Rendezvous with Destiny: Ronald Reagan and the Campaign that Changed America

by Shirley, Craig

  Deaver was at his office the next morning when he bumped into Reagan, who'd had an office at Deaver & Hannaford since early 1975. Reagan was deeply bothered by the matter—he hated tension among the staff. He went into Deaver's office, shut the door, and said, “You know, if I knew yesterday what I know today, this would never have happened.” Deaver replied, “You'd better be careful because I have been watching your planning and [you] have nobody now to watch your planning.” Ominously, he said, “These guys, they do not believe what you believe.”26

  Reagan was truly between a rock and a hard place. For ten years, Sears's reputation had grown in the national media's estimation—often nurtured by Sears. To fire Sears now meant that Black and Lake would go, possibly along with many more staffers. The last thing Reagan needed at this point was more embarrassing news stories.

  Deaver, as a small consolation, would become the Reagans' “personal representative” to the Kitchen Cabinet. But he was out of the campaign. The body count of old Reaganites strewn in Sears's wake was growing, but this one really stung Reagan. In many ways, Deaver was a surrogate son to him. More than anybody else, he had devoted his life to the needs of Ron and Nancy Reagan. Yes, the association had been financially advantageous for him, but he also had helped make the Reagans a great deal of money, while providing vital advice and counsel for many years. He'd earned a reputation as an SOB to some, but he also knew that every successful political leader needed such a person to do the nay-saying.

  Deaver had once even saved Ronald Reagan's life. During the 1976 campaign, Reagan was on his campaign plane, playfully tossing peanuts into the air and catching them in his mouth. When one got caught in his throat, some thought the wildly gesticulating Reagan was having a heart attack, but Deaver knew better. He quickly seized Reagan from behind and performed the Heimlich maneuver, sending a fat wad of partially eaten peanuts shooting out of Reagan's mouth.27

  Deaver's departure meant his partner, Peter Hannaford, another friendly face, also was gone from Reagan's orbit. Richard Wirthlin and Ed Meese were about the only familiar faces left around the campaign. Meese was at this point a seemingly nonthreatening issues adviser, while Wirthlin's polling operation was based in Salt Lake City, so Reagan saw him only sporadically—especially since Sears had told him not to do any polling in Iowa because “we've got it locked up.”28 Sears was trying to keep Meese in his place by making cutting remarks behind his back about his organizational skills.

  Meese grew frustrated. Unbeknownst to Sears and company, he hopped aboard a red-eye flight from Los Angeles to Washington for a worried meeting with campaign chairman Paul Laxalt. Laxalt had his own ax to grind, as Sears had already tried to supplant him as chair of the campaign. Meese was steamed about how Sears had forced out Deaver and other old friends, and especially about how he treated Reagan; Lou Cannon wrote in President Reagan: The Role of a Lifetime that Sears “had little respect for Reagan's intelligence or work habits.”29 Sears had gone too far and had made too many adversaries. For the time being, he was in total control of the campaign, and the headquarters was being moved from Los Angeles to Washington, per his instruction. But Reaganites around the country were sticking pins in voodoo dolls bearing his name.

  While Sears had driven out many of Reagan's old advisers, it was certainly not true that, according to a certain mythology that had grown up over the years, Reagan was a pawn of his campaign operatives. Reagan never cared much about the intricacies of a campaign operation. He did care passionately, though, about his freedom-based ideas and about America. If Reagan toned down his message it was because he knew what was at stake. He wasn't running for chairman of the conservative movement. He already had their votes. Reagan understood that millions of Democrats and independents were culturally conservative but that the GOP had repelled them with its country-club image and past corruption. He would direct his message to these people as well. After all, Reagan had grown up a New Deal Democrat.

