by Nancy Reagan
When everybody was there, we moved into the living room. Ronnie said, “Whenever I check into a hotel, the bellhop asks, ‘Why don’t you run for president?’ The next morning, when I leave, the chambermaids come up to me and say the same thing. When I walk through the airports, people are always stopping me and saying, ‘Please, we need you to run.’
“It won’t be easy, but the grassroots support is there. I’ve been speaking out on the issues for quite a while now, and it’s time to put myself on the line. In three weeks I’m going to announce that I’m entering the race. Otherwise, I’d feel like the guy who always sat on the bench and never got into the game.”
Maureen, Mike, and Colleen were all supportive, but I think Ron was disappointed because there hadn’t been more discussion of this decision in advance. He just sat there silently. Looking back on it, I think he was probably right—that we should have found more time to talk about this as a family.
Once the campaign began, Ron became very active in it. Seniors at his high school were allowed to spend their final semester working on a special project, and Ronnie’s campaign was his. He helped with the luggage and worked on the sound system. When it came time to test the microphones, instead of “Testing, one, two, three,” Ron would use his father’s line about the Panama Canal: “We bought it, we paid for it, it’s ours, and we’re going to keep it!” It always made me smile to hear him repeating his father’s lines.
On November 19 Ronnie and I flew to Washington, where he was going to announce his candidacy the next morning. As soon as we checked into the Madison Hotel, Ronnie placed a courtesy call to President Ford to let him know. Ford’s tone was very cold. He told Ronnie that his candidacy would be “divisive,” and that he was wrong to do it.
Ronnie explained that he had already made up his mind and assured Ford that he would not attack him personally. But it was a very short conversation.
John Sears had recommended that Ronnie make his announcement at the National Press Club. We were weak in Washington, where the national press corps often portrayed Ronnie as a right-wing extremist. Even after eight years as governor of California, Ronnie was still seen as a kind of novelty—“former actor Ronald Reagan.” After the announcement, James Reston wrote in the New York Times that it was “astonishing … that this amusing but frivolous Reagan fantasy is taken so seriously by the media and particularly by the President. It makes a lot of news, but it doesn’t make much sense.”
Well, it certainly made sense to Republicans. Two weeks after Ronnie entered the race, a Gallup Poll showed that he was already the front-runner.
When Ronnie and I walked into the National Press Club that morning, Nancy Reynolds, my chief assistant and friend from our Sacramento years, was so excited that she picked me up and swung me around. Then, in a huge, cavernous room, facing more microphones and cameras than I had ever seen in my life, Ronnie read a short statement and answered questions for over an hour. This was my first exposure to the Washington press corps, and I remember thinking, Boy, these guys are tough.
Ronnie didn’t mention Ford by name—a practice he has always followed in campaigns. But he charged that government in Washington had become a “buddy system,” and that the nation needed leaders who were independent of Congress, the federal bureaucracy, lobbyists, big business, and big labor. “We need a government that is confident not of what it can do,” he said, “but of what the people can do.”
Later that day we flew to Miami to begin campaigning in the early-primary states. The first stop was an airport rally. As Ronnie was speaking, a voice in the crowd called out, “Hey, Dutch.” We knew it was someone from Iowa, where Ronnie had worked as a sports announcer and was known as Dutch Reagan.
“Hi, there,” Ronnie called back. “I’ll come down to see you when I’m done.”
When Ronnie finished speaking, one of the Secret Service agents said, “When you leave the platform, turn to your left.” Instead, Ronnie veered right, to look for his friend. I was following behind when I heard Tommy Thomas, our chairman in Florida, yell, “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
Tommy plunged into the crowd, and I watched in shock as he and two other men tried to wrestle a dark-haired young man to the ground. The man was holding a gun, and it took all three of them to get him down. As it turned out, the gun was a toy, but it certainly looked real to me.
Before I knew it, the Secret Service had pushed me into the nearest building. I was scared, and when Ronnie came in, I blew up. “Now, listen,” I said, “from now on, if the Secret Service tells you to turn to the left, turn left! Do what they tell you to do!” I was trembling, and Ronnie had to calm me down. If he was frightened, he didn’t show it.
