The Myths and Electoral History of Ronald Reagan, Conclusion: Reagan's Vice Presidential Problems and How His Early Gaffes Were Overwhelmed By Carters Problems

 

 

As the Republican faithful assembled in Detroit that August the conservative faithful felt hopeful for the first time in decades. Over the past twenty eight years they had controlled the White House for 16 of them but the Me-Too band of Republicanism that Eisenhower and Nixon had represented had fundamentally left them cold. The one time that they had taken over the party in 1964 with Goldwater at the helm, it had resulted in electoral disaster. Now they seemed poised for victory as they began to design the platform.  All that Reagan needed to do was choose a running mate – and that became nearly as big an imbroglio as four years earlier.

The Republican delegates had a clear favorite from the start. An early poll showed George H.W. Bush the favorite of 34 percent of them.  A survey of the 50 GOP state chairman also showed Bush the clear favorite.  The problem was that the Reagans could not warm up to the idea of Bush, given the nature of how ugly the primary campaign. Bush had not endeared himself during the primaries when he had been repeatedly asked if he would serve as Reagan’s running mate and he had vehemently denied his interest.

The problem was that the party couldn’t decide on an alternative. The conservatives had refused to accept Howard Baker and Gerald Ford, considered by some, had made it clear he would not accept the spot if offered. Jack Kemp, a Reagan acolyte was considered by some but he did not seem to have enough electoral drag in the general. No one wanted Bush.

Things changed as the convention began. Gerald Ford had a spot in prime time.  Ford and Reagan were not fond of each other, but Ford loathed Carter and his speech he showed immensely improvement from the mediocre speaker he had been as President. 

Carter had sold America short. “You’ve heard all Carter’s alibis…We must lower our expectations. We must be realistic. We must prudently retreat. Baloney! Let’s start talking like winners and being winners!” The Joe Louis arena went wild. “I am not ready to quit yet, when the GOP fields the team for Governor Reagan count me in!”

Earlier that day  Ford met with Reagan and questioned the qualifications of some of the suggested candidates for VP: Kemp, Richard Lugar and Bill Simon. They met again on Tuesday as Kemp, Barry Goldwater and the keynote speaker Guy Vander Jagt. The speeches went over and Vander Jagt speech was moved to Wednesday at which point, the perfectly planned convention started to spiral.

That day the Reagan camp began to spread rumors of the ‘dream ticket’  Reagan-Ford.  Baker had ruled himself out, the conservatives led by Jesse Helms had turned their fire on Bush and there was no consensus candidate, except for Kemp. At this point, the consensus was Anybody But Bush. That night Reagan and Ford had a long and productive conversation that showed that the ice that had been put up four years ago genuinely seemed to be thawing. Ford pointed out that because he resided in California, the Twelfth Amendment might cost them California’s 45 electoral votes. Reagan didn’t consider that a deal-breaker. Ford met with Henry Kissinger, who at this point had become a pariah among the conservatives, told Ford that “for the sake of the country, he had to accept.”

That was where the trouble started. The discussion had been as much about power sharing as anything else and when Kissinger was invited to hammer out the details, Reagan’s chief adviser John Casey was increasingly annoyed as to how much power Kissinger wanted for Ford – and by extension, himself.

By noon, almost all the leaders of the Republican party, from Baker to Bob Dole began talking about it as if it were going to happen. However Congressman Jim Rhodes thought the idea was ‘cockamamie’ and stormed out. He bet with Reagan and told him that Bush had to be on the ticket.  Many of Ford’s closest associates, including Stu Spencer and Dick Cheney, though the idea crazy and were absent from the convention. Bill Timmons who was running the convention, thought that was insane and they had to keep Kissinger back out of government.

Things got crazier as the Ford high command and Reagan high command began slicing up how they would divide power.  It looked more and more like Ford would have far too much of it and essentially turn Reagan into an empty suit. Ford did not help when he kept sending mixed signals; on the one hand he liked being an ex-president, but he wanted another crack at Carter. He also remembered just how repugnant being Nixon’s vice president had been for him. The idea of a ‘co-presidency’ as it was being considered appeal to him more. Then Ford said as much on TV to Walter Cronkite that evening.  This made the delegates euphoric and angered Reagan’s staff – as well as George Bush.

Bush thought by this point he was done and that night gave brief, self-deprecating remarks in front of the delegates. Privately he was bitter and angry. By this point the media and the delegates were feeding off each other. Reagan was conflicted but could not bring himself to halt the negotiations. Finally however Bill Simon stopped by the Reagan suite and told the Governor that, even though he had been Ford’s treasury secretary he didn’t trust the man and thought the idea was nuts.  The conversation got heated. Finally Reagan forced Ford’s hand and Ford backed out. Whether Reagan believed it or not, no one will know for sure.  Finally, they decided to call George Bush.