  THE POLITICAL SEASON WAS roaring along like an eighteen-wheeler, picking up speed, and the best anyone could do was either hang on or get out of the way. Ending up as roadkill was always an option, but not a pleasant one. Howard Baker's campaign was looking more and more like it would be carrion, but he fought on. No one was more affable and kindly in the GOP field than Baker. But his duties as Senate minority leader had kept him from the retail campaigning in which George Bush had been able to engage; he wasn't a telegenic orator like John Connally; nor did he have the deep well of grassroots conservative support to call upon like Ronald Reagan. To jump-start his flagging effort, Baker fired his campaign manager, Don Sundquist, and replaced him with Wyatt Stewart, who had made his bones working for Richard Viguerie and later raising millions for the House Republicans.30 Still, the media were beginning to write Baker off. It was very odd that of the four leading candidates—Reagan, Connally, Bush, and Baker—the last was the only one who had won an election over the previous ten years.

  Bush, meanwhile, was on high octane. He was barnstorming all the important early primary states, and where his speeches and coffees a year earlier would draw a half dozen folks, he was now getting fifty and more at these events. The local media, which had been ignoring Bush, were now sending reporters out to cover him, a sure sign of progress. Even national reporters were beginning to go out on the road with him.

  Bush was having a good time. He had outworked and outhustled the rest of the GOP field, having spent five weeks stumping in New Hampshire, nearly as much time in Florida, and more than three weeks in Iowa in 1978 and 1979. He was following the model of Jimmy Carter, who simply campaigned longer and harder than anyone else did in 1976. Adam Clymer of the New York Times got off one of the best lines of the 1980 campaign, writing of Bush, “There is no track record to suggest that the Republican Party is equally susceptible to guerrilla warfare, even if the Che Guevara of the movement is Yale, oil and banking and a former national party chairman.”31 George Will observed that Bush was “this year's happy warrior, the candidate having the most fun. This nation needs a demonstration that public affairs can be cheerful.”32 Bush was having an especially good time because his son Jeb was traveling often with him. The peripatetic elder Bush had frequently been away from his family over the years and it was in this race that he was able to spend so much personal time with his children, four of whom worked full-time on the campaign.33

  Not all was perfect in Bushville. Bush was not in Reagan and Connally's class as a public speaker, and when this was pointed out, he bristled. Bush said, “To beat ‘the bigger shots’” he would “outorganize 'em, outwork 'em, outspell-out-the-goals-of-the-country 'em.”34 In his now-familiar script, Bush talked to the media and crowds like a campaign manager instead of a leader, rattling off information about his fundraising, his name identification, his experience, his organization.

  The Bush campaign experienced some low drama as well. A married major national political reporter was carrying on affairs simultaneously with two of Bush's female staffers, one in Iowa and the other in Washington. The reporter thought he had them at a safe distance, but when the two women crossed paths on the road and compared notes, they discovered to their surprise that they were sleeping with the same married man. The two ended up in a hair-pulling, screaming fight.35

  While George Bush was doing well overall, Connally was becoming more and more frustrated that he couldn't catch Reagan. He began to attack the Gipper more directly. Connally told audiences that Reagan had cost Gerald Ford the election in 1976 by challenging him in the primaries. He whined that while he was criticized for switching parties, Reagan skated on the issue. He went back thirty years and attacked Reagan for campaigning for Helen Gahagan Douglas against Richard Nixon for the U.S. Senate in California in 1950, but as far as some conservatives were concerned, this was a point in Reagan's favor.36

  Connally absurdly charged that Reagan had broken his own “Eleventh Commandment,” which “Big John” interpreted to mean that one Republican did not criticize another.
What Connally did not understand was that the Eleventh Commandment meant one Republican should not attack another Republican personally. On matters of policy, criticism and honest debate were welcomed and necessary. Indeed, it was the Ford campaign in 1976 that often attacked Reagan personally and not the other way around.

  On one issue, however, Connally, had a point. He hit Reagan for ducking yet another debate, this time the upcoming Des Moines Register and Tribune free-for-all scheduled for January 5, 1980. The now galactically important Iowa caucuses would take place on January 21.37 Puerto Rico entered the fray first with a primary on February 17, followed by the ever-vital New Hampshire primary on February 26. Those thirty-five days between Iowa and New Hampshire would prove to be the most important time in Ronald Reagan's political life.

