Reagan's Revolution (20 page)

At precisely 9:30 A.M. on November 20, 1975, the sixty-four-year-old Reagan strode to a podium with two microphones wired into dozens of television and radio outlets attached below. That morning, he read from his usual 4x6 cards announcing his candidacy for the Presidency of the United States at the jam-packed press conference at the National Press Club.

Reagan had flown in from Dallas the day before, accompanied by Sears, Mike Deaver, Lyn Nofziger, and several other aides and was later met by Peter Hannaford at a hotel in Washington. Mrs. Reagan also arrived the day before, accompanied by longtime-aide Nancy Reynolds. Reynolds had previously worked in the Governor’s office in Sacramento.

Becki Black sneaked away from her desk and walked the several blocks to watch Reagan’s announcement. Waiting in the lobby of the Press Club, she was surprised that only a few aides accompanied Reagan. Black was also from California, which she explained to the Governor when he shook her hand and warmly greeted her. “If only everybody could meet him one on one and see those incredible blue eyes,” she recalled.
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Hannaford flew into Washington the Sunday before Reagan’s announcement to work on the draft of “the Governor’s” statement for the press conference that Thursday. Meanwhile, the Reagans took a few days to relax before throwing themselves into the hurly burly of the campaign ahead.

Governor and Mrs. Reagan checked into the Madison Hotel. Reagan made several courtesy phone calls to GOP leaders, including Vice President Nelson Rockefeller and, oddly, Richard Nixon, to advise them of his intention to seek the Republican Presidential nomination and oppose Gerald Ford.

Another one of those leaders Reagan called was President Ford himself. To say the conversation was terse would be an understatement. However, given the previous two years of subtle and not so subtle hostility between Ford’s White House and Reagan’s conservatives, it is understandable that civility was strained. Ford began the chapter titled “Challenge from the Right” from his autobiography,
A Time To Heal,
with his account of the conversation:

“Hello, Mr. President,” Reagan said, and then he came right to the point. “I am going to make an announcement, and I want to tell you about it ahead of time. I am going to run for President. I trust we can have a good contest, and I hope that it won’t be divisive.”

“Well, Governor, I’m very disappointed,” I replied. “I’m sorry you’re getting into this. I believe I’ve done a good job and that I can be elected. Regardless of your good intentions, your bid is bound to be divisive. It will take a lot of money, a lot of effort, and it will leave a lot of scars. It won’t be helpful, no matter which of us wins the nomination.”

“I don’t think it will be divisive,” Reagan repeated. “I don’t think it will harm the party.”

“Well, I think it will,” I said.

Ford wrote of the incident, “Neither of us is the type of person to waste words, and we concluded the conversation quickly. I think he really believed that his can- didacy wouldn’t be divisive, but I knew he was wrong. How can you challenge an incumbent President of your own party and
not
be divisive?”
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Although the call had been formal and correct, Reagan’s aides were ever mindful of the previous indignations that had been hurled at him by the Ford White House. Reagan hand Jim Lake later said, “Ford always treated Reagan like a third rate hack.”
⁴

In his book, Ford worried that while his campaign was in disarray, Reagan’s was a well-oiled machine. Ford fretted that he and his people had wasted too much time convincing themselves that Reagan would eventually decide not to run for President. While Reagan’s campaign was not as disorganized as Ford’s, it had its share of problems, including money management, staff infighting, and clashes over scheduling.

