Rendezvous with Destiny: Ronald Reagan and the Campaign that Changed America by Craig Shirley Page A
Authors: Craig Shirley
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forty-plusyears of looking to Washington, their government was no longer capable of solving their problems. It was now time for a new approach. Reagan's approach.
Don Devine made the critical point that up until the last days of the campaign, voters were “mainly anti-Carter and not pro-Reagan.” It wasn't until after the debate one week before the election that people began to move into the pro-Reagan column. His debate performance, while unconvincing to the elites, closed the sale with the American voter. As occurred throughout Reagan's political life, his fortunes improved when he took control of his own “rendezvous with destiny.” The old master Walter Mondale knew the night of the debate that the Democrats were in trouble. “I don't think Reagan ever talked about limits,” Mondale told me. “Carter came in and he's talking about scarcity, he's talking about sacrifice.”
President Carter, of the choice offered the American people, said to me succinctly, “What was at stake for the whole country was just a difference in basic philosophy.”
He was right.
H OW CLOSE WAS R EAGAN to losing the nomination to George Bush after Iowa? According to Dick Wirthlin's polling in New Hampshire, in April 1979 Reagan stood at 55 percent and Bush at 4 percent. After the Iowa caucuses, Reagan plummeted to 35 percent while Bush surged to 41 percent, a massive shift.
Fate and luck helped save Reagan. Nowadays, only one week separates Iowa's caucuses and the Granite State primary. Had that schedule been in place in 1980 Reagan would have lost New Hampshire and with it the nomination. But in 1980 there were five weeks between the caucuses and the New Hampshire vote. Those five precious weeks gave the Gipper time to recover and the voters and the media more time to look closer at Ambassador Bush.
Reagan, though, certainly had the energy to win the nomination. In 1980, Nancy Reagan told the Washington Star , “I can assure you … Ronnie's a young man mentally and physically.” This would have come as news to her childhood friend Mike Wallace, who told a young Californian Reaganite, Pat Nolan, that Reagan was “too old” to run again. Wallace told Nolan this in 1968.
W HAT IS FASCINATING IS how many people will tell you today how much they supported Ronald Reagan in 1980 or that they worked for him. Much of it is poppycock. One low-level numbers cruncher in Bush's campaign insisted to me that he actually ran the Bush campaign and then moved over to run the Reagan campaign after Detroit. Another person who clearly worked for John Connally in the primaries swore that he was always with Reagan. The party committees, includingthe Republican National Committee and the National Republican Congressional Committee, were essentially incubators of anti-Reagan sentiment all through the late 1970s, but now most who worked there will tell you they supported Reagan from the get-go. I will not embarrass them by naming names, but their revisionist claims are simply not true.
Ernie Angelo, a loyal Texas Reaganite, was repulsed by the GOP operatives who “made fun” of the conservatives and Reagan. “Principle or philosophy had nothing to do with it for them; it was winning.”
T HE FIRST ANSWER IS yes, Paul Corbin delivered the stolen Carter briefing books to the Reagan campaign in the fall of 1980.There is little doubt of his involvement. George Will was delighted to learn this from me, as Jimmy Carter for years has falsely blamed him for giving them to the Reagan campaign. Nobody but Carter would ever cast Will as a second-story man. Carter has made some other odd assertions over the years, including that Will had asked Carter for forgiveness, which, if anyone knows the taciturn columnist, is claptrap. In his own inimitable fashion, Will called the former president a “recidivist fibber” in a 2005 column.
A number of sources confirmed various aspects of Corbin's role in the caper, including Dick Cheney, John
Don Devine made the critical point that up until the last days of the campaign, voters were “mainly anti-Carter and not pro-Reagan.” It wasn't until after the debate one week before the election that people began to move into the pro-Reagan column. His debate performance, while unconvincing to the elites, closed the sale with the American voter. As occurred throughout Reagan's political life, his fortunes improved when he took control of his own “rendezvous with destiny.” The old master Walter Mondale knew the night of the debate that the Democrats were in trouble. “I don't think Reagan ever talked about limits,” Mondale told me. “Carter came in and he's talking about scarcity, he's talking about sacrifice.”
President Carter, of the choice offered the American people, said to me succinctly, “What was at stake for the whole country was just a difference in basic philosophy.”
He was right.
H OW CLOSE WAS R EAGAN to losing the nomination to George Bush after Iowa? According to Dick Wirthlin's polling in New Hampshire, in April 1979 Reagan stood at 55 percent and Bush at 4 percent. After the Iowa caucuses, Reagan plummeted to 35 percent while Bush surged to 41 percent, a massive shift.
Fate and luck helped save Reagan. Nowadays, only one week separates Iowa's caucuses and the Granite State primary. Had that schedule been in place in 1980 Reagan would have lost New Hampshire and with it the nomination. But in 1980 there were five weeks between the caucuses and the New Hampshire vote. Those five precious weeks gave the Gipper time to recover and the voters and the media more time to look closer at Ambassador Bush.
Reagan, though, certainly had the energy to win the nomination. In 1980, Nancy Reagan told the Washington Star , “I can assure you … Ronnie's a young man mentally and physically.” This would have come as news to her childhood friend Mike Wallace, who told a young Californian Reaganite, Pat Nolan, that Reagan was “too old” to run again. Wallace told Nolan this in 1968.
W HAT IS FASCINATING IS how many people will tell you today how much they supported Ronald Reagan in 1980 or that they worked for him. Much of it is poppycock. One low-level numbers cruncher in Bush's campaign insisted to me that he actually ran the Bush campaign and then moved over to run the Reagan campaign after Detroit. Another person who clearly worked for John Connally in the primaries swore that he was always with Reagan. The party committees, includingthe Republican National Committee and the National Republican Congressional Committee, were essentially incubators of anti-Reagan sentiment all through the late 1970s, but now most who worked there will tell you they supported Reagan from the get-go. I will not embarrass them by naming names, but their revisionist claims are simply not true.
Ernie Angelo, a loyal Texas Reaganite, was repulsed by the GOP operatives who “made fun” of the conservatives and Reagan. “Principle or philosophy had nothing to do with it for them; it was winning.”
T HE FIRST ANSWER IS yes, Paul Corbin delivered the stolen Carter briefing books to the Reagan campaign in the fall of 1980.There is little doubt of his involvement. George Will was delighted to learn this from me, as Jimmy Carter for years has falsely blamed him for giving them to the Reagan campaign. Nobody but Carter would ever cast Will as a second-story man. Carter has made some other odd assertions over the years, including that Will had asked Carter for forgiveness, which, if anyone knows the taciturn columnist, is claptrap. In his own inimitable fashion, Will called the former president a “recidivist fibber” in a 2005 column.
A number of sources confirmed various aspects of Corbin's role in the caper, including Dick Cheney, John
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