  FOUR YEARS EARLIER, RONALD Reagan had received 49 percent in an abbreviated Iowa GOP caucus and taken seventeen to Gerald Ford's nineteen Iowa delegate votes in Kansas City. The last reputable Iowa poll had been taken in August 1979 and that had Reagan at a stratospheric 48 percent, Howard Baker at 23 percent, and Bush dead last at 1 percent. All believed that Reagan would swamp the field here in 1980.38

  Reagan, after all, was a local boy who made good. He had gotten his first big break after college as a sports announcer for WOC in Davenport, where he called a college football game that featured Michigan's standout center, Gerald Ford. Dutch Reagan moved to Des Moines in 1933 and spent more than four years on the 50,000-watt WHO station, becoming a minor celebrity in the community.

  Plenty of people in Iowa knew and remembered Dutch Reagan. Now they were angry with their old friend. He'd snubbed them. Reagan's on-the-ground problems in Iowa went hand in hand with the fact that he was ignoring the state. “It's awful hard to run a campaign in Iowa without the candidate here,” said the savvy Iowa GOP chairman, Steve Roberts.39

  With only seven weeks to go before the caucuses, the Reagan for President Committee finally panicked and dispatched Peter McPherson and Kenny Klinge there to see what they could do to repair the situation.40 McPherson had worked for Ford in 1976 in Jim Baker's impressive delegate operation. Klinge had worked for the Reagan campaign in 1976 and was a tough, unflinching conservative infighter. Four years earlier in Kansas City, when Reagan was meeting with his tearful staff, Clarke Reed of Mississippi had walked into the room, uninvited, and tried to make amends for betraying Reagan at the last minute and helping to swing the nomination to Ford by flipping his delegation's votes over to the president. Everybody, including Reagan, swung a cold shoulder toward Reed. Except Klinge. He swung his fists at Reed but was restrained by other staffers. Reed barely escaped.41

  Despite the late start, Reagan's executive director in Iowa, Robert Collins, told reporters, “I'm looking for a majority of the caucus vote and I think I can get that.”42 Not only did he inflate Reagan's chances, but he also lowballed Bush's expected level of support. Collins was not on Bush's payroll, but you couldn't prove that as far as everybody else in the Reagan campaign was concerned.

  Bush had signed up dozens of current and former state GOP officials, including former governor Bob Blue. The current governor, Bob Ray, though officially uncommitted, was thought to be clandestinely supporting Bush. Bush had also recruited some local GOP leaders, including Mary Louise Smith, former chair of the RNC.43

  In December, Sears commissioned a poll in Iowa by the media-shy Arthur Finkelstein, and the results showed Reagan smashing all comers. The best course of action, Sears determined, was to take no action. He kept Reagan out of the line of fire in Iowa—or anywhere else, for that matter.44

  Connally forged ahead, announcing with great fanfare that he was bypassing the matching funds the FEC offered presidential candidates if they complied with a mind-numbing set of rules. In 1980, those who abided by the convoluted system could raise and spend and accept in the form of matching funds only about $16.8 million in the primary season.45 Connally's decision was motivated in part by the fact that he had been unable to implement his big-picture strategy of speaking to the American people directly in order to catch up to the name identification of Carter, Kennedy, and especially Reagan. “Big John” had wanted to buy national television time, but the networks had stuck to their plan of not selling anyone time before the arbitrary start date of January 1, 1980.

  TED KENNEDY WAS ATTRACTING a land rush of media attention, and at any time on his plane there would be seventy or so reporters having a high time. “On the plane itself it is like the kids taking the bus to summer camp, laughs, much badinage between the press and a Kennedy staff that includes speechwriters, press agents and baggage smashers,” wrote Jack Germond mirthfully.46 Kennedy's personal wealth became known: it was around $20 million, and the entire Kennedy family estate was around $400 million. He was, by far, the richest candidate in the race.47

  Yet Carter had halted the bloodletting of his campaign, while Kennedy was being bled white by a carping media and a newly skeptical public. A new national poll showed that Carter had moved into the lead over the prince of Massachusetts, 48–40 percent, among Democratic primary voters. It was the first time in two years that Carter had led Kennedy among Democrats.48 It was an amazing 38 percent net change in the polls in just a little over one month.

