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

by Shirley, Craig

  Phil Crane was going after Reagan in New Hampshire, hoping, as one news report said, to feed “off Reagan's carcass.”25 But Crane had taken only 7 percent in Iowa, and was reduced to saying he'd be happy with a fourth-place finish in New Hampshire.

  John Connally was not actively campaigning in New Hampshire and his drive for the White House had gone on life support. His “friends” in corporate America were turning to George Bush, as he looked to be a better bet against Reagan and Carter than Connally. Dun's Review surveyed 225 business executives and Bush was their overwhelming choice.26 Connally was forced to borrow $500,000 because his campaign had spent lavishly, including, so far, more than $2.6 million just on the payroll. Over half the campaign staff of 140 was laid off and Big John replaced Eddie Mahe with Charles Keating. Connally may have won the 1980 prize for insensitivity when he referred to his former hardworking but now laid-off staff as “short-term volunteer help.”27

  Reagan's organization in New Hampshire was in good hands. Carmen's efforts had been hampered for the past year, as he rarely had a candidate on hand to tell his story to the voters. But now that Reagan had abandoned Sears's plan for limited campaigning in New Hampshire, Carmen would have the Gipper for sixteen full days.

  Reagan hit the road hard in New Hampshire on February 5. He spoke at ten events that day, campaigning until almost midnight the day before his sixty-ninth birthday, or as he referred to it, the “thirtieth anniversary of my thirty-ninth birthday.”28 At nearly every stop, Reagan was serenaded with “Happy Birthday.” Mrs. Reagan served him cake at each stop and Reagan, with his sweet tooth, ate with relish. The last cake of the day fortunately had only three candles on it for Reagan to blow out. He joked that you know you are too old to be president “when your knees buckle and your belt won't.”29

  Despite the exhausting schedule, being back out on the stump revived Reagan. “His ready smile and good color made him seem all the more energetic and youthful in the crisp February air,” remembered Peter Hannaford.30 Reagan, Ed Meese later recalled, “campaigned in fire halls … in coffee shops, church basements, wherever they got a few people together.”31 Reagan, the old jock, was working out the kinks, finding his form again.

  The hole Reagan had dug himself was deep, though. When U.S. News & World Report surveyed 475 members of the Republican National Committee and the state parties, it showed that they favored Bush over Reagan and thought the best nominee for the GOP would be a “philosophical moderate.”32 One Republican state chairman said that Reagan's intellect was “thinner than spit on a slate rock.”33 According to a Newsweek survey, in just ten days Bush's “favorable” rating among Republicans had jumped from 20 percent to an amazing 62 percent nationally.34

  In New Hampshire, Bush was getting large crowds and was outspending his opponent.35 Some of Bush's in-state supporters had an atrocious opinion of Reagan. The twenty-six-year-old mayor of Franklin, Stuart Trachy, said bluntly, “Reagan is a loser.”36 Bush was unfazed when asked about the Reagan campaign's claim that the Gipper “would take off the gloves when he got to New Hampshire and put Bush in his place.” He replied, “Hooray! Reagan didn't even know I existed. Four or five weeks ago, I wasn't in the race as far as he was concerned.”37

  In a clear sign that Reagan was breaking from John Sears's reins, the Gipper admitted that he had made a mistake in refusing to debate in Iowa, and announced that he would attend all debates in New Hampshire. The old proverb was that “in poker, the losers yell 'deal,'” and the add-on in politics was, “in campaigns, they yell 'debate.'” Reagan was now yelling for a debate because he was losing the GOP nomination to the hard-charging Bush.38

  Carmen, meanwhile, continued his efforts to arrange a one-on-one debate between Reagan and Bush—again without ever asking anybody at Reagan Central for permission.39 “I am throwing the gauntlet down for the Bush people,” the aggressive little businessman told the Associated Press. “If they will agree to a two-man debate, we will try to work out the details.”40 Suddenly Bush, who had wanted to get Reagan in a one-on-one debate, appeared to waffle. As the frontrunner he had more to lose in such an environment. Better to hide among the other candidates and sit on a lead.

