But the campaign's problems were real—so real that Reagan convened an emergency meeting of his high command in Chicago. There, Nancy Reagan—once described as a “Metternich in Adolfo dresses”14—sternly pulled his advisers aside and demanded to know what had happened.15 Before the strategy session, the plan had been for Reagan to visit New Hampshire for a half day the week following Iowa, and then to conduct an abbreviated four-day tour of other primary states before going back to Los Angeles. Incredibly, at this meeting the campaign altered nothing about the plan.
Later, at a press conference, Reagan had to fend off rumors that he was unhappy with Sears and Charlie Black. He took responsibility for the loss in Iowa, following Nofziger's long-distance advice. But Reagan specifically mentioned Ed Meese's name to the media as being in on the emergency strategy meeting. It was significant.
The long knives were out for Sears, less so for Black and press secretary Jim Lake. Sears had wagered that old Reagan hands could be forced out, that he could spend money incautiously, that he could keep Reagan under wraps for more than a year, and that he could hold Reagan's most fervent conservative supporters at arm's length and still win the nomination. His gamble was not paying off for the Gipper. The campaign had raised about $7 million but had little to show for it and little left to spend.16 Reaganites “wanted the head of … John Sears,” as the Los Angeles Times reported.17 Nancy Reagan called Wirthlin to tell him she thought “Sears had to go,” intimating that her husband's doubts were also growing.18
Lake suspected something was going down. Bob Novak asked him point-blank about a “breakup” and a “coup.” Lake professed ignorance and chalked it up to the usual campaign intrigue, but he grew worried when his aide, Linda Gosden, ran into the mysterious attorney William Casey, a veteran of the Nixon administration, on an elevator accompanied by Dick Allen, Reagan's principal foreign-policy adviser.19 Casey was also spotted going through the financial books at the L.A. offices.
Meese, Reagan's old counselor and friend from his Sacramento days who was now working on issues for the campaign, began to quietly flex his muscles. He was the only major Reaganite other than Dick Allen and Dick Wirthlin who hadn't yet been taken out by Sears. Meese went back many years with Mike Deaver, Peter Hannaford, Marty Anderson, and Nofziger. They all had special, personal relationships with Reagan as well. Deaver was in many ways a surrogate son to the Reagans. Anderson and Reagan played word games and often had deep philosophical discussions and exchanged books and articles. Hannaford was mannerly, understated, with a wry sense of humor that the Reagans enjoyed. He was also one of Reagan's favorite speechwriters. Blunt-talking, ribald, and disheveled, Nofziger was never much loved by Nancy Reagan, yet she knew how fond her husband was of Lyn and how effective he was as a political operative. He and Reagan told each other dirty jokes, and in private, Nofziger called Reagan “Ron,” not “Governor” as everybody else did. Reagan, in turn, had a pet name for Franklyn Nofziger, calling him “Lynwood.” Nofziger was a hero of World War II as a U.S. Army Ranger on Omaha Beach on June 6, 1944. Nazi shrapnel had carried away two fingers from his left hand. Reagan was always a sucker for war heroes.
Meese, a graduate of Yale with a law degree from Berkeley, had been in the middle of a successful career in law enforcement and gaining respect in California's conservative policy circles just as Reagan was gearing up for his first run for governor. Quiet and analytical, he knew Reagan's mind and Reagan's thinking better than anyone except Nancy Reagan and Paul Laxalt.
Increasingly distressed over both the dismissal of his friends and the faltering campaign, not to mention Reagan's sinking mood, Meese moved quietly behind the scenes. He told Reagan frankly that Sears had to be either reassigned or let go from the campaign. Otherwise, Reagan would never be president. Wirthlin and Senator Laxalt supported him in this. Tension already existed between Wirthlin and Sears, who said years later that the pollster “couldn't see a trend if it jumped on his head.”20 Laxalt had resented Sears ever since Sears had attempted to replace him with Jack Kemp as campaign chairman.
