Ronnie and Nancy_ Their Path to the White House - Bob Colacello [282]
Stu Spencer said that Reagan should withdraw, “the sooner the better.”83
Eleven out of twelve living former Republican National Committee chairmen had already endorsed Ford, the only exception being George H. W.
Reagan vs. Ford: 1975–1976
4 5 1
Bush, who had been made director of the CIA by Ford and was therefore obliged to remain neutral.84 The National Republican Conference of Mayors and seven of the thirteen Republican governors called on Reagan to quit the race. All of this only served to fuel Reagan’s stubbornness. Arriving at a rally in Greensboro, North Carolina, with Jimmy Stewart, who called Reagan “a friend of mine,” Reagan told reporters to tell Ford to quit.85
Laxalt recalled that the campaign was so broke by then that they had barely been able to pay for the 727 to fly them to North Carolina, and according to Nofziger even Nancy Reagan had come to the conclusion that it was time to throw in the towel. Nofziger was stunned when a frazzled Mike Deaver told him, “You’ve got to talk her out of it.” He knew he was not Nancy’s favorite, but he agreed to give it a try. “Ronnie has to get out,”
Nancy blurted when Nofziger walked into their hotel suite. “He’s going to embarrass himself if he doesn’t.” At that moment Reagan walked out of the bedroom and, realizing what was going on, said, “Lynwood,” using his pet name for Nofziger, “I’m going to stay in this thing until the end. I still think we can win.”86
Nancy helped save the day in North Carolina, however, by strongly supporting Thomas Ellis, the local campaign chairman, when he pleaded with Harry Treleaven, the campaign media consultant, to air a half-hour videotape of one of Reagan’s hard-hitting Florida speeches. For Ellis, the tape of Reagan sitting at a desk in a studio and talking directly into the camera was reminiscent of his 1964 Goldwater speech. Until then Treleaven had insisted on thirty-second spots filmed at Reagan rallies, and he feared that Reagan’s professionalism in a studio setup would remind voters of his career as an actor. In the four days before the primary, the campaign ran the Florida tape on fifteen of North Carolina’s seventeen TV
stations, and it is generally credited with turning the tide in the state, which Reagan won with 52 percent of the vote.87
There were twenty-one more primaries to go. In April and May, Reagan won Texas, Alabama, Georgia, Indiana, and Arizona while Ford took Wisconsin, West Virginia, and Michigan. In Nebraska, the Ford campaign ran radio ads in which Barry Goldwater attacked Reagan’s stand on the Panama Canal, saying it was based on “gross factual errors” and could “needlessly lead this country into open military conflict.” Flabbergasted, Nancy told reporters, “I feel as if I have been stabbed. . . . Of course, everyone knows what my husband did in 1964 for him.” According to Nofziger, the spots 4 5 2
Ronnie and Nancy: Their Path to the White House continued to run “until Nancy personally called [Goldwater] and complained. Reagan won Nebraska anyway by a lopsided margin, but things were never the same again between Goldwater and the Reagans.”88 Edith Davis also made a call to her Phoenix neighbor. “She called him up in his Senate office,” Richard Davis told me, “and she called him a cocksucker.
That was all over Washington and Phoenix—see, Barry Goldwater wanted to be secretary of defense under Ford.”89
The primaries ended on June 8, with Reagan winning California by two to one and Ford sweeping New Jersey and garnering most of the delegates in Ohio. On the last weekend, Ford ran the most negative TV ads of the campaign, focusing on Reagan’s recent comments on the situation in Rhodesia, where black guerrillas were fighting against the white government of Ian Smith: “Last Wednesday, Ronald Reagan said he would send American troops to Rhodesia. On Thursday he clarified that. He said they could be observers, or advisers. What does he think happened in Vietnam? . . . When you vote Tuesday, remember: Governor Ronald Reagan couldn’t start