PRIMARY COLORS
“You don't think Abraham Lincoln was a whore before he was a president? He had to tell his little stories and smile his shit-eating back country grin, and he did it all just so he could have the opportunity to one day stand before the nation and appeal to the better angels of our nature.”
-Jack Stanton in
Primary Colors (1998)
September 13, 1979
State Republican Convention — San Diego, CA
Ronald Reagan was antsy. He had been following the advice of John Sears for some time now, but he was starting to believe that Sears’ instincts were wrong. They’d employed a strategy some dubbed the “front walker” — allowing the other candidates to enter and beat themselves up while the dutiful Reagan marched on, rather quietly, toward the caucuses and primaries. And as Reagan sat confined to the sidelines, he watched as other candidates — boring candidates, like Howard Baker — stole his thunder. Take, for example, the issue of SALT II, where Baker had forcefully come out in opposition. Reagan needed to regain the mantle, he thought. He needed to come out swinging, prove that he deserved to be the first-choice of Republican voters. And he had just the idea to do it.
But when he told his campaign manager, Ronald Reagan was met with dismay instead of excitement. The issue was a speech he’d give to the state Republican convention in San Diego on September 13th. Sears thought the topic should be SALT II, and he believed it would be a critical moment in the run-up to the campaign. Here, he believed, Reagan could sound entirely conventional, and in the process, he’d assuage the concerns of Republicans who thought he was too outside the box to win a general election.
On the way to Los Angeles, Reagan stopped in Colorado, where he visited the NORAD headquarters in the Cheyenne Mountain. During the tour, Reagan learned about new technology that was tracking thousands of objects in the sky. He was impressed. But he was also surprised that the technology hadn’t been developed further.
How can it be that with all of this technology, there’s no way to stop an incoming nuclear weapon? Reagan pondered the question, and on the flight to California, he broached the subject with Sears.
“I think I could propose some kind of system that could stop an incoming nuclear missile,” Reagan said. Sears couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
“Governor, with all due respect, I think such a proposal would be laughed out of the room.”
Reagan disagreed. He explained the technology he’d seen at NORAD, and he instructed Sears to pull some language together. “I think we can set ourselves apart,” he said. While opponents attacked his age, Reagan could show himself to be a forward-thinker, someone ready to take on problems not yet anticipated. “Everyone is talking about SALT,” he reasoned, “but I have a chance to move the conversation in a dramatic way — a way that benefits us.” The problem was, Sears didn’t believe it would benefit him. Instead, he thought it would cement the image that Reagan was inept and not cut-out to handle foreign policy issues. Reagan didn’t buy it. He’d nearly knocked off an incumbent president precisely because he’d been unconventional. If he turned into another establishment Republican, the voters who were attracted to him would find another conservative, like Phil Crane, and then what would be left?
President Howard Baker?
Aides convinced a begrudging Reagan that the issue could be explored more—later. Right now, they needed Reagan to go out there and deliver the speech as prepared. Reagan relented.
In front of the California Republican Party, Reagan read remarks that had been written for him about SALT II and foreign policy. Reporters in the room noted that this was a different Reagan — a
moderate Reagan. Until the teleprompter went out, and Reagan was forced to improvise. At first, he stumbled through a few lines he remembered off the top of his head, and then a little piece of him thought,
To Hell with it, and he decided to give the speech he wanted to give.
“And mankind holds in its hands the greatest assurance of world peace — a technology that will allow us to stop incoming missiles. We can develop a shield that will stop attacks from reaching our shores. We can destroy them in the sky. And when we develop this technology, the petty disagreements here on Earth about who gets how many weapons will vanish, because the answer will not matter. Regardless of the weapons on Earth, the answer to peace exists in the satellites of the sky,” Reagan said. Sears choked on his coffee.
The response was swift. The papers called Reagan’s speech “an ode to the Goldwater years” and said he seemed “content with expanding nuclear arsenals.” Sears read each article with an increasing sense of dread. The nomination was slipping from their hands. But the best summary of the speech belonged to John Connally, the former Texas governor and Nixon cabinet secretary, and a rival for the nomination. Of Reagan’s fiasco, Connally quipped, “Perhaps Mr. Reagan was in those Hollywood studios just a few years too many. This isn’t Star Wars.”