Meese met with the “Executive Committee,” an expanded version of the Kitchen Cabinet that had supported and advised Reagan since the mid-1960s. Meese told the committee that if Sears remained in charge, Reagan was “doomed.”21
When Mike Deaver was shunted aside in November, he had been given what was thought to be a meaningless job as the liaison between the campaign and the Executive Committee. But Reagan turned to his old friends for advice as the Sears controversy grew, and Deaver suddenly had supporters on the Executive Committee who thought it was time for Sears to go. A conspiracy was forming to take out Sears. Casey had a hush-hush dinner in Los Angeles with Meese and Deaver and told them about the campaign's bleak finances.22
Reagan's New Hampshire operation moved ahead without consulting Sears, as did independent groups all wanting to help the Gipper. Sears, the accused control freak, was losing control.
REAGAN STEPPED UP HIS rhetoric on the stump—though not his time. He said that Carter was “weak, deceitful, or a fool” for his tepid response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Then he went after Carter too hard, saying, “We are seeing the same kind of atmosphere as when Neville Chamberlain went tapping his cane on the cobblestones of Munich.”23 Later that day Reagan had to apologize to Carter for the harsh comparison to the flaccid British prime minister who had appeased the Nazis.
Once more Reagan was confronted with questions about his age. Reporters noted that he stumbled over several words in his “Neville Chamberlain” speech. He also became embroiled in a hypothetical discussion of whether he would step down as president if his health failed him. Reagan, ever polite in such settings, tried to deal with the asinine question, saying, “If that were ever a possibility, I'd be the first to recognize it, and the first to step down.”24
Reagan did not stop taking a hard line. He denounced Carter's weakness in dealing with Iran, and called the president's proposal to restart Selective Service registration for young American men a “meaningless gesture” that would only “create a new bureaucracy.”25 Reagan opposed peacetime registration in a bow to his libertarian streak.26 He returned to the Soviet question in a 60 Minutes interview when he said that the Carter administration could have blockaded Cuba as a response to Soviet troops and fighter jets there. This comment, too, put him on the defensive; soon he was pleading to reporters, “I am not a warmonger.”27
Reagan was stumbling on issues he'd owned for years—national defense and foreign policy. Foreign policy was Bush's strong suit. Fortunately for Reagan, the new front-runner was reluctant to get off his idiom of “Big Mo.” Never big on ideas, Bush didn't get off the “Big Mo” in part because he didn't have anything to say, at least that he felt comfortable with.
Reagan had previously speculated that he, like Connally, might not take federal matching funds because he was philosophically opposed to taxpayer-financed elections. But in an awful show of weakness, he finally acceded to taking the first installment of $100,000 from the government because of the deplorable shape of his campaign's finances. In 1980, under FEC laws, a campaign could spend just under $17 million in the primaries, and the expenditure in each state was limited by a mind-numbingly complicated formula.28 Reagan's campaign, under Sears, had squandered millions. Reagan told reporters that his campaign was having “cash-flow problems” and “there may have been a top echelon of executives in the campaign who have delayed taking [their salaries] because of cash flow.” In fact, eight senior members of the campaign had gone off payroll in December and did not expect to begin being paid again until April. More went off the payroll in January. Lake said this was voluntary, but it was, in fact, essential. Staffers were told they would have to go without pay indefinitely.29
Reagan finally arrived in New Hampshire on January 28 and aimed more fiery rhetoric at Carter's foreign policy. Carter insisted that the Soviets withdraw from Afghanistan by February 20 or he would lead a world boycott of the Moscow Summer Olymp
ics.
Carter was showing small signs of faltering. The media reported that Rosalynn Carter was becoming more involved in policy decisions in the White House, advocating drafting women, and it was later learned that she was sitting in on cabinet meetings. Ted Kennedy, however, was still not landing any punches. A Washington wag summed up how the world situation had helped the president: “Carter should deduct the Ayatollah as a campaign expense.”30
REAGAN SWITCHED TACTICS FROM foreign policy to economics, giving speeches calling for the elimination of the federal inheritance tax, which sounded like a sop to the rich, and eliminating the minimum wage, which sounded like a sop to business.