  Carmen was unrelenting. He told reporters in early February, “The one-on-one suggestion came from us and not the Bush campaign. We will meet George Bush as soon as the details can be worked out and the times can be handled.”41 The Nashua Telegraph was already busily arranging for the showdown between Governor Reagan and Ambassador Bush. The idea was for a ninety-minute debate, with forty-five minutes for questioning by reporters and forty-five minutes for questioning by a live audience.42

  Reagan swung hard at Bush. When someone asked about Bush's foreign-policy experience, Reagan replied, rapid-fire, “George Bush's experience in foreign policy was one brief term as ambassador to the U.N., special representative to mainland China and director of the CIA—which I don't think is exactly an education in foreign policy—in good foreign policy.”43

  The voters began to learn more about the Reaganites' disenchantment with John Sears, who had long enjoyed favorable media coverage. Carmen, William Loeb, Senator Humphrey, and Paul Laxalt all went public against the beleaguered manager. In a Manchester Union-Leader editorial, Loeb acidly penned that Reagan had been “Searscumsized,” and urged Reagan to fire the campaign manager: “The road to political victory is not the one being paved by Sears.”44 Laxalt said that Reagan was being “constrained, inhibited, packaged.”45 Humphrey was measured but firm, noting that Reagan had unaggressively stumped in Iowa and had paid dearly for turning all decisions over to Sears.

  To make matters worse for Reagan, he had to contend once more with Gerald Ford. The former president made it known that he preferred Baker or Bush over Reagan, who Ford said was too conservative to win the presidency. Ford even made noises—yet again—about getting into the race. Reagan dared Ford, saying said he should “pack his long johns and come out on the campaign trail.”46

  Bush was having his own problems, but of a different sort. Reagan was starting to get specific on the stump, and all of Bush's high command, from Jim Baker on down, knew that Bush had to do the same, in order to move from “George Who?” to “George What?” “The era of George Bush and the handshaking, cheerful politician is ended,” Dave Keene told the New York Times. “The focus now … should be on George Bush and what he says.”47 Trouble was, somebody forgot to tell Bush.

  Bush was being ridiculously cautious. A reporter innocently asked Bush, who often enjoyed a vodka martini at the end of the day, whether he favored a ban on the Russian vodka Stolichnaya. Bush acted as if “he had been thrown the world's hottest potato” as he wondered if it was bottled in the United States and how many people were employed.48 When a journalist asked him whether he was a conservative, Bush gave a long and disjointed nonanswer when a simple “yes” would have served him better.

  Bush also seemed a bit dazed on the hustings. His seemingly strong pronouncements of the past year melted away into mushy moderate Republicanism. Perhaps from exhaustion, perhaps from the scrutiny, a “goofy side” came out.49 He kept telling everybody, “I'm up for the '80s.” Indeed, it was his campaign slogan for a time and was as vapid as “Big Mo.”50 “Up for the '80s” sounded to some like a slogan for a new soda.

  But Bush resisted the pressure of liberal Republicans to wage a “crusade against Ronald Reagan and the Right.” He refused not because he had any great love for Reagan but because he was not sure it would work.51

  It didn't help Bush that his press secretary, Pete Teeley, deprived the candidate of important opportunities to receive briefings from policy staffers. The turf-conscious Teeley insisted that he, not any policy advisers, sit next to Bush on the campaign plane. Even when a key adviser, Stef Halper, was summoned from Washington to brief the candidate, Teeley wouldn't let him sit next to Bush. Tee-ley and Halper ended up in an obscenity-laced argument on a tarmac, which made its way into a Washington Post story. Teeley “was a pain in the ass
,” Halper bluntly said years later.52 Halper was not alone in this opinion.

  New Hampshire Republicans would eventually learn that Bush was plainly and simply more moderate on almost everything than Reagan, with the possible exception of homosexuality. Reagan took a distinctly libertarian approach, and while Bush was tolerant, he also said the behavior was not “normal.”53 Neither Reagan nor Bush—nor any candidate, for that matter—attended a forum held by homosexuals in New Hampshire. Only a few candidates, including President Carter, sent representatives to the forum. As a sign of the times, organizers asked photographers not to take pictures of those in one section, as they were closeted gays and feared “reprisals.”54

  Bush continued to highlight his jogging for the benefit of television cameras. Each morning, in the frosty winter of New Hampshire, he was seen pounding the pavement. Yet he was still saying little. The media were growing antsy, in no small part because Teeley had not anticipated their increased demands on the front-runner. Phones were often not available for reporters to call in their stories, and the media were loaded onto an ancient prop plane, a Fairchild, which seated only twenty and lumbered along at just a bit over 200 miles per hour … if there was a good tailwind and the reporters got out and pushed.

