In My Time - Dick Cheney [54]
Not long afterward, Bob returned with some favorable numbers, and I wanted Ford to hear the case directly from him. On Friday, August 6, we sat down at Camp David and Bob laid it out for the president, demonstrating beyond any doubt that Reagan would add more support than any other potential running mate. As a purely political proposition, it was a winner. Ford listened patiently, and I don’t remember him disputing anything we said. Even so, our pitch went nowhere. He just didn’t want to hear it.
Of course, there would be consolations ahead for conservatives, and reading the story backward it’s probably fair to say that Ford and Reagan were both wise to rule out the vice presidential spot, and the governor was lucky that things played out as they did. After all, how do you get a Reagan presidency without a Ford loss in ’76 and four years of Jimmy Carter?
When Ford and Reagan met in Kansas City, in any case, there was no chance the conversation might wander toward talk of joining of forces in the fall. We arrived at the Alameda Plaza Hotel just after 1:00 a.m. and went into Reagan’s suite. The president and the governor then met alone, and as Ford recounted the meeting to me afterward, he moved quickly to the names he was considering for the second spot. Reagan had responded most favorably to the mention of Senator Bob Dole of Kansas, which was a big plus for Dole, but the choice wasn’t settled there and then. Ford left the meeting with Reagan still needing to think it over.
In the way that many past running mates had been settled upon, there was a long, middle-of-the-night meeting, with an announcement due by morning and all the political world waiting on a name. Among those we had tossed around were Dole, Senator Howard Baker of Tennessee, John Connally, the former governor of Texas, and Ambassador Anne Armstrong, who had been a highly regarded figure in the party for years. The idea of a woman on the ticket held a lot of appeal, and Ford that night probably came closer to that choice than any other presidential nominee had up to then. The problem was that generic polls showed that a female running mate would cost him 12 points. Being way down already, we couldn’t afford to deepen that deficit.
Another name reluctantly crossed off the list was George H. W. Bush, although the reasons for that would need clearing up for years to come. As much as Ford liked Bush and wanted to consider him for the ’76 ticket, he ruled Bush out for one reason alone: When Ford made him director of central intelligence a year earlier, as part of the same shakeup that had removed Rockefeller as a candidate for VP, Democrats on Capitol Hill suspected a fast political move. They wanted assurances that Bush would not simply serve ten months at the agency and then end up as Ford’s running mate. After talking it over with Bush, Ford gave the Democrats their guarantee, and now, in Kansas City, he was bound by that promise.
No decision about a running mate had been reached by the predawn hours when we finally packed it in. From the general feel of that meeting, I left the president in his suite with the strong impression that Howard Baker would be the one. The next morning, Ford called me down to his suite to tell me his choice. Mrs. Ford was in her bathrobe sitting at the vanity when I arrived, and the president was putting on his tie. We had a short discussion about the candidates, in particular Baker and Dole, and then the president told me he had decided to go with Dole. He asked me to get him on the phone.
What strikes me most when I think back on the selection is that right in the middle of our deliberations on the vice presidency was Nelson Rockefeller. Here we were talking about who was best to replace Rockefeller, and there was Rocky himself offering counsel on which of the prospects would help Ford the most. It speaks well of him that