As his campaign floundered, he decided abruptly that the GOP “cattle shows” were not such a bad thing and announced he would participate in one scheduled for South Carolina on February 28, just two days after the New Hampshire primary. But if Reagan lost again in New Hampshire, it would be a moot point. Bush accepted two invitations to debate in New Hampshire, but only if Reagan would agree to debate as well. Jim Baker, Bush's manager, said his goal was to “smoke Reagan out. We want to debate him.… We want him in New Hampshire.”31 Reagan was a wounded animal and the pack was on his trail.
Even though Reagan had accepted the invitation to debate in South Carolina, he waffled on any New Hampshire forum that might “divide” the Republican Party.32 One was a League of Women Voters debate that had been scheduled for February 19 in Manchester, just seven days before the primary; all the candidates had accepted the invitation except Reagan.33 The other debate under discussion was buried in most media reports; sponsored by the Nashua Telegraph, it would be for Bush and Reagan alone. The Telegraph had called a bluff by Jerry Carmen, Reagan's Granite State manager, who said that his man would debate Bush one-on-one. Carmen had made the challenge in order to buy time for Reagan and without asking anyone's approval.34 But the disorganized national Reagan campaign did not respond to the Telegraph's invitation. The paper's managing editor, John Stylianos, complained, “We couldn't get hold of Reagan. It's up to Reagan. Nothing has jelled.”35 For Reagan, the decision was call or fold.
Two competing power factions in the Reagan operation were at odds on the debate issue. On one side were Sears, Lake, and Black, who did not want to commit Reagan to any kind of debate in New Hampshire. Leading the other faction was Carmen, who thought that Sears and company had thoroughly botched Iowa and who knew that Reagan had a tendency to coast if he wasn't challenged. On his own, Carmen began telling the media that Reagan would debate all comers in New Hampshire. The tension would continue to mount in the short amount of time before the February 26 primary.
The whole matter of who wants to debate depends on where one stands in the polls. The conventional wisdom held that candidates or incumbents in the lead should not or would not debate, while those behind needed to change the subject and get the front-runner engaged. Bush's campaign had agreed to all debates before the stunning win in Iowa and before its own polling data showed Bush pulling out to a healthy lead in New Hampshire. Bush strategists began second-guessing their quick “yes” answers to all future joint appearances, which of course were what the other candidates wanted. Bush now wanted Reagan in a one-on-one showdown in the belief that he could finally show him to be a doddering old rigid fool. Sears wasn't so sure of either.
With the dynamics having also changed radically in the Democratic race since the late summer, Jimmy Carter flip-flopped his position on debating. When Carter was light-years behind Kennedy, he was eager to debate Teddy. Now that he was far ahead in the polls—54–36 in New Hampshire, according to a Gallup poll—Carter wanted no part of a debate.36 Kennedy, having been run over and thrown into a ditch in Iowa, was cloyingly trying to get Carter to agree to a debate, but Carter brushed Kennedy off like some panhandler on the streets of Manchester.
Kennedy pulled off the road to reassess. Up until this point, there had been no rationale for a Kennedy bid except that he wasn't Carter; that might have sufficed but for the numerous foreign-policy crises that had exploded. In an effort to restart his campaign, Kennedy gave a barnburner speech at Georgetown University in which he chided Carter for his brand of liberalism and restated his own devotion to big-government liberalism.37 If he was going to crash and burn, at least he wanted to go down knowing he'd said what was really on his mind.
Kennedy had finally outlined a theme for his flagging effort. Though his campaign remained a mess, deeply in debt, his speech immediately boosted his spirits and those of his few but fervent supporters.
One Irishman in the Democratic Party with the will to soldier on and stand by his principles was making a fight of it. No one knew whether the Irishman in the GOP was ready to do the same.
