History’s Ebb and Flow: The Presidential Election of 1980

There you go again!

The presidential election of 1980 (Reagan v. Carter) was a turning point.  The election was preceded by years of intense social change:  Vietnam, civil rights, Watergate, terrorism, assassinations, rising drug use, environmental degradation, and fear of the twin specters of communism and nuclear annihilation.  With Vietnam and Watergate finally behind us, the sixties-era “flower children” were finally reaching maturity.  Their causes were losing momentum.  Even the important civil rights cause had advanced to the point where the formal barriers to blacks accessing the American Dream were falling away.

However, we now faced disgrace in Iran, gas lines, double-digit interest rates, and high unemployment.  As noted by President Carter in his infamous “malaise” speech, all of this weighed heavily on our national psyche.  Ironically, pollster Richard Wirthlin would later comment that the speech was “the exact moment I knew Ronald Reagan could beat Jimmy Carter.”

Jimmy Carter

President Carter has proved himself a highly intelligent, good and moral man.  But, he faced two big problems:  his own difficulties with the mantle of leadership, and an opponent that wore that mantle effortlessly.

Three events sealed his fate.  First was the fall of the Shah of Iran, which he might have survived had it not been for the subsequent take over of the U.S. Embassy.  The second event that turned the American public away from Carter was the failed mission to rescue the hostages.  And, finally, there was the “malaise” speech itself. 

Kevin Mattson remembers in his book, “What the Heck Are You Up To, Mr. President?,” that the immediate reaction to the speech was extremely positive.  Eighty four percent of the calls immediately after the speech were encouraging.  The mail that poured in surpassed previous records (set when Nixon invaded Cambodia and when Ford pardoned Nixon).  As Mattson says: “Except in this case, the letters were positive: 85 percent of them oozed with praise for the President’s speech.”  According to Mattson the public was rejecting “consumerism and impulsive self-interest,” which he says the public viewed as “self-destructive tendencies.”  Carter’s approval rating “zoomed 11 points over night.” 

So what happened?  Why wasn’t Carter able to parlay his overnight success into a winning election strategy?

Carter lost control of the speech’s message just two days later when he asked for his entire cabinet’s resignation.  According to Mattson it happened, “During a series of bizarre meetings and one-on-one sessions…” He goes on to say “Carter created a national buzz and crisis that quickly got out of hand.” It is interesting to contrast this moment for President Carter with that of President Lincoln as portrayed in Doris Kearns Goodwin’s incisive book “Team of Rivals.”  In it she describes how Lincoln’s wisdom and understanding of human nature was able to turn rivals into allies, which ultimately inspired the public’s confidence, and allowed him to guide the country through its darkest hours.

Ronald Reagan

My first memory of Ronald Reagan was the 1968 Republican Convention.  I was only eleven, but in our house, you watched the Convention.  Mr. Reagan was a relative newcomer to politics; he had switched parties just six years earlier, and had served as Governor of California for a little over a year.  He lost the Republican nomination to Richard Nixon, but was allowed to enter the convention floor to take what amounted to a curtain call from the Party’s grassroots.  No doubt about it, the camera loved Ronald Reagan, he possessed that rare mixture of gravitas and charisma.

Liberals often dismiss Reagan’s content.  They boil down his message as pure “aw-shucks optimism.”  However, both Bill Clinton and Barack Obama learned from Reagan, as can be heard in their refrains: “There is nothing wrong with America that can’t be fixed by what’s right with America,” and, more recently, “Yes we can.”

The truth is that Reagan was absolutely prepared to run for President in 1980.  He had already built a considerable following due to his two previous runs, his lengthy tenure as California’s Governor, and his long-running CBS radio show, in which he not only communicated directly to the public, but was able to work out a formidable policy platform. 

Additionally, he effectively summed up a position that most people agreed with.  After more than forty years of expanding government, he told us it was time for the pendulum to swing back in the other direction.  Note that this was not a referendum on Vietnam or civil rights.  Most people agreed that Vietnam had been a dark, dead-end; even if the North Vietnamese were bad guys.  Additionally, most people agreed with and respected the commitment of the brave leaders of the civil rights movement.  However, it was time for the United States to start feeling good about itself again, and, indeed, tax rates were too high.

I have described in previous posts, “Growing Up Republican” and “My Journey to Reconcile with the Republican Party” (July 2009) what I felt went right and what went wrong with the Reagan Revolution.  To me, the assassin’s bullet took a heavy toll on the President.  Already the oldest President in American history, he now had to recover from a serious gunshot wound.  Although the ship of state had many able bodied sailors, it lost its moral rudder.  Debt started to grow, corporate boards began to give into the lure of short-term profits, we started to negotiate with terrorists, and we were unable to beat swords back into plowshares after winning the cold war.

In her book “Reporting Live,” former White House correspondent Lesley Stahl writes that she and other reporters suspected that Reagan was “sinking into senility” years before he left office.  She writes that White House aides “covered up his condition” and journalists chose not to pursue it.  Stahl describes a particularly unsettling encounter with Reagan in the summer of 1986:  her “final meeting” with the President, typically a chance to ask a few parting questions for a “going-away story.”  But White House Press Secretary Larry Speakes made her promise not to ask anything. 

Although she’d covered Reagan for years, the glazed-eyed and fogged-up President “didn’t seem to know who I was,” wrote Stahl.  For several moments as she talked to him in the Oval Office, a vacant Reagan barely seemed to realize anyone else was in the room.  Meanwhile, Speakes was literally shouting instructions to the President, reminding him to give Stahl White House souvenirs.

Panicking at the thought of having to report on that night’s news that “the president of the United States is a doddering space cadet,” Stahl was relieved that Reagan soon reemerged into alertness, recognized her and chatted coherently.  Stahl remembers, “I had come that close to reporting that Reagan was senile.”

President Reagan made his last major public address to the 1992 Republican National Convention.  Although he performed ably during the speech, he did not command the same aura as he did twenty-four years earlier.  His speech was somewhat jerky and slurred, his eyes glazed.  He seemed to speak to the teleprompter rather than the audience.  After the speech, during the balloon drop, he became curiously playful.  Age had taken the dignity of the great man.  My last memory, he looked like the old man at the end of the movie “The Godfather,” innocently playing a child’s game. 

The Election of 1980

We have got to admit that our modern complex world calls for more than simple answers to complex questions.  We have ourselves to blame for letting debt, both public and private, grow out of control.   If you look closely at Goldman and Chase’s recent earning reports, the encouraging news quickly evaporates; their earnings were based almost entirely on recent gains in the stock market (in other words wealth created solely on paper).  Furthermore, if we don’t start attacking the “Double E” problems of energy and entitlements now, they will get much worse 10-15 years down the line.

The election of 1980 boiled down to a choice between two candidates with polar views of the United States.  One seemed to be saying that our problems were due to our own worse nature.  The other seemed to be saying there was no problem with the people of the United States; the culprit was government itself.  Unfortunately, Ronald Reagan’s platform of limited government has been hijacked into one of radical anti-government.  Now, ironically, Jimmy Carter’s words come back to us, “This is not a message of happiness or reassurance, but it is the truth and it is a warning.”

Our work is not done; it never can be in a democracy.