Ronnie and Nancy_ Their Path to the White House - Bob Colacello [315]
“expects to help screen appointees for Mr. Reagan, as he did in California.” Dart, still feisty at seventy-three, despite a hip replacement and heart troubles, announced that he would head a presidential advisory board on productivity, “the nation’s No. 1 problem.”159 The Executive Advisory Committee was so sure their boy was going to win that they started calling themselves the Transition Advisory Committee.
On election night, Tuesday, November 4, 1980, they were all at Earle and Marion Jorgensen’s house in Bel Air: Holmes and Virginia Tuttle, Henry and Grace Salvatori, Justin and Punky Dart, Bill and Betty Wilson, Jack and Bunny Wrather, William and Jean French Smith, Armand and Harriet Deutsch, Charles and Mary Jane Wick, Bob and Betty Adams, Voltaire and Erlenne Perkins, Tex and Flora Thornton from Litton, Tom and Ruth Jones from Northrop. Alfred and Betsy Bloomingdale took Jerry Zipkin, who wore a “Reagan for President” button on his lapel and, for a change, told all the women how fabulous they looked. Walter and Lee Annenberg had voted early that morning in Philadelphia, then boarded their jet and picked up Charles and Carol Price in Kansas City on the way out.
The Jaquelin Humes arrived from San Francisco, and Old Hollywood was represented by the Jimmy Stewarts, the Robert Stacks, and the Ray Starks.
Of the campaign staff, only Ed and Ursula Meese, Mike and Carolyn Deaver, and Peter and Casey McCoy were included. Nancy’s hairdresser, Julius Bengtsson, was there, too. So were the Reagan children—Patti, Ron with Doria, Michael with Colleen, Maureen with her new fiancé, Dennis Revell, a lawyer she had met through the Young Republicans—and Neil and Bess Reagan.160 Ronnie’s brother, now seventy-two and retired to posh Rancho Santa Fe, told everyone not to worry, Dutch was going to win in a landslide.161
Marion Jorgensen told me she served the same food she served at her election night parties in 1966 and 1970—veal stew and coconut cake. “But that night was so different than when he was governor,” she said. “The Secret Service came five or six days ahead and put telephones all over my house. They even put in the ‘red telephone.’ They were looking for a private place to put it, so they put it in Earle’s dressing room. I have a picture of Ronnie sitting in a chair in Earle’s dressing room with that phone—it was a call from the King of Saudi Arabia, congratulating him on just being elected president.”162
The party began at the usual time—4:30 in the afternoon. By then the polls had started closing in the East, and forty-five minutes later NBC’s Reagan vs. Carter: 1977–1980
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John Chancellor was the first to call the election. “NBC News now makes its projection for the presidency,” he announced, as a hush fell over the Jorgensens’ party and the Reagans’ closest friends and family stood transfixed in front of the five television sets Marion had placed around the living room, library, and den. “Reagan is our projected winner. Ronald Wilson Reagan of California, a sports announcer, a film actor, a governor of California, is our projected winner at 8:15 Eastern Standard Time on this election night.”163 Reagan would carry forty-four states and trounce Carter 51 percent to 41 percent in the popular vote, with 7 percent going to John Anderson.
Ronnie was in the shower, and Nancy was in the bathtub, with the TV
in the bedroom turned up extra loud, when she heard Chancellor declaring her husband the winner. “I leaped out of the tub,” she recalled, “threw a towel around me, and started banging on the shower door. Ronnie got out, grabbed a towel, and we ran over to the television set. And there we stood, dripping wet, wearing nothing but our towels, as we heard that Ronnie had just been elected! Then the phone started to ring. It was President Carter, calling to concede, and to congratulate Ronnie on his victory. I was thrilled, and stunned. We hadn’t even gone to the Jorgensens’ yet!”164
“They were late,” Marion Jorgensen recalled, “and they were never late. I got a call from Nancy’s secretary,