This isn’t Star Wars. Reagan was a mocked man. His policies were
fantasy. The insinuation was humorous and cut to the point — Ronald Reagan was not presidential material. But was Connally?
Some in the Moral Majority were beginning to think so. They had doubted Connally — viewing him (rightly, perhaps) as a smooth-talking politician who lacked a guiding moral or ideological compass. Instead, he seemed ambitious and content with amassing political power no matter how it was done. Again, their read was not entirely off base. Connally was a protege of Lyndon Johnson’s after all, and most recently he had been a confidant to Richard Nixon. He was not likely to win any awards for piety. But the Moral Majority was less concerned with finding a pious preacher than they were with finding an electable politician — someone who they thought could carry the torch on their issues, no matter their own issues. Reagan, after all, had been divorced, and as Governor of California he’d signed the most liberal abortion legislation to date. Surely, he was not a perfect vessel. And so, in the wake of his SALT II speech, as others in the Washington establishment mocked the Gipper, those on the Christian Right, seeking relevance — seeking to back a winner, began to reconsider their fidelity to Ronald Reagan. And like it was a game of Texas Hold ‘Em, John Connally was holding a royal flush.
In Connally’s home state of Texas, a group of religious leaders assembled to discuss the emerging political campaign. Among those present were Billy Graham, Pat Robertson, Paige Patterson, Charles Stanley — assembled by Paul Weyrich. Their task was to discuss how Christianity could be leveraged into a political force. Weyrich was discouraged, he said. He’d supported Carter in 1976, but felt he’d been betrayed by the president. Now, he thought it was time to unify behind a particular candidate — someone who would owe his election to them. The ongoing debates about gay rights and crime in the cities, about segregated schools being tax-exempt, about prayer in school—the Evangelicals were angry, and they wanted to do something about it. Pat Robertson said passionately, “I’ll die to turn this country. Whatever it takes. We can’t lose the country.” And so it was that the Crusaders found their mission. They wanted to elect a president.
But the question was who. Many had been impressed by Reagan, by his support for Henry Hyde, and his impassioned campaign against Ford. But others felt, given his SALT II speech, he was “unelectable.” One hypothesized Reagan may even fade before the first votes were cast. Others cited his opposition to the Briggs Amendment in California, which would have banned homosexual teachers in the classroom.
Reagan was against that? How could he be?
Instead, they should look at Connally, another argued. Sure, he was a bit of a wheeler dealer, but wasn’t that the candidate they needed? Someone willing to adopt their platform wholesale for the sake of winning? Someone in the room agreed, but brought the hypothetical to its logical conclusion. “Say he wins. How do we trust him?” There was silence. [1]
If the Religious Right was going to find a candidate, they would have to wait. For neither Reagan nor Connally (nor Baker nor Bush The Asterisk) was a good enough candidate for them just yet. But news of the meeting trickled out and eventually it got to Haley Barbour, who had previously worked for Reagan in 1976 and was now on Connally’s team. He got the word to the higher-ups that Connally needed to pivot — to show the Christian leaders searching for a candidate that he was their guy. Connally assured his team he had an Ace up his sleeve. He’d been developing a “bold stroke,” he called it — something that would upend the race and set him on the course to the nomination and the White House. He was going to give a major address on Middle East peace. His advisers were horrified.
Not only was the topic one unlikely to earn Connally votes, his proposal was anathema to just about every conceivable constituency. The plan had been developed with Sam Hoskinson, who then showed it to Kissinger. The former Secretary of State said simply, “Tear this up.” Eddie Mahe, who was campaign manager, was married to a fundamentalist Christian. “If Connally gives that speech, I can’t vote for him,” she said.
