaford, interview with Lou Cannon, Oct. 14, 1981, LCA.
“Earlier that day, every reporter”: “[RR] couldn’t even remember the speech.” Stu Spencer, interview, Jan. 30, 2014.
“throwing elderly people out”: “The Reagan Plan,” New York Times, Jan. 12, 1975.
“If you send these programs”: Jeffrey Bell, interview with author, Dec. 19, 2013.
“I guess I made a mistake”: “Reagan Conceding ‘Mistake’ Attempts to Clarify Program,” New York Times, Jan. 13, 1976.
“We win New Hampshire”: John Sears, quoted in Jim Lake interview with author, Feb. 25, 2014.
If Reagan polled between: Attributed to Hugh Gregg, in Peter Hannaford, The Reagans: A Political Portrait (New York: Coward-McCann, 1983), p. 96.
Toward the end of January: “The Campaign,” Time, Jan. 19, 1976; Jim Lake interview with author, Feb. 25, 2014.
Abortion “on demand”: “Reagan Affirms Anti-Abortion Stand,” New York Times, Feb. 8, 1976.
“if you are a slum dweller”: “Welfare Queen Becomes Issue in Reagan Campaign,” New York Times, Feb. 15, 1976; Washington Star, Feb. 15, 1976.
“has 80 names”: “Welfare Queen,” New York Times.
“He devoted hours to reading”: John Sears, interview with author, Jan. 30, 2014.
“Reagan wouldn’t do the homework”: Jeffrey Bell, interview with author, Dec. 19, 2013; Jeffrey Bell, “The Candidate and the Briefing Book,” The Weekly Standard, Feb. 5, 2001.
Reagan looked it up: “That was all he needed to get very interested in it.” Peter Hannaford, interview with author, July 18, 2014.
“We bought it”: RR, quoted in Hannaford, The Reagans, pp. 76–77.
“it brought the house down”: David Keene, interview with author, Oct. 23, 2014.
Subsequently, in one of his: RR, radio broadcasts, tape 75-10/track 6, recorded May 1975, Hoover Institution, Stanford University.
“our government had maintained”: RR, quoted in Witcover, Marathon, p. 402.
“speak from the heart”: Peter Hannaford, interview with author, July 18, 2014.
“I worked Reagan hard”: John Sears, interview with author, Jan. 30, 2014.
“We’d create an event”: Jim Lake, interview with author, Feb. 25, 2014.
“a kind of soft-sell”: Witcover, Marathon, p. 197.
“There is power”: Stu Spencer, interview, July 21, 2014.
“I want Mel Thomson”: RR, quoted in Jim Lake, interview with author, Feb. 25, 2014.
“It was a complete disaster”: Ibid.
A bucket of chilled bottles: “The Nation: How Ford Won and Reagan Lost,” Time, Mar. 8, 1976.
“We were still holding out hope”: Charlie Black, interview with author, Feb. 25, 2014.
“to act like we’re ahead”: Ibid.
“We could never come back”: David Keene, interview with author, Oct. 23, 2014.
Social Security might be: RR, quoted in David E. Rosenbaum, “Social Security a Major Issue in Florida as Primary Day Nears,” New York Times, Mar. 5, 1975.
“They made Reagan sound”: Charlie Black, interview with author, Feb. 25, 2014.
“the personality a President”: “Florida’s Elderly Raise Hopes of Ford and Jackson,” David E. Rosenbaum, New York Times, Mar. 6, 1976, p. 11.
“Florida is really the key”: Gerald Ford, quoted in Witcover, Marathon, p. 403.
“We came up like a skyrocket”: Jon Nordheimer, “Reagan Will Stay in Race; Denies Ford Won Triumph,” New York Times, Mar. 11, 1976.
The Ford people orchestrated: “Rogers Morton . . . began to put together announcements from prominent Republican members of Congress.” Hannaford, The Reagans, p. 106; Peter Hannaford, interview with author, July 18, 2014.
