In My Time - Dick Cheney [74]
One of my campaign re-election brochures, 1980.
In 1976 I had played a major role in the Republican convention in Kansas City. I had a spacious suite next to President Ford’s and cars and drivers to whisk me around. But in 1980, as a freshman congressman, I was only one member of the Wyoming delegation. Reflecting our state’s population and general role in the proceedings, we were assigned a motel about half an hour outside Detroit, and if I didn’t catch the delegation bus each morning, I was looking at a fifty-dollar cab ride.
The 1980 Detroit convention was basically a coronation for Ronald Reagan. Although there had been several candidates for the party’s nomination, the former California governor’s victory was never really in doubt. For one brief moment in Detroit, I found myself back in the action, when attention turned to our nominee’s choice of a vice presidential running mate. A number of Reagan’s top advisors, foremost among them campaign manager Bill Casey, believed that a Reagan-Ford ticket would be the strongest possible combination. In the Ford camp Henry Kissinger, Jack Marsh, and Bryce Harlow were among those urging President Ford to give serious consideration to joining his former rival’s ticket.
Bryce Harlow in particular was a strong advocate of a Reagan-Ford ticket. The little-known Harlow, who had first served in the Eisenhower administration, was one of the wisest, most respected, and most influential men in Washington for three decades. In 1976 he believed that Ford would win if he could put the wounds of the nomination fight behind him and invite Reagan to join his ticket. Harlow considered the electoral logic no less compelling four years on. Reagan and Ford were the unrivaled leaders of their wings of the Republican Party. At the time, before Carter’s extreme unpopularity and Reagan’s great appeal were fully appreciated, a Reagan-Ford ticket looked like the best way to bring the party together and enter the race with a united front.
On the third day of the convention, I was invited by Howard Baker and John Rhodes, the Senate and House minority leaders, to join them and representatives of Governor Reagan and President Ford at the Renaissance Hotel to discuss the proposal. President Ford had made it clear that he would consider the vice presidency only if there was an agreement giving him significant responsibilities in a Reagan-Ford administration. At the meeting Bill Casey indicated they were willing to go a long way toward meeting the Ford demands, including giving the former chief executive a major role in foreign policy, the budget, and personnel. I realized that what was being discussed all but amounted to a co-presidency, with the president and vice president dividing and sharing the powers of the office.
I was stunned at the extent to which Bill Casey, and presumably Governor Reagan, were willing to share the power of the president. After the meeting Bob Teeter and I joined Baker and Rhodes in discussing the proposal. It was clear that none of us thought the arrangement being discussed was even remotely workable. There can be only one president at a time, and certain presidential powers cannot be delegated.
Fortunately, later that evening the Reagan people arrived at the same conclusion and offered the second spot on the ticket to George H. W. Bush, who readily accepted. On reflection, I don’t think President Ford had any intention of being vice president a second time. He often told me over the years that the months he spent as vice president were the most miserable of his career. I think he deliberately made demands that he fully expected to be rejected and that he was surprised at how far Reagan was prepared to go to persuade him to accept the vice presidential nomination.
AFTER THE 1984 ELECTION, Speaker O’Neill, at the recommendation of Bob Michel, appointed me to a seat on the House Intelligence Committee.
With fellow members of the Wyoming congressional delegation, Al Simpson and Malcolm Wallop at a campaign rally with President