If Connally gave the speech, Mahe’s wife would not be the only supporter to desert the candidate. The speech was laced with political dynamite. It called for the United States to draw a “clear distinction” between supporting Israel and supporting Israel’s “broader territorial acquisitions.” Connally called for a collaborative takeover of oil, allowing for its “unimpeded flow.” It would be protected by American airpower stationed permanently near the Strait of Hormuz and the Sinai Peninsula. Jewish organizations would be incensed.
But eventually, Mahe convinced his boss of something else. Voters were tired of foreign policy minutiae. Carter had orchestrated a monumental deal for peace in the Middle East and barely received a polling bump. Instead, he argued, Connally’s path to the nomination went through the South (which the campaign had already agreed upon), and to win there, he needed to convince on-the-fence Christians that they could trust Connally to deliver on their new issue — abortion.
At first, Connally wasn’t interested. Social issues didn’t excite him, and he’d come of age in a time when they didn’t excite voters either. But Mahe pressed him. The times had changed. These voters went for Carter. Now, they wanted someone else. If Connally could deliver, the same kind of boots on the ground that won tough Senate races for Republicans like Orrin Hatch in Utah in 1976 and Roger Jepsen in Iowa in 1978 would hit the ground for Connally, too. Never to turn away a chance for votes, Connally started to come around to the idea. He had a personal friendship with Billy Graham and early on the campaign had met with Evangelical leaders, who had told Connally that he was the candidate they prayed for. [2]
The candidate gave in to Mahe, agreeing that the plan for Middle East Peace could wait. Instead, he would give a speech about Christian values — American values. And he would center it on “the issue of life,” which was not a phrase Connally had used much before, but it would soon become a key part of the Republican Party’s debate about what it stood for. And Connally’s speech helped ignite the blaze.
“You’ve heard me talk about this before,” Connally told the crowd, “but every time an American goes abroad they are pitied. Pitied. Yes, that’s right. Those from this great land travel across the Atlantic and Europeans take pity on us because of the state of our country. Well I don’t like that any more than you do,” he continued. “Everywhere you go in this country, our values are threatened.” Connally was gaining momentum, his fist pounding the podium. “I tell you there is a lot that is threatened — our energy supply, our currency — but what hurts most of all is that our way of life is threatened by insidious forces who seek to redefine our relationship with
Gahhhd. They try and change the definition of marriage — something that hasn’t been up for debate for centuries. They try and tell us that kids can’t learn in religious schools and that those schools aren’t worthy of tax exemption.” The fists met the podium again. The voice soared: “There
ahhh faw-ces luuuuhking in this country who don’t
beleeeeve you should be able to bow your head in
prayAH on any federal property.” The crowd had been warped into a tizzy. This was the kind of sermon that brought a congregation to its feet. And on their feet they were. “And
dayuhh I say there are those in this land who see
muuuhduhhh and liken it to a
meah CHOI-ce as if it is a question of what socks to put on in the mornin’. I say to you today: We know what happens when nations go down this road. We know of Sodom and Gomorrah. We know that an ugly fate awaits a nation that turns its back on God and the Good Book. And I will not let that happen to this promised land.
I! Will! Not! Abide!” The audience roared its approval. Connally grinned. “This is a
cruuusaaaadeee,” he said, the candidate unable to help himself. “It is a crusade, and I cannot do it alone.”
Then, he ended the speech with a familiar refrain: “I'm not asking you to help me as a favor. It's your business. It's your country. It's your currency. It's your privileges, your freedom. It's your leadership — the leadership of your country, which reflects on every one of you.” In this instance, he added a line to the end: “And it is
aaaaahhh Gaaaaaaaaahhhhhdddd who must be respected.” [3]
Mahe’s wife, watching on, applauded — her smile wide. “This is the speech that will make John president,” she told her husband. Eddie certainly hoped so.