Even Nancy Reagan considered: “We were in High Point, [NC], and Nancy started thinking, ‘Maybe it’s time to bow out. We’re going to lose here.’ ” Peter Hannaford, interview with author, July 18, 2014.
“I wanted to cut a deal”: John Sears, interview with author, Jan. 30, 2014.
Some reports put: Shirley, Reagan’s Revolution, p. 159.
it was closer to $2 million: Peter Hannaford, interview with author, July 18, 2014; John Sears, interview with author, Jan. 30, 2014; Hannaford, The Reagans, p. 107; “The campaign was $1,167,000 in debt when I came in.” Darrell Trent, interview with author, Aug. 26, 2014.
“Why aren’t we taking off?”: Peter Hannaford, interview with author, July 18, 2014; Paul Laxalt, Nevada’s Paul Laxalt: A Memoir (Reno, NV: Jack Bacon & Co., 2000), pp. 291–92.
hadn’t taken a paycheck: David Keene, quoted in Witcover, Marathon, p. 410.
“It was hand-to-hand”: Charlie Black, interview with author, Feb. 25, 2014.
“Pet
e, we have five hundred”: Peter Hannaford, interview with author, July 18, 2014.
“It’s fifty-five to forty-five”: Frank Reynolds, quoted in Ibid.; Martin Anderson, interview, MCPA, Dec. 12, 2001, p. 29.
“Okay, I win”: Martin Anderson, interview, MCPA, Dec. 12, 2001, p. 29.
“This is a turning point”: “We were in Indianapolis when he got the news about Texas.” Darrell Trent, interview with author, Aug. 26, 2014.
“We’re way ahead”: Wayne King, “Reagan Predicts First-Ballot Victory,” New York Times.
Five weeks before: “The situation is highly volatile.” “Republicans: They’re So Close,” Time, July 19, 1976.
“Acquire delegates, protect your delegates”: James A. Baker III, quoted in Jeremy W. Peters, “Potential G.O.P. Convention Fight Puts Older Hands in Sudden Demand,” New York Times, April 18, 2016.
“The Ford campaign”: Ibid.
John Sears needed: “I knew maybe a month and a half before we gathered in Kansas City that I was going to have to do something.” John Sears, interview with author, Jan. 30, 2014.
“was in danger”: Martin Anderson, “Schweiker,” a chapter in an unpublished manuscript, p. 3.
“was too much of a stretch”: John Sears, interview with author, Jan. 30, 2014.
“a very liberal guy”: Charlie Black, interview with author, Feb. 25, 2014.
a 100 percent rating: David. M. Alpern, “Reagan’s Last Gamble,” Newsweek, Aug. 9, 1976.
“dressed like a Cleveland”: David Keene, interview with author, Oct. 23, 2014.
“easy to like”: Anderson, “Schweiker,” p. 24.
“I’ve made a decision”: RR, quoted in Witcover, Marathon, p. 461.
“When I heard about it”: David Keene, interview with author, Oct. 23, 2014.
“was so shaken”: Tom Wicker, “The Reagan Gamble,” New York Times, Aug. 1, 1976.
“were alter egos”: Author interview with Darrell Trent, Aug. 26, 2014.
“were stunned and outraged”: Alpern, “Reagan’s Last Gamble.”
“Reagan has scuttled”: John Connally, quoted in Ibid.
“I’m not a lawyer”: Jimmy Carter, quoted in Richard Reeves, Old Faces of ’76 (New York: Harper & Row, 1976), p. 15.
“to bind our people together”: Jimmy Carter, quoted in Elizabeth Drew, American Journal: The Events of 1976 (New York: Random House, 1977), p. 38.
“119 delegates remaining”: Margot Hornblower, “Reagan, Schweiker Pick Up 6 Delegates in Northeast,” Washington Post, Aug. 6, 1976.
“Mr. Reagan about 100”: Douglas E. Kneeland, “Reagan Wooing Delegates and Arguing Rules Change,” New York Times, Aug. 17, 1976.