Bush was finally on the ticket – and quite a few conservatives were royally angry. Paul Laxalt, who had been adamantly opposed to Bush, was both angry he’d been chosen and infuriated he’d been left out of the process. He stormed out of the convention. One of Reagan’s closest confidants told a reporter: “This is the sorriest day in a decade for Republicans.” The Texas delegation practically revolted. The New Right collation planned to draft Helms as the vice-presidential nominee, and conservatives considered staging a walkout. Helms, however, called off the troops. Far more Republicans saw the merits of the campaign and came around. The campaign moved forwards and Reagan’s acceptance speech managed to satisfy everybody. He still knew he had his work cut out for him -  a pre-convention poll showed him trailing Carter by 42 percent to Carter’s 44 percent.

 

Over the last several years I have read many books about Carter’s reelection campaign and theories as to his loss to Reagan. Some of the theories are true – Ted Kennedy’s primary challenge to him was a major distraction to him and Kennedy’s refusal to drop out in the name of party unity did not help. Carter’s decision to spend so much of his time and energy in 1980 focused on the successful return of the hostages in the Teheran embassy hurt his Presidency and a disastrous rescue attempt in April probably was a fatal blow.

Other theories range on the conspiratorial. Some suggest an embittered Kennedy friend decided to work for Reagan’s campaign and stole Carter’s debate prep book just prior to Carter and Reagan’s sole debate. Some say that the Reagan campaign, in order to prevent ‘an October surprise’ engaged in back door negotiations with Iranians to make sure the hostages were not released until after November. Somewhere in between is the theory that evangelicals, who had supporter Carter in 1976, abandoned him for Reagan in 1980 – because Reagan was closer to the views of the Moral Majority that would soon become the religious right.

I think at the end of the day the truth is fundamentally simpler. Carter had been an immensely unpopular president for much of his term, and while most of the reasons were not of his own making his attitude in public and among the Democratic party gave him the appearance of being weak and ineffectual. I have written that while I feel Ted Kennedy’s primary challenge was doomed to failure, it did not happen in a vacuum. Jerry Brown also challenged Carter in the early primaries and even though it was a total disaster, it speaks volumes to the fact as to just how unpopular Carter was with Democratic voters.  The fact that Kennedy received a huge boost in votes even after he had no realistic chance of getting the nomination speaks much to the fact as to how unpopular Carter was with the party faithful.  

Going into the convention that summer, there were many people who did not want to nominate Carter – or Kennedy.  The Maine delegation planned to desert Carter and draft his Secretary of State Edmund Muskie. Members of Congress, including Senate Majority Leader Robert Byrd, were trying to persuade Carter to drop out of the race before the convention began. On July 30 Carter had a disapproval rating of 77 percent, worse than Nixon’s at the height of Watergate. Kennedy’s call for an open convention was seen as self-centered, but there were many elected Congressmen and governors who were open to the idea.

Carter would later argue that he spent so much time leading up to the Democratic Convention securing his nomination that he had far less time to concentrate on the fall campaign. That, however, leads me to his second, far larger, problem. Carter did not have a theme to support being reelected.

It was written that in 1980, more people voted against Carter than for Reagan and vice versa, and that may be true. But there’s a difference. When an incumbent is being challenged for the White House, almost all of the focus on the opposing nominee is on him to demonstrate why the President has failed in his tenure. In part it was Reagan job to convince people to vote against Carter. Carter, however, spent his entire campaign arguing for reasons to vote against Reagan and never came up with a reason to vote for him.

So during the opening weeks of the campaign Reagan did many gaffes that gave the impression of his biggest vulnerability: that he was a lightweight, made for TV candidate with no substance. He commented about the teaching of creationism in public schools, he said the economy was in a severe depression, he said he would recognize Taiwan, reversing Carter’s earlier decision (while Bush was in China and disagreed) and famously said that trees caused pollution. He also hurt himself when after Carter kicked off his campaign in Tuscumbia, Alabama, by saying that Carter was starting his campaign in the city that ‘gave birth to the Ku Klux Klan’. It was not only clumsy; it was factually incorrect – the KKK had been founded in Tennessee. Furthermore, Carter had criticized the Klan, which had members in regalia at his rally.

But Carter didn’t have a positive case to make for reelection. And the main thrust of his campaign was that Reagan was a warmonger and worse. In a September rally, he said that the Reagan campaign used code words like ‘states rights’ and that racism ‘has no place in this country.” The backlash was immediate, and not just from Republicans. The Washington Post editorial board and New York’s Lieutenant Governor Mario Cuomo criticized him. Carter called a press conference to call it off.

Two weeks later, he went even more overboard. In a speech in Chicago he said: “this election will determine whether America will be united…whether Americans might be separated, black from white, Jew from Christian, North from South, rural from urban.” In a subsequent interview with Barbara Walters, Walters first question dealt with the fact that: “In recent days, you have been characterized as mean, vindictive, hysterical and on the point of desperation.”

Carter increasingly started to behave petulantly.  John Anderson, after dropping out of the hunt for the GOP nomination, had mounted an independent candidacy for the Presidency. He had managed to get his name on the ballot in all fifty states and his popularity was rising. At one point in California polling, he had actually been ahead of Carter, who was in third at the state. He had publicly said before that if Carter agreed to debate him once, he would get out of the race.