October 20, 1979
JFK Library — Boston, MA
On September 7, 1979, Senator Edward Kennedy told Carter plainly that he was running against him for the Democratic nomination. It was the same decision his brother Bobby had made 12 years earlier in deciding to primary Lyndon Johnson. But while Bobby’s decision was rooted in foreign policy, Ted’s was rooted in domestic policy. The crux of the sour relationship was healthcare reform. Kennedy didn’t believe Carter’s plan went far enough. But there was also a philosophical reasoning. All of Carter’s simpleton approaches — the lack of alcohol at functions, the unwillingness to accommodate Congressional requests, the flippant way his staff treated Congressional staff, his reticence to appoint a Kennedy loyalist to the judiciary — angered the Massachusetts senator, too. Ted would later recall that the Crisis of Confidence speech as a significant contributing factor. While Carter enjoyed a bump, his somber tone offended Ted, whose brother Jack was famous for his inspirational oratory.
“Ask not what your country can do for you…” And so, in 1980, the ghosts of Joe Jr, Jack, and Bobby sat heavy enough on Ted’s conscience that he decided to push forward with a campaign for the Democratic nomination.
The candidates met face-to-face at the dedication of the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library & Museum in Boston. It was customary for the incumbent president to attend such an event, but this one would receive outsized attention precisely because the press knew an internal party conflict was brewing between the event’s two headliners: the late president’s brother and the man who presently occupied the Oval Office.
From the time the event was set, the Carter team knew they had to outperform. When Landon Butler drafted a memo concerning Kennedy’s primary campaign, he pinpointed the date of the Library dedication as a “pivotal point” and continued, “We must make plans, now, to insure that this speech is among the best the President has ever given.” [4]
On the day of the dedication, a breeze from Boston Harbor swept across the stage. The president kissed Senator Kennedy’s wife, Joan, on the cheek, but observers noticed former First Lady Jackie Kennedy seemed to recoil from the president as he reached out to her. Carter was in unfriendly territory. It seemed as though the entire Kennedy clan was in the audience — the late president’s mother, his children, siblings, nieces and nephews. No one doubted that Senator Kennedy was just weeks away from announcing his own campaign for the presidency. It was under these auspicious circumstances that Carter decided to begin by making a joke.
“I never met him,” he admitted, “but I know that John Kennedy loved politics. He loved laughter, and when the two came together, he loved that best of all.” The president continued by telling a story of his predecessor speaking with members of the press. The press, Carter explained, asked Jack a question: “Mr. President, your brother Ted said recently on television after seeing the cares of office on you, he wasn’t sure he would ever be interested in being president.” No one missed the joke, and the audience laughed — as if saying, ‘Touché, Mr. President.”
As Carter told the story, the reporter continued, “’I wonder if you could tell us whether, first, if you had it to do over again, you would work for the presidency and, second, whether you can recommend this job to others?’ The president replied, ‘Well the answer to the first question is yes, and the second is no. I do not recommend it to others — at least for a while.’” The audience continued in its laughter and the president turned to Ted as he drove his point home, “As you can well see, President Kennedy’s wit — and also his wisdom — is certainly as relevant today as it was then.” The peanut farmer president flashed his famous grin. The audience, full of a family for whom politics was as much a sport as touch football on a summer day in Hyannis, proceeded to chuckle. Ted had no choice but to recognize his adversary was a worthy one. [5]
Carter’s speech was memorable for more reasons than the opening salve. He spoke openly about November 22, 1963, the day of Kennedy’s assassination. He was in his peanut warehouse. “In a few minutes, I learned that he had not lived. My president. I wept openly, for the first time in more than ten years, for the first time since the day that my own father died.” It was a profound display of respect towards the Kennedy family, and it also brought Carter closer to Americans who would read the speech in the papers later. Everyone had their own story of that fateful dreary day — the day gray clouds consumed Camelot — and they could each recall how they had heard the news. By sharing his story, Carter was again reminding the average American that he was just like them.
Carter concluded his remarks with a discussion of policy, saying that the times had changed since the 1960s. “We have a keener appreciation of limits now,” he explained. “The limits of government; limits on the use of military power abroad; the limits on manipulating without harm to ourselves a delicate and balanced natural environment.” The ideological contrast between Carter and Ted Kennedy could not have been made more clear than in that speech — and Carter’s point was lost on few: Jack Kennedy’s policies were more in line with Carter’s than his brother’s.
