Ronald Reagan: Heir to The Republican Throne (Part 2)

0:28Ronald Reagan knew how to go big and go bold. United States. We must reduce personal income tax rates. This type of what I call a voodoo economic policy, it just isn't going to work. Only one man has the proven experience we need. Together, we'll make America great again. Thank you very much.

0:51Hi, it's Katty. We've just launched our brand new series on Ronald Reagan, and it's exclusively for members of The Rest is Politics US. In episode one, you'll remember, we traced Reagan's unlikely transformation from Hollywood actor and Democrat to a rising Republican star with national ambitions. In this episode, we're diving into the turbulence of 1960s California, the student protests, the violent unrest, the backlash over rising crime. And it's in this chaos that Ronald Reagan seizes his chance, runs for governor and sets the stage for his extraordinary rise to the White House itself. So if you want to hear this series, just head to TheRestIsPoliticsUS.com and sign up.

1:36Here's a clip. Hope you enjoy it.

1:42President Nixon was serving his second term. So Ronald Reagan, I think, Anthony, assumed at this point that once Nixon left office, having been a very successful two-term governor of California, he was a very plausible fit to take over from Richard Nixon. But of course, things didn't go the way he was anticipating they would do. The Watergate scandal happened. Ronald Reagan initially didn't believe that Nixon, who he greatly admired, could possibly be embroiled in this. It took him right up to the end of Nixon leaving the White House for Reagan to understand the degree of Nixon's involvement in Watergate.

2:25And then Gerald Ford took over. So there was the chance for Ronald Reagan that Gerald Ford would then go on and be a successful candidate. And this left Reagan with really the only option at the presidency was to become a challenger to Gerald Ford within the Republican Party. It was not what he expected. He thought Nixon was going to do his two terms and he would run the primaries, but as the clear front runner. Now he has to challenge the incumbent, which makes his bid a little bit more complicated. But talk about Reagan and Nixon, because Reagan was a great admirer of Nixon's. And Nixon was more dismissive at Ronald Reagan, felt he had to keep him happy because he was this good looking, charismatic governor from California, but secretly was kind of rather rude about him behind closed doors, even though he realized he kind of had to flatter him in public.

3:19Talk about their relationship. So it's worth mentioning the political ambition of Reagan is such that he does run in the 1968 primaries. Nixon is running. He's running. He steps out. He steps out of the 1968 primaries and sees it to Nixon. But Nixon never got over that. Nixon was very sore about that. Nixon was also sore that in 1962, he lost to Pat Brown. Here comes Mr. Sunnishine, Ronald Reagan, beats the incumbent Pat Brown. And so Nixon didn't like it. You know, there was a jealousy there as it related to Reagan's disposition. And there was also a feeling of intellectual superiority. And, you know, when people feel intellectually superior to you, they can be very pedantic and they can be very dismissive.

4:09And so here's Nixon. He called him a man of limited mental capacity, not particularly friendly. Yeah, there you go. Here's Nixon, who's paranoid, secretive, cynical, and Machiavellian. And here's Reagan, who's sort of cheerful and communicative and ideological. But I want to draw a thread back to FDR. FDR had a postmaster general by the name of James A. Farley. And Farley called him up in late 1940 and said, FDR, how are you? He said, great. I'm going to be running for president in 1940. and FDR got really pissed, Caddy Kay, because FDR wanted to run for president in 1940. Who the hell is this guy saying that he's going to run for a president?

4:53And so he started squashing James Farley. Nixon starts doing this to Reagan and Reagan does something very smart. It speaks to his instincts. He ignores it. You know, when you say you get more with sugar and honey than you do with piss and vinegar. That's Reagan. And so he keeps showing up. He keeps showing up for Nixon, even though Nixon is dissing him left and right. So the Watergate scandal happens. Reagan, of course, supports him. But remember, there's an age-related issue here. He's 65 years old. That's considered old back then. And he wants to run for president. And this is the tension inside of Reagan.