  Many in the media and Republican circles were taking a closer look at Bush, and they weren't sure about what they were seeing. The résumé was good; he was a war hero, and clearly a good husband and family man, but what did Bush really stand for? New Hampshire's GOP voters wanted to know.

  ON FEBRUARY 2, AS most attention was focusing on New Hampshire, ABC News revealed that the FBI had run a major sting operation, code-named “Abscam,” in which agents posing as Arab businessmen dangled suitcases full of cash under the noses of congressmen and senators. The undercover agents invited government officials to a rented house in Washington where they offered the politicians money in exchange for their doing favors for a supposed Arab sheikh (who in fact had been made up). A secret camera captured virtually all of the targeted politicians—mostly Democrats—diving for the moolah without a moment's hesitation. Taking a bribe seemed the most natural thing in the world to them, even though it was of course against the law. One member of Congress and his aide got into a fight over the cash even before they left the room. In another case, a congressman was seen greedily stuffing the cash into the pockets of his suit.55

  The only targeted politician who did not take the money was Senator Larry Pressler, Republican of South Dakota. Congressman John Murtha, Democrat of Pennsylvania, slipped the noose when he pulled back at the last instant and didn't take the proffered bribe, but he invited the would-be briber to stay in touch and suggested they could do business in the future.56

  In the “Washington is a small town” category, the house that the FBI rented for its sting operation was owned by Lee Lescaze, a reporter for the Washington Post—though Lescaze didn't know who his tenants were until the story broke in his own paper.57

  This would not be the last time that Abscam came up in the 1980 elections.

  VOTERS WERE ONCE AGAIN scratching their heads over President Carter. First, the White House leaked that Carter prayed daily for the Ayatollah Khomeini.58 Most Americans would have preferred that he bomb the ayatollah back into the Stone Age. Carter also let it be known that his administration would push for women to register for a military draft, though they would be in noncombat operations.

  Reagan had always opposed a peacetime draft for America, and he definitely opposed the drafting of women into the military. “I wouldn't want to belong to a society that would put its women in trenches with men,” he said in criticizing President Carter's plan.59 Reagan instead stated his support for an increased military reserve and for greater benefits for American fighting men, many of whom were living hand to mouth, many on food stamps.

  Favoring or perhaps following Reagan, the American people were demonstrating a significant rise in resolve. By large majorities—67 percent and 64 percent, respectively—they favored sending American troops to Europe to repel a Soviet invasion there and to the Middle East if the Kremlin sent forces into those countries. Moreover, 73 percent wanted a draft, 86 percent favored a grain embargo of the Soviets, and 66 percent supported boycotting the Moscow Summer Olympics.60 Reagan had a novel idea on the Summer Olympics. Rather than subjecting them to political shenanigans by the host countries, his commonsense idea was, we should simply hold them every four years in Greece, where they had begun centuries before.

  As Reagan tried to gain traction in New Hampshire with his more forceful campaigning, he encountered problems over the issues of taxes and federalism—the same matters over which he'd stumbled in New Hampshire four years earlier. New Hampshire famously had no state income tax and no state sales tax, and the Concord Monitor reported that Reagan in an exchange with a voter had called for the imposition of state income or sales taxes. It seemed Reagan had touched the third rail in the Granite State.