Everyone agreed that Carter had delivered a great speech, possibly the best of his life. Elated, the president felt energized about the inevitable primary that loomed ahead, but before he could let his mind drift to thoughts of beating Kennedy, he faced an urgent matter.
For months, a foreign policy decision had loomed over Carter: would he admit the Shah to the United States for medical treatment? The status of the Shah had been of great debate for years, and Carter’s administration had offered him protection in the United States twice, in December 1978 and January 1979, before the Ayatollah Khomeini returned to Iran and took power. They’d hoped, perhaps naively, that removing the Shah early would have allowed a more moderate government to take charge. But the Shah resisted and chose not to come. It was not until a month later, on February 22nd, that the Shah informed the government that he’d like to come to the United States.
By this point, the animosity against the Shah had grown immeasurably in Iran, and while Khomeini may have been fine with him leaving to the United States early so that he could take power, that was no longer the case. The president, recalling a brief hostage situation on February 14th, denied the Shah’s request. But the Shah was determined. He enlisted the help of powerful friends, including Henry Kissinger and David Rockefeller, to lobby on his behalf. Kissinger was particularly impassioned about the issue of the Shah’s entrance, not because of a personal affinity but because he believed the United States owed the Shah.
In April of 1979, Kissinger and Rockefeller added John McCloy to their ranks and made a direct appeal to the president, Secretary of State Cy Vance, and Zbigniew Brzezinski. Carter resisted them face-to-face, denying the Shah’s request. He found the whole campaign offensive. But Z-big went behind Carter’s back and assured the Shah’s lobbyists that he was on their side and that he would continue to carry their message in the White House. Further overtures stalled, and the prospects for the Shah seemed bleak — until he received a chilling diagnosis.
On October 18th, David Rockefeller informed Cy Vance about the Shah’s illness and expressed that explained that his condition was grave. The Shah needed world-class medical treatment, like the kind found in the United States. The illness was enough to convince Vance that it was time to admit the Shah on humanitarian grounds. With Vance and Brzezinski now aligned, it was only a matter of time before Carter caved. After all, how often did those two agree?
Vance and Brzezinski also convinced Jordan that the time had come to admit the Shah, if for different reasons. Jordan was concerned about the effect that his death could have on domestic politics, worried that the image of the Shah dying in Mexico awaiting treatment in the States would be too much for Carter to overcome.
Warren Christopher, Vance’s number two at the State Department, drafted a memo for the president. It was stamped “Supersensitive” and given to Carter while he was in Boston. It spelled the situation out for Carter, and the president was incensed immediately. He knew right away that the decision in front of him was unpleasant. He had a dying man — a one-time ally of the United States — dying across the border, needing medical care in the United States. And he had a radical Iranian leader who would never accept the United States’ allowing the Shah into the country. For Carter, there could not have been a harder decision to make.
Eerily, Carter knew that admitting the Shah would pose grave consequences. Prior to arriving in Boston, Carter had lashed out at those who suggested bringing the Shah to the United States. “To hell with Kissinger,” he had barked. “I am the president of this country.” And when they continued to press him, Carter asked, “What are you guys going to advise me to do if they overrun our embassy and take our people hostage?” It was a question they should have pondered longer.
Instead, with Christopher’s memo in hand, Carter acted with his heart, not his mind or his gut, and he approved the Shah’s entry into the United States for medical treatment. Two days later, the Shah landed at LaGuardia Airport.
November 3, 1979
The Lighthouse Inn — Cedar Rapids, IA
The candidate had just wrapped up a long day of shaking hands. Few babies were kissed, but it had been a long and successful day for the presidential aspirant. In a diner with his team, he leaned back and sighed. “I think we’re going to do it,” he smiled. “I think we’re going to win Iowa.”
The candidate was George H.W. Bush. Son of former Senator Prescott Bush of Connecticut. Hero pilot of World War II. Formerly the CIA Director and the Chairman of the Republican National Committee.