“a desperate-hours attempt”: David M. Alpern, “How Ford Did It,” Newsweek, Aug. 30, 1976.
“We knew 16-C”: Charlie Black, interview with author, Feb. 25, 2014.
“Nancy and I aren’t going”: Jon Nordheimer, “Reagan, On Dais, Spurs Party On,” New York Times, Aug. 20, 1976.
“I’m sorry that you all”: RR, quoted in NR/MT, p. 193.
“I feel at peace with myself”: Nordheimer, “Reagan, On Dais.”
“He almost certainly believed”: Hannaford, The Reagans, p. 137.
TWENTY-EIGHT: THE FRONT-RUNNER
“I’m at peace with the world”: “Reagan Will Not Bar Another Try in 1980,” New York Times, Nov. 3, 1976.
The country’s military’s dwindling preparedness: “He felt that with détente we were failing. . . . It was wrong, and as a result, our national security was endangered.” Edwin Meese, interview with author, Dec. 9, 2014.
“America’s longing to withdraw inward”: RR, speech to Young Americans for Freedom, quoted in James Reston, “Reagan on Panama,” New York Times, Aug. 28, 1977.
“courting conservatives who now call”: RR, quoted in Jon Nordheimer, “Reagan Urges His Party to Save Itself by Declaring Its Conservative Beliefs,” New York Times, Dec. 16, 1976.
“the New Majority”: RR first used this term in an interview with a reporter days after Jimmy Carter’s election in 1976. Jon Nordheimer, “Reagan Hints at Active Role in Shaping G.O.P. Future,” New York Times, Nov. 5, 1976. He then began using it in speeches as well as in interviews with the press.
he’d scotched that option: “I will absolutely never take that job.” “The Nation: Reagan ‘I Don’t Want Another 1964,’” Time, Aug. 2, 1976; “I just wasn’t interested in being vice-president.” AAL, p. 202.
the job was never offered: “They didn’t want to offer it; it’s the last thing in the world they would have done.” John Sears, interview with author, Jan. 30, 2014; Ford’s people “absolutely refused to discuss the possibility of picking Reagan.” Lyn Nofziger, Nofziger (Washington, DC: Regnery, 1991), pp. 202–3.
“He was turning blue”: Darrell Trent interview, Aug. 26, 2014.
“Heart attack! Give”: Nancy Reagan, My Turn, p. 183.
whose price tag for tuition: “Tuition Costs Will Increase at Yale,” Anne Barrett, Harvard Crimson, Jan. 26, 1977.
“His income from these activities”: Nordheimer, “Reagan Hints at Active Role.”
“Nobody planted the seeds”: Stu Spencer, interview, July 21, 2014.
“Folks came away with”: “It was ingenious.” Peter Hannaford, interview with author, July 18, 2014.
“Lyn was someone, I suspect”: Edwin Meese, interview with author, Dec. 9, 2014.
“He was a loose cannon”: Jim Lake interview with author, Feb. 25, 2014.
“Oh, I wish he wouldn’t”: NR, quoted in Ibid.
“Nancy thought of Lyn”: Edwin Meese, interview with author, Dec. 9, 2014.; “Nancy Reagan didn’t like him at all—the way he looked and acted.” Sheila Tate, interview with author, Oct. 3, 2014.
“He did not dress to impress”: Carolyn Deaver, interview with author, Mar. 17, 2015.
“From the very start”: NR/MT, p. 238; “Nancy and I hit it off from the very beginning.” Michael K. Deaver with Mickey Herskowitz, Behind the Scenes (New York: William Morrow & Co., 1987), p. 39.
“In that respect, from the beginning”: Deaver, Behind the Scenes, p. 47.
“Mike was emotionally tied”: Sheila Tate, interview with author, Oct. 3, 2014.
“Mike had a great gift”: Peter Hannaford, interview with author, July 18, 2014.