Governor and Mrs. Reagan gathered the night before his announcement for a private dinner with his close aides and advisers, including John Sears, Jeff Bell, Senator Paul Laxalt, Hannaford, Deaver, Lyn Nofziger, Marty Anderson, Dick Wirthlin, and Reynolds. Hannaford arranged for a special bottle of champagne to be served. The Reagans had been in Paris earlier, and although Reagan was not partial to champagne, he and Mrs. Reagan had enjoyed a bottle of Taittinger’s while in France. Hannaford arranged for a bottle of the champagne to be served and toasted the forthcoming campaign, noting, “One thing, Governor. You never told us if you are actually running,” Hannaford recounted. Reagan laughed with his usual youthful zest.
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In November 1975, Reagan was sixty-four, and Ford was sixty-two. Both were twice or thrice as old as many of their key staffers. In fact, what was immediately noticeable about both the Reagan and Ford campaign staffs was their relative youth, contradicting the Hollywood image of the gray-haired, curmudgeonly, back-room, hard-drinking, cigar-chomping, political hack. Among Reagan’s campaign staff, Nofziger was the old man of the crew at fifty-one, but of Sears, Deaver, Jim Lake, Hannaford, Keene, Wirthlin, Bell, Anderson, Charlie Black, and Roger Stone, most were in their twenties and thirties.

Virtually all of the senior management of both campaigns and the Ford White House were young for their positions of responsibility. But all had multiple talents, interests, and hobbies, and many were devout in their faith. Most possessed good temperaments, good intentions and college or post-graduate educations. All were patriotic Americans who believed in the American way of life and cherished their children’s futures. They were not like their peers in the 1970s—shallow, polyester-clad, disco-hopping yo-yos. These politicos actually read newspapers and books and attended political conferences and would have— had they dared enter a disco—been labeled “squares.”

One explanation for the staffers’ relative positions of power was that the Watergate scandal had cleared out much of a whole generation of Republican political operatives. This young crop of consultants, Campaign Managers, fundraisers, Press Secretaries, and organizers was left to run things. Their essential decency and moral judgment may have led them to avoid getting too deeply involved with the Nixon White House or the Nixon campaign—which could have led to wreck, ruin and prison. But their honor, temper, and character would be tested, as would Ford’s and Reagan’s, over the next ten months.

Ford was right when he spoke about disunity. The 1976 campaign would be very divisive, as it would bring forth the culmination of twenty-five years of unremitting hostilities between the moderate and conservative wings of the Republican Party. This time, however, the fight was the
gotterdammerung
for the GOP. One side or another would prevail, and the losing side would either change their ways, their ideology, or leave the party for good.

Reagan, accompanied to the National Press Club by Mrs. Reagan, was dressed handsomely in a gray suit and stylish pinstripe shirt with a pin dot tie and the ever-present folded white handkerchief in his left breast pocket. He easily passed the litmus test of Presidential fashion.

The subject of Reagan’s wardrobe had been raised in the Washington office of Citizens for Reagan occasionally. But the Californians who knew the Governor took a decidedly more laissez-faire attitude about his dress. For the Washington crew, used to the dark blue, dark gray, and charcoal suits of the Nixon gang, Reagan’s dress could be distinctly more casual than what they were accustomed to.

Reagan wasn’t afraid to wear a white sports jacket or a plaid sport coat—or even violate the cardinal sin of politicians and put on funny hats. Few politicians campaigned with such sheer joy at meeting people as Ronald Reagan. Hubert Humphrey’s affixed nickname, “The Happy Warrior,” could have also easily applied to Reagan. Although Reagan always looked immaculate, he was mostly indifferent to fashion. Deaver said, “People thought Reagan was a clothes horse, but it wasn’t true. Clothes just looked good on him.”
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Years later, during his Presidency and following the assassination attempt, Reagan was aboard Air Force One on a political swing, accompanied by Mrs. Reagan, Deaver, and the usual contingent of Secret Service and White House staff. As was Reagan’s habit when he traveled on the plane, he removed his pants, put on sweatpants and hung his suit pants to keep the crease in them.
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That day, Reagan was wearing what had become known as the “purple plaid suit,” which he loved but no one else did, especially Mrs. Reagan. The suit was, charitably, not what one might expect a President to wear—or even a Senator. It might have worked for a freshman Alderman, but the suit caused comments in Washington. George Will once devoted part of his column to the “purple plaid suit.”

Mrs. Reagan sought Deaver out to ask him to tell the President not to wear the suit. Deaver refused, telling her, “I’m tired of talking to him about the suit, I’m sick of the subject.” Mrs. Reagan pleaded with Deaver; again and again he refused. Reagan, overhearing the conversation, argued for wearing the suit, insisting how much he liked it. At this point, Mrs. Reagan turned to Deaver and said, “Oh yeah? Mike, tell the President what his staff says about the suit.