  This reversal occurred despite, or in part because of, the fact that Carter had abruptly announced that he would forestall any campaigning while he dealt with the hostage situation in Tehran. Carter was clearly being helped by the ongoing hostage crisis, though he had actually done very little since the Americans had been taken hostage. His aides recognized that by not campaigning formally, Carter was saving hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign travel while staying above the fray of the media and the early contests.

  Carter canceled a debate in Des Moines with Ted Kennedy and Jerry Brown, but in early December, he was forced to confront Kennedy at a Washington benefit for an academic chair at Boston College in the name of Tip O'Neill. Carter and Kennedy sat only a few feet from each other, but still managed never to make eye contact, and the room was thick with intrigue.49

  Carter's point man, the wily Bob Strauss, could teach a fox a thing or two. He managed to convince the media that Carter was an underdog in Iowa because he would be doing no campaigning there while Kennedy was going hell-bent for leather. Further, he said, Carter could sustain a loss there and still go on. His sidekick Tim Kraft agreed and said, “Kennedy has done better than I thought he was going to do in getting organized in Iowa.”50 The media bought the Strauss ploy.

  JOHN CONNALLY WAS BECOMING more and more frustrated over heavyweight contender Reagan. Reagan was still playing the rope-a-dope strategy devised by Muhammad Ali, when the ex-champ let champion George Foreman punch himself into exhaustion in Zaire in 1974. The madder Foreman became, the more Ali lay against the ropes, waiting for Foreman to exhaust himself. Ali regained the title in the eighth round, when he dropped Foreman like third-period French class.

  Big John told reporters that Reagan should “come out of the closet” and debate, a slur on Reagan's manhood. He whined that Reagan had had years to run for president but the networks wouldn't allow Connally to buy broadcast time to try to match Reagan's advantage.51

  Connally also said that Reagan's comments on Iran and the shah had been “more inflammatory” than Kennedy's. Reagan had proposed that America do the moral and courageous thing and grant the dying shah political asylum at a time when the Iranians were demanding his return.52 While everyone—including Connally—was focused on knuckling under to the ayatollah and fretting about the hostages, Reagan was set on a display of strength and courage that would send a message to Iran and the rest of the world not to mess with America. “It's about time,” he said, “that we stopped worrying about what people think about us and say we're going to be respected again.… Isn't it time that never again will a dictator invade an American embassy and take our people hostage?”53

  Reporters clamored for a Reagan response to Connally's newest broadside. They asked whether
Connally was trying to “buy” the election. Reagan deadpanned, “Why, you know, we never use expressions like that under the 11th commandment.”54 Reagan could be a pretty good counterpuncher when he needed to be.

  Still, Reagan's campaign remained disorganized. With so many of his old friends now gone from the plane, he was surrounded by strangers or junior staffers who did not have the stature necessary to tell him when he was botching things, such as by ducking the Des Moines debate. Gerald Ford took a swipe at Reagan for not debating, saying that “those who do not participate will be the losers.”55

  ON ONLY HIS THIRD campaign swing since announcing his candidacy in early November, Reagan declared on December 14 that he would bypass the new Puerto Rico primary. The primary itself was not a big deal, but Reagan had proposed statehood for Puerto Rico in his November announcement and the Republicans there tended to be very conservative, so it should have been a chance for an early win. Reagan was forced to bow out now because his campaign had never gotten organized and didn't have the money to spend. His campaign was continuing to unravel. Reagan told befuddled reporters, “Well … the scheduling of my appearances … are up to the people in the field who have much more knowledge of the political situation than I do. It's my campaign, but there is no way I can be as familiar as they are with where are the spots that I'm needed most in my own behalf or where they can do without me.”56