5:36If I don't do it now, when am I going to do it? And so he's 65 years old. He's going to now challenge Gerald Ford in 1976. So he runs an unsuccessful campaign against Gerald Ford in 1976. Reagan had actually commented on Gerald Ford. So he knew him when he was playing college football. I thought it was a fun fact. As you say, he kind of feels like he's compelled to do it. He says, if I don't do it now, I'm going to be the player who's always been on the bench, but never got into the game. And after he loses the nomination, Ford actually invites him to speak at the Republican National Convention.

6:17And Reagan gives an unscripted farewell speech that because he's again such a good speaker, as we saw with Barry Goldwater in the last episode, it brings the house down. It's actually possible, I think, that losing the nomination at this stage was a blessing in disguise because Ford then goes on to lose to Jimmy Carter in the 1976 election, as we know. And maybe Ronald Reagan, even if he had been a successful challenger, wouldn't have beaten Carter in 76 anyway. It was a kind of moment where after Watergate and the troubles of the Republican Party, there was so much disgust around the country with Watergate and with the scandals of Nixon that it was very hard for Gerald Ford to separate him or to separate the party from the Watergate scandal.

7:03And perhaps a Democrat was going to have a very good chance anyway in 1976 of winning the election. And Ronald Reagan, had he run then, would have been an unsuccessful candidate. So he's forced to now regroup and plan for a run in four years time. There's something I want to bring up as I do think is important. When you schism the party, the person generally loses. And so Reagan schisms the party. He forces the primary. He does lose to Gerald Ford, who's the incumbent, but it weakens the party's resolve going into the election. By the way, same thing happens to Jimmy Carter in 1980. Teddy Kennedy schisms the party.

7:44And so a lot of the establishment Republicans at that time, Cady, are pissed at Reagan. They're like, dude, we're trying to win reelection here. You're taking your political ambition, uber alice, to the overall goal of winning against the Democrats. So they're mad at him. At a time when the party was suffering anyway. They're mad at him. I just want to point that out. So now Reagan is 66 years old. He's getting older. Yep. In 1977. and then the question is, is he going to run again? He'll be 69 years old. He'll be the oldest person in U.S. history to potentially ascend to the presidency. I think it's important for people to know that he was very ambivalent in 1977.

8:29He was very ambivalent in 1978. And then he's seeing the malaise, literally self-described by Carter, and Reagan turns to Nancy and he decides to go for it. And John Sears, who worked for Nixon, he hires him as his campaign manager. And Jay Winnick writes about this in one of his books. And I love telling this story, Caddy, because it's emblematic of Reagan. They're now putting out feelers that they're going to run. They're trying to heal the rift between the establishment, Republicans and the conservatives. And John Sears runs into Reagan's office. And he says, my God, we're in so much trouble.

9:06And Reagan says, what do you mean? He says, well, the John Birch Society just endorsed you. Now, for those young listeners, the John Birch Society was a hard right conservative society, and it was perceived to be very negative for establishment Republicans. And Sears was like, we got to disavow them. We've got to go to a microphone immediately and say, we don't want their, we're just healing this rift now with the establishment. We don't want their endorsement. Reagan looks at him and says, no, I don't care about their endorsement. Remember, they're endorsing me. I'm not endorsing them. You see this piece of paper right here, John?

9:43These are my principles. I'm running on these principles. If I get elected, I'm going to be 69 years old. And frankly, I don't give a blank. You know what I'll do? If I lose this election based on these principles, I'm going to go cut brush at my beautiful ranch in Santa Barbara with my wife. So this is who I'm running as. this is who I am and I don't care who's endorsing me. It's about me endorsing them.

10:11So I hope you enjoyed that extract from episode two. If you want to hear the first two episodes in full right now, just go to the rest is politics us.com to become a founding member. The link is in the podcast episode description box.