A few months later we had another close call. We had just left Ohio, and on the flight back to Los Angeles, Ronnie was sitting on the right side of the plane, next to the window. As usual, he was working on a speech. Martin Anderson was beside him, and I was across the aisle. I had just dozed off when I heard Ronnie gasping. When I looked up, there was my husband, standing beside me with his hand on his throat. His face was red and he couldn’t talk.
“Heart attack!” somebody yelled. “Give him oxygen.” Mike Deaver immediately got up and grabbed Ronnie from behind. Wrapping his arms across Ronnie’s ribs, he gave a sudden pull. When nothing happened, Mike did it again—whereupon a bunch of peanuts flew out of Ronnie’s mouth. Then Ronnie straightened up and began to breathe normally.
Mike told me later that he and Ronnie had once practiced the Heimlich maneuver, just in case this problem ever arose. I learned later that Ronnie had been tossing peanuts into the air and catching them in his mouth. Believe me, he never tried that again!
In 1988, during our final year in the White House, I watched the television news reports of the primary and election campaigns. And I asked myself in amazement: Where did I ever get the strength to go through all that? It’s so exhausting! You move from town to town, and the days and nights become a blur as one place melts into another. It’s an endless series of hotels and motels, buses and cars. You rarely get a chance to wash your face. You fall into bed at midnight, and the next day you’re up at dawn to do it all over again.
But there also can be a wonderful spirit of camaraderie in a campaign; everyone is working together and traveling toward the same goal. It reminded me of being on location for a movie. You become an extended family, and you make deep, lasting friendships. Your whole life becomes those people and that plane you’re all on.
Still, there were times when I had to be the tough guy because of Ronnie’s schedule. Ronnie was a vigorous campaigner—some of the reporters who wondered about the “age factor” had trouble keeping up with him—but I didn’t think it was wise to overdo it, to keep him going from early morning until late at night, day after day.
But the campaign staff always wants the candidate to make “just one more appearance,” and the local chairman has “one more little thing” that you’ve just got to do before you leave town.
And so sometimes I simply had to say “Enough. That’s it. We can’t do any more.” Even then, I felt that the staff was there to look after Ronald Reagan the candidate, but I was there to look after Ronald Reagan the man.
One memory of that campaign that stays with me was the time Ronnie and I were riding in a parade, standing in an open convertible. It was a cold spring day, and it was raining, but in spite of the weather, we spent the afternoon waving to the crowds who were lined up to see us. I was so busy waving that it took time before I realized that every time I lifted my arm, the rain ran down my sleeve and down the front of my dress. I was freezing. Then, when we finally returned to the hotel, cold, wet and exhausted, the heat had been turned off for the night. It was very cold. We begged them to turn the heat back on, and they finally did—for an exorbitant price.
I no longer remember what city this happened in, but I remember thinking: The people in this hotel are obviously not Republicans.
Although I often tra
veled with Ronnie, there were so many places to visit and so little time that I continued the practice of doing some campaigning on my own, especially in smaller communities that Ronnie just couldn’t get to Usually I was accompanied only by Nancy Reynolds and Barney Barnett, our old friend from Sacramento days. Whenever possible, I stuck to my old format of questions and answers.
Nancy and I spent a lot of time in Texas, Alabama, and North Carolina, where we visited an endless stream of hospitals, women’s groups, colleges, and nursing homes. I was interviewed in hallways, lobbies, motel rooms, cars—just about everywhere except the ladies’ room. What was fun was seeing the country and meeting the people, and I was always gratified to see how many supporters Ronnie had, especially in out-of-the-way places.
I’d get up in the morning and I’d go all day and well into the night. There was rarely time to change clothes or take a bath. If I was lucky I could powder my nose and run a comb through my hair once in a while, but that was about it. I learned to wear knit dresses, which would last all day without looking wrinkled.