” Reagan, looking at Deaver asked, “Mike, what does the staff say about my suit?”

Deaver replied, “Mr. President, the staff says if you were going to be shot, why couldn’t you have been shot wearing that suit!”
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Deaver also related the time when President Reagan was due for a new official White House photo. Deaver was waiting in the Oval Office with the photographer when Reagan came in. According to Deaver, the President was wearing a tie that had seen better days. Deaver proudly showed Reagan the new Hermes tie he was wearing and told Reagan he should go out and buy some like his. Reagan leaned into Deaver, looked at his tie, and sniffed, “But, Mike, I don’t like your damn tie.”
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At the press conference, Reagan’s wardrobe was one of the last things on the minds of his staff. Here, it was all about his statement announcing his candidacy. An excerpt:

I have called this press conference to announce that I am a candidate for the Presidency and to ask for the support of all Americans who share my belief that our nation needs to embark on a new, constructive course.

I believe my candidacy will be healthy for the nation and my party. I am running because I have grown increasingly concerned about the course of events in the United States and the world.

In just a few years, three vital measures of economic decay—inflation, unemployment and interest rates—have more that doubled, at times reaching 10 percent and even more.

Government at all levels now absorbs more than 44 percent of our personal income. It has become more intrusive, more coercive, more meddlesome and less effective.

A decade ago, we had military superiority. Today we are in danger of being surpassed by a nation that has never made any effort to hide its hostility to everything we stand for. Through détente, we have sought peace with our adversaries. We should continue to do so but must make it plain that we expect a stronger indication that they also seek a lasting peace with us. . . .

In my opinion, the root of these problems lies right here in Washington, D.C. Our nation’s capital has become the seat of a “buddy” system that functions for its own benefit—increasingly insensitive to the needs of the American worker who supports it with his taxes.

Today, it is difficult to find leaders who are independent of the forces that have brought us our problems—the Congress, the bureaucracy, the lobbyists, big business and big labor. If America is to survive and go forward, this must change.
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Reagan’s mostly downbeat statement reflected traditional conservative thought at the time, although the last paragraph of his announcement did take a decidedly different direction from the “doom and gloom” public pronouncements by most of Reagan’s contemporary Republicans in the 1970s. It was a foreshadowing of things to come from Reagan:

We, as a people, aren’t happy if we are not moving forward. A nation that is growing and thriving is one that will solve its problems. We must offer progress instead of stagnation; the truth instead of promises; hope and faith instead of defeatism and despair. Then, I am sure, the people will make those decisions which will restore confidence in our way of life and release that energy that is the American people.
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Also noteworthy was his open attack specifically on big business. Republicans generally shied away from criticizing big business. Though Reagan had been comfortable being a spokesman for General Electric in the 1950s, he was still a small-town kid from the populist Midwest who was suspicious of the concentration of power, either by government or business. Throughout his political career, Reagan often observed the difficulties that small businesses face—both from government action and from large corporations.

In fact, Wall Street, according to Larry Kudlow, was not very interested in the Reagan campaign in 1976 and only a bit more in 1980. Reagan’s appeal was always much stronger with Main Street than Wall Street.
¹²
Reagan was plowing the same populist field of George Wallace and Jimmy Carter. But his populism appealed to a different set of values—those to the political right of Carter that also disavowed the dark history of racism associated with Wallace.

After Reagan concluded his statement, he took on the National Press Corps, who prided themselves on the ability to nail any politician.

The 1976 political campaign may have been the “golden era” for political reporters. The image of reporters of the era was that they sat at the bars at San Souci or the Class Reunion or the Hay Adams Grill in Washington and drank while they swapped rumors and women. In fact, they did do all of this and more right out of the movie
His Girl Friday,
but they were also consummate professionals, dedicated to their craft. They dearly loved politics in all its forms.