Ronnie and Nancy_ Their Path to the White House - Bob Colacello [306]
son Robert, who had been hired by Marion so that she would have a record 4 9 0
Ronnie and Nancy: Their Path to the White House of the night. In his pictures, Nancy, who had just turned fifty-nine, is wearing a sexy, low-cut dress and glowing with happiness. Not known for long speeches, she did what for her was a rare thing; after cutting the cake and making a wish, she gave an extended toast thanking all of the Reagans’
friends for always being there for them. Bandleader Joe Moshay, who played at most of the Group’s parties, was so touched that he wrote Nancy a note.
“In all honesty, I feel that you could never give a more sincere and from the heart speech to your close friends as you did that night. you were precious!!!”104
On the afternoon of July 14, 1980, Ronnie and Nancy made a triumphal entrance into Detroit for what some commentators were calling a corona-tion. They were both wearing white—he a tropical linen jacket, she a trim Adolfo suit—as they stepped out of their limousine at the Detroit Plaza Hotel in the Renaissance Center, a soaring downtown redevelopment project completed in 1977. When they entered the lobby, a modernistic five-story atrium, several hundred delegates and supporters on the balconies started chanting, “Reagan! Reagan! Reagan!” while showering them with ticker tape and confetti.
After being escorted to their sixty-ninth-floor suite, the Reagans proceeded directly to the suite of Gerald and Betty Ford, one floor up. The convention city was abuzz with rumors of a Reagan-Ford ticket, even though the former president had declared upon arriving two days earlier,
“Under no circumstances would I be the candidate for the Vice Presidency.”105 But Wirthlin’s polls still showed that Ford was the only prospect who boosted Reagan’s numbers, and Reagan agreed to try to persuade Ford to change his mind. It was Ford’s sixty-seventh birthday, and as he later recalled, “Ron presented me with an Indian peace pipe. He was making amends for running against me in 1976. Following the presentation, Ron said that he and Nancy wanted me to be his running mate in 1980! I was overwhelmed and flattered. In deference to his request, I said I would think about it and talk to Betty.”106
According to Bill Wilson, Reagan’s offer was not entirely sincere. “There was some thought that maybe you could get him to consider it—not accept it—and get his support in the campaign,” Wilson told me.107 Meese called Reagan’s offer “pro forma” and said Reagan “was surprised when Ford in essence said he would think about it.”108 There was another surprise that evening—causing delight among the press, who were desperate for some-Reagan vs. Carter: 1977–1980
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thing to dramatize what promised to be an unsuspenseful convention—
when Ford quipped in his opening-night remarks, “I am not ready to quit yet. . . . Count me in.”109 Thus began one of the most bizarre episodes in modern political history, which nearly resulted in Reagan’s decapitating himself before he was crowned.
Ford went to Reagan’s suite the following day for an hour-long meeting about the vice presidency. Although a still reluctant Ford reportedly recommended Bush, Reagan sources let it leak that he was definitely the first choice of an increasingly enthusiastic Reagan. Reagan also met with Henry Kissinger, who told reporters as he left the suite that he was not seeking a position in a Reagan administration. He would nevertheless take a leading role in the events of the next forty-eight hours, in what his enemies saw as a bold-faced attempt to assure just the opposite. The man who invented