Unless your husband is the incumbent president, there’s nothing luxurious about campaigning. I remember seeing Mrs. Ford at a political dinner during the race. She looked so fresh and lovely that I thought, It must be wonderful to have Air Force One, where you can change your clothes and wash your face during the day.
I liked campaigning, but I hated the flying. Small towns usually meant small airplanes, and I have enough trouble with big ones. We were coming in to Aniada, Alabama, one night when the pilot turned to me and said, “This is just a tiny airport. They don’t even have a tower. I don’t want to alarm you, but there are no lights on the runway.” When he saw the expression on my face, he added, “But I’m sure I could get a few people to come out with their trucks and turn on their lights!”
We landed by trucklight, but by then I was a nervous wreck. I couldn’t believe we were actually doing this. My only request had been that the plane have more than one engine—and two pilots.
Another time we had to fly into Banner Elk, North Carolina, where the “airport” consisted of a tiny grass runway in the mountains. It’s a good thing I didn’t know about that in advance. As we began our descent, Nancy Reynolds suddenly shoved a newspaper article into my hands—and the plane dropped down to the runway like a stone. She was hoping to distract me, but the feeling in my stomach gave it all away.
I don’t know who decided that the presidential primaries should begin in New Hampshire in the winter, but he certainly wasn’t from California. I was used to Chicago winters from my childhood, but New Hampshire was something else again.
On the other hand, the people there always asked the best questions—even if they did like to ask them while you were standing outdoors. They’re accustomed to old-fashioned door-to-door campaigns, with a handful of neighbors meeting with the candidate in somebody’s living room—the kind of politics that is quickly dying out in the age of television. We stumped that state thoroughly, riding our drafty campaign bus into just about every little town on the map.
Two days before the vote, the chairman of Ronnie’s New Hampshire campaign urged Ronnie’s advisers to take him out of the state so the campaign workers could spend their time working on getting a big turnout, instead of focusing on the candidate. With Ronnie ahead in the polls, it seemed like a sensible plan.
But what we didn’t know was that Ronnie’s lead had been slipping, and the race was now virtually tied. John Sears had this information, but for reasons I’ll never understand, he didn’t tell Ronnie or anybody else. And my husband, who is very trusting, never imagined that anything was being kept from him.
And so, foolishly, we spent the last two days campaigning in Illinois and didn’t return to New Hampshire until the night before the vote.
During the flight back, Sears asked Dick Wirthlin to brief Ronnie. When Ronnie heard that Ford had closed the gap in New Hampshire, he just stared out the window. Below us were the lights of Manchester: We were preparing to land. “Well, Dick,” Ronnie said, “I hope some good people down there will light a few candles for me.”
When we woke up the next morning, the weather was unusually mild. I thought that was a good sign—until somebody explained that Ronnie’s supporters were so passionate that they would turn out in any weather, while Ford’s support was softer. “We could have used a really big snowstorm,” I was told.
The early returns showed that Ronnie had a slight lead, and as late as midnight he was still ahead. It looked as if Ronnie had won, but then the tide began to turn. When all the ballots were counted, Ford had won by 1,317 votes.
Coming that close to defeating an incumbent president was a real achievement, but the press had expected Ronnie to win. As a result, Ford’s narrow victory was seen as a major achievement.
Momentum is everything in politics, and our loss in New Hampshire was a terrible blow to Ronnie’s prospects in other states. It was even more painful when we learned that a majority of the voters had actually picked Ronnie! Because of a quirk in the New Hampshire law, three extra, unauthorized candidates ran as pro-Reagan delegates. But voters were instructed to choose no more than eighteen candidates, so anyone who simply checked off every pro-Reagan name had his ballot disqualified. Ronnie’s advisers believed that between 5 and 10 percent of the voters made this error; their votes would have been more than enough to give us New Hampshire. There were also fifteen hundred Democrats who wrote in Ronnie’s name, but their ballots didn’t count either.
If Ronnie had won in New Hampshire, he probably would have won at least two other early primaries as well. And then President Ford might well have dropped out of the race—just as John Sears had planned.