“He babysat their son”: George Steffes, interview with author, July 17, 2014.
“I had never known anyone”: Deaver, Behind the Scenes, p. 40.
“He was the first priority”: Michael Deaver, interview, MCPA, Sept. 12, 2002, p. 5.
the fey, gossipy friend: Carolyn Deaver, interview with author, Mar. 17, 2015.
“had the personality”: Nancy Clark Reynolds, quoted in Bob Colacello, Ronnie and Nancy (New York: Warner Bros., 2004), p. 370.
“Deaver was a great piano player”: George Steffes, interview with author, July 17, 2014.
“He was her eyes and ears”: John Sears, interview with author, Jan. 30, 2014.
“One thing you learn”: Nofziger, Nofziger, p. 300.
“a tenacious opponent”: Deaver, Behind the Scenes, p. 111.
When appropriate, he gamely conspired: “Some of it was sort of a conspiracy between the two of us.” Deaver, interview, MCPA, Sept. 12, 2002, p. 16.
“Deaver knew how to deal”: James Kuhn, interview with author, Nov. 20, 2013.
“she didn’t trust that many”: James Kuhn, interview with author, Oct. 1, 2014.
Both men were convinced: “By early 1978 we all thought he’d decided to run again.” Nofziger, Nofziger, p. 221.
“wouldn’t rule out”: RR, quoted in “Reagan Will Not Bar Another Try in 1980,” New York Times, Nov. 3, 1976.
“the reluctant candidate”: AAL, pp. 203–4.
“Reagan was less than”: Richard Allen, intervi
ew with author, Aug. 14, 2014.
“look-and-listen visits”: Peter Hannaford, The Reagans: A Political Portrait (New York: Coward-McCann, 1983), p. 156.
“We wanted to present Reagan”: Peter Hannaford, interview with author, July 18, 2014.
“And as far as I know”: Ibid.
“Those beyond this wall”: RR, syndicated newspaper column, Dec. 18, 1978, Hoover Institution archives.
“You know, Dick, we’ve got”: Richard Allen, interview, MCPA, May 28, 2002, p. 32.
“I liked her immediately”: RR, quoted in AAL, p. 204.
She was first and foremost: “She was a policy wonk and, like Reagan, a political junkie.” Richard Allen, interview with author, Aug. 14, 2014.
“two peas in a pod”: Peter Hannaford, interview with author, July 18, 2014; Peter Hannaford, interview, MCPA, Jan. 10, 2003, p. 60.
“the challenge to diminish”: Martin Anderson, Revolution (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1988), p. 72.
“A nuclear war couldn’t”: AAL, p. 258.
“I’ve always liked the idea”: RR, quoted in Anderson, Revolution, p. 73; Peter Hannaford, interview, MCPA, Jan. 10, 2003, p. 65.
closest advisers “just smiled”: Ibid., p. 73.
“whatever we may think”: RR, address to Conservative Political Action Conference, Washington, DC, Mar. 17, 1978.
“owners would have to foot”: RR, syndicated newspaper column, October 1978, reprinted in Hannaford, The Reagans, p. 185.
“ballot measures . . . that advanced”: Hannaford, The Reagans, p. 184.
“I believe interrupting a pregnancy”: RR, interview with Lou Cannon, Oct. 15, 1979, LCA, p. 12.
“There were other serious problems”: AAL, p. 205.
“Age should be the least”: RR, quoted in Nordheimer, “Reagan Urges His Party to Save Itself.”
“People don’t knock him”: James Doyle, “Tales of a Reagan Field Organizer,” Newsweek, Nov. 5, 1979, p. 53.
“Love Ronald Reagan”: Connie Steward, “Reagan Not Too Old to be President,” Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, Aug. 30, 1979.
“thirty-nine or younger”: “I didn’t feel any different or any older than I’d always felt.” AAL, pp. 206–7.
“Look, it’s steady as a rock”: Tom Mathews, “The Leading Man,” Newsweek, Oct. 1, 1979.