REAGAN WASTED MORE TIME playing defense. He lurched back toward foreign policy. His previous position on blockading Cuba, Reagan now said, was only “hypothetical.” After he huddled with his foreign-policy adviser, Richard Allen, Reagan issued a statement in an attempt to clarify things. Reagan's statement said, “It's time to stop pretending that détente with the Soviet Union is still alive.… I say that Carter has the means at his disposal to stop” Soviet adventurism.38 He told reporters that the blockade proposal was only one option and that he was not advocating using it—even though he thought Carter could have or should have used it. He also said he wasn't backing away from his earlier advocacy of using a blockade—even though he would not say whether he would use one if he was president.
Everybody was now thoroughly confused. Ironically, Reagan said, “We need to send the Soviet Union an unmistakable signal, one that they can understand.”39 Unfortunately, Reagan wasn't even sending his own supporters a message they could understand.
Yet another precious day trying to get back on the offense was lost. The defensive posture was especially frustrating to Reaganites given that Carter had told a group of reporters, absurdly, that the Soviets posed no military threat to the Caribbean—this despite the fact that the Soviets had been aiding Cuba for years and had begun funding the Communist government of Nicaragua. Carter had further said that he would not promise to use the U.S. military to defend the Caribbean if the Kremlin did have designs on it. Reagan called Carter's comments “incredible,” but the story was lost in his own controversy.40
REAGAN GOT A LITTLE good news—the first in weeks—when he took six of twelve of the initial delegates selected in Arkansas, even though he had not campaigned there. Howard Baker took four Arkansas delegates. Bush surprisingly got only one delegate despite having committed serious resources to Arkansas. His aides had confidently predicted that their man would do well. It was their first real tactical mistake in an otherwise error-free campaign. Bush petulantly complained to UPI, “It's obvious to me that the Reagan and Baker people sided up against me.”41
One delegate of the twelve remained uncommitted. This meant that John Connally had been skunked in Arkansas, even after he had spent thousands there to fete party officials. He went through yet another campaign shake-up, as manager Eddie Mahe was kicked upstairs to handle “policy and strategy.” If Connally had listened to Mahe from the beginning, he might have been in better shape.
Reagan's campaign moved ahead, albeit in a desultory fashion. He made a three-day swing that ended up in Minneapolis, but not once in that time did he emerge from his cloistered compartment in the front of the plane to meet the press. His flight out of Minnesota was delayed because of weather and Reagan finally came out of seclusion, but only to stand off in the corner of the airport and talk with some starry-eyed young staffers about Hollywood, being a lifeguard, and growing up in the Midwest. As the “gentlemen of the press” headed for the bar, Reagan instead reenacted a scene from an old movie to the delight of the young Reaganites. “Mouth twisted into a grotesque half-grin, eyes out of focus, he lurched forward, slurring his words as if drunk,” one reporter recounted.42
A long piece in the Los Angeles Times was filled with wistful observations about Reagan and his faltering effort�
�as if his campaign were all over. The feeling of excitement in a presidential campaign, the Times reporter wrote, “does not last.… At least, not on the Reagan campaign trail.”43 The Gipper's campaign was spiraling down, as was his battered mood. In Florida, Reagan dejectedly told a crowd, “Way down deep inside me … I believe one of my advantages is that I'm not running for reelection … to hell whether there's a second term.”44 The room was filled with embarrassed silence.
One saddened supporter at the event said, “I just wish he wouldn't stand there and tell us he might drop dead.”45
The bastards had finally gotten to Reagan.
Even he now seemed resigned to the prospects of his advancing years. He'd publicly laughed the issue off, tossed off jokes, released medical reports, and looked and acted to all like a man years younger. But his enemies wouldn't let it go, chewing on Reagan's age like a mongrel dog on a soup bone. “Reagan dyes his hair,” “Reagan uses makeup,” “Reagan had a facelift” (curious because his enemies also went out of their way to point out his wrinkles), “Reagan is hard of hearing”—all the lies and mean-spirited venom, emanating from his own party, had undermined the Gipper.
Rendezvous with Destiny: Ronald Reagan and the Campaign that Changed America Page 17