But now Ford had the momentum, and he went on to win in Florida, Massachusetts, Vermont, and Illinois. In a three-week period, Ronald Reagan, who had never lost an election in his life, was defeated five times in a row.
Election days are always Tuesdays, and it got so bad that John Sears said, “I used to hate Mondays. Now I hate Wednesdays!”
By the time we got to North Carolina for the primary on March 23, Ronnie’s prospects looked so bleak that the press had only one question: “When are you going to get out of the race?”
But Ronnie had no intention of quitting. He hadn’t entered the race casually, and he wasn’t going to leave until he had done everything he could.
Ronnie doesn’t get angry very often, but after five consecutive defeats he took off the gloves. Instead of using his standard speech, he threw away his notes and spoke from the heart. And rather than ignoring the advantages of Ford’s incumbency, he began pointing them out. “I understand Mr. Ford has arrived in the state,” he said. “If he comes here with the same list of goodies he brought to Florida, the band won’t know whether to play ‘Hail to the Chief’ or ‘Santa Claus Is Coming to Town’!”
When you lose five primaries in a row, people aren’t very eager to send you money. By this time our campaign was broke, and it got to the point where nobody would provide anything—hotel rooms, advertising, rental cars—unless we paid in advance. When we could no longer afford our chartered jet, we switched over to a little yellow prop plane, which became known as the Flying Banana. When we touched down, Mike Deaver would come down the aisle with two big buckets of Kentucky Fried Chicken.
By now Ronnie was under increasing pressure to drop out of the race. We didn’t have much support from party officials and officeholders to begin with, but now the situation had deteriorated.
In February, eleven of the twelve former chairmen of the Republican National Committee had endorsed President Ford. (The only one who didn’t was George Bush, but as director of the CIA, he wasn’t allowed to.)
On March 17, the National Republican Conference of Mayors called on Ronnie to withdraw.
The following day, the Los Angeles Times wrote, “For Reagan, the real question ought not to be whether to bow out, but when.”
On March 20, seven Republican governors issued
a statement calling on Ronnie to quit.
In the entire Republican party, Ronnie had only one major supporter—Senator Paul Laxalt of Nevada.
The biggest blow of all came when Barry Goldwater endorsed Gerald Ford. My parents, who were now living in Phoenix, had been friendly with the Goldwaters for years, and Mother was so furious that she called Barry and told him in no uncertain terms—and undoubtedly using some very colorful language—that he had been to their house for the last time.
Eventually, Mother and Barry made their peace. She could be hot-tempered, especially if she believed that a member of her family had been wronged, but eventually she let bygones be bygones. My father was different. He gave Barry the silent treatment, and I don’t think he ever forgave him.
I was very hurt, because I had known Barry and his family for years. Ronnie and I had been at the 1964 convention to support him, and during that campaign Ronnie had raised a lot of money with his television speech. Now, twelve years later, Ronnie was still speaking out for those same principles. But where was Barry?
Ronnie was disappointed, too, but he chose to believe that Barry was supporting Gerald Ford out of loyalty to the president. Some people wondered if Barry had come to resent Ronnie’s leadership of the conservative movement. I don’t know about that, but if that’s true, then I have some empathy for Barry. It must be very difficult to start a political movement and then watch somebody else take it over and make it more successful.
Still, I think Barry owed my husband a lot more than he gave him in 1976.
On the day of the North Carolina vote, Ronnie’s campaign staff had an emergency meeting in a hotel room in Wisconsin, where John Sears came up with a bold proposal. “Governor,” he said, “we don’t have enough money to continue this campaign in the normal way. But I’ve been in touch with Jimmy Lyon down in Texas, and he’s willing to lend us a hundred thousand dollars to put you on national television with that speech you’ve been giving about Ford and Kissinger being weak on defense. At the end, you’d make an appeal for funds. Now this is a gamble, and I can’t guarantee that it will work. We would have to leave Wisconsin tonight and go back to Los Angeles. But I don’t see any other way to raise the money we need.”