Now when his ranking in the polls reached high enough for him to be included in a national debate with Ronald Reagan, Carter refused to participate saying: “I view Mr. Anderson as a creation of the press.” Reagan, however, agreed to debate him. The backlash against Carter hurt him even more. At one point, the League of Women Voters suggested having an empty chair on stage to represent the President. A political cartoonist then proceeded to draw the debate stage with Anderson, Reagan, and a high chair representing Carter. (The idea was dropped.) He would later skip the Al Smith dinner where most political candidates had met since it had been founded in 1945.  Reagan was superb, paying tribute to the hostages and being self-deprecating about his age: “There is no truth to the rumor that I was the original Al Smith dinner’. Reagan was sixty nine.  Carter by contrast was tone-deaf and censorious, only taking shots at Reagan, and rather than being witty gave a longer speech that seemed to be more of a sermon.   A Times columnist put his finger on the problem with Carter that night: “There is no fun in Jimmy Carter…He has acted as if his job is  a pious duty.

On the sole debate on October 28^th, millions of viewers saw the difference between Carter and Reagan: Reagan was relaxed and smiling, the President was erect, lips tight, ready to pounce.  When Carter decided to invoke his daughter in his speech as an attempt to personalize himself, it went over horribly:

“I had a discussion with my daughter, Amy, the other day before I came here, to ask her what the most important issue was. She said she thought nuclear weaponry and the control of nuclear arms.”

Carter sounded like he had been asking his thirteen year old daughter for advice. His aides had urged him not to use that anecdote and he had ignored him.

But in a way Carter had sealed his own fate a year earlier when, at the crux of his unpopularity, he had given his famous: “crisis of confidence speech: “The true problems of our nation are much deeper. All the legislation in the world can’t fix what’s wrong in America.” When Reagan uttered his famous line: “Are you better off now than you are four years ago?” he was, in a sense, throwing Carter’s own words back at him. Reagan had told the voters that if they thought they were they knew who the vote for. What could Carter say in response, considering he had more or less told them as much just the previous year?

In retrospect what I find the most astonishing is not that Reagan won the election but that the polls were as close as they were for as long as they were. Carter’s internal polling was saying that into the final week of his campaign that he was either slightly ahead or within the margin of error. On Monday night, Carter’s internal polling showed that it was now an eight to ten point lead.

The landslide victory Reagan had over Carter of 489 electoral votes to 49 was actually softer than it looked.  Anderson’s share of the vote was greater than Reagan’s margin of victory in fourteen states. Had Carter won all those votes, he would have gained 168 electoral votes. It would have been a big defeat – 321 votes to Reagan to 217 for Carter – but it wouldn’t have been as horrible.

Far worse was Carter’s decision to concede his election so early in the night. To be sure, the networks called the election for Reagan ridiculously early – 7:50 pm on the East Coast, well before polls had closed in many states. But Carter’s decision to concede at 9:50 pm, while polls on the West Coast and some states in the Central Time Zone were still open earned him bad marks by Democrats who may very well have lost their Congressional and Senate Seats because Carter’s chose to concede before they were close.

The election was a disaster for the Democrats, who ended up losing 12 seats and their Senate majority for the first time since 1954. How many of those seats may have been decided because of Carter’s concession will never be known but given the narrow margins that Senator Frank Church of Idaho and Clark Gruening of Alaska ended up losing by it might well have been considerable.  Many other legendary Democrats also took a thumping: Warren Magnuson in Washington, George McGovern in South Dakota, Gaylord Nelson in Wisconsin and Birch Bayh in Indiana. Magnuson and McGovern were routed in their states but the narrow margins for Bayh and Nelson suggest they might have won had Carter not conceded. Furthermore Barry Goldwater would only win reelection by one percent over Democratic challenger William Schultz. Perhaps Goldwater would have lost had it not been for Carter’s concession. The possibility of the Democrats at least holding on to their majority in the Senate was remote given the political climate.

The Reagan revolution was less significant in the House: the Republicans gained 35 seats, but the Democrats still maintained a healthy majority of 242 to 193.  Still many Southern Democrats would take conservative issues, giving the Republicans an ideological majority on some of his issues. It was also the first time the GOP had won a sizable majority of representatives of any deep south state (in this case South Carolina) since Reconstruction.

Reagan’s 1980 win was a revolution in electoral politics to be sure. And while the overall turnout may have been low – 52.4 percent of eligible voters turned out, the lowest percentage since before the Great Depression -  we cannot take away the significance of Reagan’s triumph and what it meant. Reagan had been the first candidate to defeat an incumbent since FDR had defeated Herbert Hoover in 1932; indeed he was the first Republican to defeat a sitting president in the 20^th Century. The Great Depression led to Hoover’s defeat; the Great Recession helped lead to Carter’s. But despite what everyone says about Reagan, it does not change the fact that his triumph was a revolution for Republican politics. Jimmy Carter might very well have lost the 1980 election, but few could argue that Ronald Reagan – and the campaign style he advocated for – had not won it.