  But Carmen immediately disputed the newspaper's account. Again without any help from the national HQ, the belligerent Carmen attacked the “liberal media” and issued statements jumping all over the story as it had appeared in the Concord Monitor. He was not going to let the issue become a millstone around Reagan's neck the way it had in 1976. William Loeb joined the effort, editorializing under the headline “Dirty, Dirty, Dirty!” that the charge against Reagan was a “14-Carat unadulterated pure lie.”61

  In fact, the Concord Monitor was essentially correct about what Reagan said. The candidate had told a New Hampshire voter about a hypothetical “broadbased” tax. The paper had a tape of the conversation. Carmen said he had a different tape of the conversation and promised to give the newspaper a copy of his transcription of the exchange as soon as he found the tape, which, he claimed, had been “misplaced.”62 Loeb, Carmen, and Reagan eventually pounded the story into the ground and moved on, but once again, precious time had been lost playing defense.

  HOLLYWOOD'S BIG AND LITTLE celebrities hit the road for their favorite candidates. Cheryl Ladd of Charlie's Angels fame stumped for Carter, and Lauren Bacall campaigned for Kennedy. Reagan had an advantage here, since many old celebrities were old friends, including Ray Bolger, Pat Boone, Jimmy Stewart, Gloria Swanson, Jimmy Cagney, and Loretta Young.63 Michael Landon was one of the younger Reagan supporters, as was rock star Alice Cooper.

  Muhammad Ali supported Carter but Reagan counterpunched with Joe Louis. Others from Hollywood days who did not like either Reagan or his politics signed on with Kennedy, such as Gene Kelly, Warren Beatty, Bette Davis, and Angie Dickinson. Carter, because of his southern roots, could count on country-and-western singers like Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, and Tom T. Hall. Howard Baker of Tennessee had his share of these folks, including Johnny Russell, who had crooned “Rednecks, White Socks, and Blue Ribbon Beer.”64

  Reagan had Marty Robbins, Mel Tillis, and the great Merle Haggard. Jerry Brown had Linda Ronstadt, but his campaign was no good, no good, baby, no good.65 Reagan's celebrity coordinator was the very young and very smooth Morgan Mason, the son of actor James Mason. Landon and Boone had already cut television spots for the Gipper. Boone had been a Reagan delegate four years earlier in Kansas City.66

  Celebrities were becoming more and more involved in politics, especially their favorite causes. Robert Redford, on the day of the new Congress in January 1979, had visited his senator, Orrin Hatch, to talk about environmentalism. “Who may I ask is calling?” the nervous young receptionist said to one of the most famous men in the world and Redford deadpanned, “Paul Newman.”

  The celebs were also very high-maintenance. A young animated aide to Senator Humphrey, Eileen Doherty, was detailed to the New York office of the Reagan campaign to handle a very old and very demanding Gloria Swanson, who wanted Doherty to escort her to all events for Reagan. Swanson treated everybody like dirt, including Doherty for a time, but she later warmed up, regaling the young woman with sordid tales about her torrid affair with Joseph P. Kennedy.67
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br />   Reagan's celluloid career was years behind him … or so he thought. In Traverse City, Michigan, a tiny television station aired Hellcats of the Navy, a Reagan film memorable only because it was the first and only movie he and Nancy appeared in together. But the film did gain the attention of the Baker campaign, which filed a complaint with the Federal Communications Commission, charging that its airing violated “equal-time” provisions. The station, WGTU, agreed to give Baker an equal amount of time … in late March.68

  On the road in New Hampshire, voters saw Reagan up close and they mostly liked what they both saw and heard. Fourteen-year-old Mary Ricci said, “I think he's kind of old for the job of president, but when you see him he looks like he can still do it.” Another attendee, Peggy Weldon, gave voice to the other end of the age spectrum. “He looks great, doesn't he?” she said. She thought sixty-nine was a good age to be president: “You don't know anything about life 'til you hit fifty anyway.”69

  Just nine days before the New Hampshire primary, Reagan woke up early on a Sunday morning for fourteen hours of heavy-duty campaigning. Nearly ten inches of snow had fallen the previous day, but now the sky was blue and the air was crisp and clear. Bleary-eyed and hungover reporters crawled out of their warm beds to accompany Reagan. Reagan was crisp and clear himself. He shook hundreds of hands that day and at Wolfeboro told listeners how he refused to fill in that part of the government's census that asked how many bathrooms he had because it “was none of their business.” He also joked that Nancy, who was with him, would not be attending cabinet meetings, a jab at Carter. Reagan was in fighting form.70