Ronnie and Nancy_ Their Path to the White House - Bob Colacello [288]
Lyn Nofziger, Nofziger 1
“Fate” as a character in legend represents the fulfillment of man’s expectation of himself.
Barbara Tuchman, The March of Folly:
From Troy to Vietnam 2
Bush was the last-minute choice for vice president, because what’s-his-name—Ford—asked to be co-president. That made Ronnie so mad that he picked up the phone and called George Bush.
Betsy Bloomingdale to author,
September 26, 1999
A WEEK AFTER THE CONVENTION IN KANSAS CITY, PRESIDENT FORD CALLED
Ronald Reagan and invited him and Nancy “to come to Washington and spend a night in the White House.” Reagan declined, and while he assured Ford that he would do whatever he could to help the ticket, he added, “I’ve also got to get back to making a living.” Mike Deaver, who had already started putting Reagan’s speaking schedule together for the fall, explained that this should not be interpreted as a rebuff, and issued a pro forma statement of support: “The Governor sincerely believes that the 4 6 1
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Ronnie and Nancy: Their Path to the White House country cannot afford four years of Jimmy Carter and the stakes are too high to wallow in recriminations.”3
Over the next nine weeks Reagan campaigned in more than twenty states, but exclusively for Republican candidates who had supported his challenge to Ford. Just as pointedly, his speeches emphasized the party’s platform, with its anti-détente and anti-abortion planks, which had been included to mollify his conservative supporters. Likewise, when he finally agreed to do television ads for the Ford-Dole effort, they focused almost entirely on the virtues of the platform.4 There were no joint appearances with Ford, and when the President appeared in California in late October, with John Wayne at his side, Reagan remained at Rancho del Cielo, sending his regrets by telegram, which an annoyed Ford staff released to the press.5 After Lyn Nofziger, who was working for Dole, pleaded with him, Reagan acquiesced to a photo op with the vice presidential candidate, on the condition that it take place in Pacific Palisades.6 When Ford’s campaign chairman, James Baker III, called Holmes Tuttle and begged him to persuade Reagan to make a quick swing through Florida, Mississippi, and Texas in the final days before the election, Reagan said no.7 According to Nofziger, Reagan wouldn’t even accept an invitation to a Salute to Ford fund-raiser in Los Angeles unless Paul Haerle, the California Republican Party chairman who had deserted him early on, was disinvited.8 Nancy later admitted, “It took years for the scars of 1976 to heal between the Fords and the Reagans. . . . You can’t work that hard and that long without being frustrated, and Ronnie and I were both deeply disappointed that he didn’t win the nomination in 1976.”9
“To my surprise, Reagan, who is seldom bitter, went to California a bitter man, convinced that Ford had stolen the nomination from him,”
Nofziger would write. “While I’m certain he would have beaten Jimmy Carter, I’m still not sure that things didn’t work out for the best in the long run. The nation needed a Jimmy Carter in order truly to appreciate a Ronald Reagan.”10
“I’m at peace with the world,” Reagan told reporters standing outside his polling place in Pacific Palisades on November 2. In response to their questions, he said he “wouldn’t rule out and wouldn’t rule in” another try for the presidency in 1980.11 Two days later, after Ford had lost to Jimmy Carter, a small-town peanut farmer who had served a single term as governor of Georgia, The New York Times reported that Reagan was refusing requests for interviews because, as an aide relayed, “he doesn’t want to get bogged down Reagan vs. Carter: 1977–1980
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in saying I told you so.”12 The country’s lack of enthusiasm for both candidates was evident—it was the lowest turnout since the Truman-Dewey race of 1948—and many wondered if a more