His path to this campaign had been more twisted than a rattlesnake in the hot sun of his adopted Texas. Bush served briefly in the House of Representatives, but he’d failed to ever win a campaign at the statewide level. When his ticket to the Senate seemed assured, the Democrats had tossed out incumbent Ralph Yarborough in favor of a newer candidate, a more moderate Democrat who would appeal to Texas and block Bush from walking the halls his father had once loomed large in. That candidate was Lloyd Bentsen, but there was another prominent Texan who had played a heavy role in that defeat in 1970.
One of the peculiarities of the one-party system in Texas is that the elected officials came to resemble a sort of family tree. They could trace their roots back to someone for whom they’d worked or advised in earlier years. Lyndon Johnson had a fondness for Sam Rayburn. John Connally had been a staffer for Lyndon Johnson. Lloyd Bentsen had been in Connally’s inner circle, encouraging him to seek a fourth term as governor. [6]
In turn, Connally encouraged Bentsen to primary Yarborough. The younger Bentsen hoped Connally might want to make the challenge himself, but the governor shied away from such a Texas-sized showdown. Instead, he was the Oz behind the curtain of the Bentsen for Senate operation. When it came time to move from the primary campaign to the general election, Bentsen found himself against a Republican with whom he agreed on nearly every issue, and so he turned again to Connally for the kind of organizational support one needs to overcome a dull and uninspiring campaign. Connally provided it.
Suddenly, George Bush, the man who had traversed the state in 1964, his voice hoarse, his lungs filled with the rhetoric of Barry Goldwater, found himself painted a moderate. He was the candidate with four names —
George Herbert Walker Bush. He was the
son of a New England Senator. He went to
Yale. And when Texans turned on their television sets they saw the same face over and over: John Connally. For Lloyd Bentsen. For Senate.
When Nixon entered the White House and brought with him his dreams of turning John Connally into a Republican, he offered the Texas Governor a spot as Treasury Secretary. Connally encouraged him to name Bush to a position first. It wasn’t because he liked or respected Bush, no. He just didn’t want Nixon to burn bridges with the Texas Republicans. And so it was that George Bush became Ambassador to the United Nations. [7]
Now, George H.W. Bush was, he believed, on the cusp of becoming President of the United States — surpassing, even, the resume of his father. He would need to defeat John Connally and Ronald Reagan to do it.
If he’d said the statement, “I think we’re going to win Iowa,” aloud to anyone besides his campaign team, he’d have been laughed at. But George Bush’s staff believed him when the candidate said it. They’d known it to be true long before the candidate allowed himself to believe it.
The Bush campaign was in a fortunate position in Iowa for several reasons. The Reagan campaign continued to follow a quixotic strategy that seemed to emphasize, above all else, that their candidate didn’t need to meet actual voters. The frontrunner had chosen not to set up a significant campaign operation in the caucus state that launched Jimmy Carter on his White House trajectory. Bush, however, sought to replicate the incumbent president’s path — win big in Iowa, perform well enough in New Hampshire, and throw the front runner off his tilt. He reasoned there were still enough voters who thought Reagan was just a bit too far to the right for them.
Of course, in Iowa, the message was less about policy and more about age. Just that day, volunteers for Bush spent hours calling Republicans across the state. Time and time again, they heard that the person on the other end of the line was planning to caucus for Ronald Reagan. “Oh hey,” the Bush campaign volunteer would say, “that’s alright. I like Reagan a lot myself. But I think of George Bush as a younger Reagan.” Bush’s literature reminded voters that he had the “physical stamina” to do the job, and he met every caucus goer he could to prove it.
At the table, seated with his staff, Bush smiled a satisfied grin. His internal numbers showed the campaign was moving in the right direction. He was still behind, but he believed he could pull it off. And the Reagan campaign had started to notice, because the attacks on Bush’s character were beginning to make their way back to the candidate.
“You know,” he said, “I despise it. I really do. It’s terrible the way I’ve been abused.” He thought about it some more and continued, “It’s anti-intellectual. That’s what it is. It’s downright anti-intellectual. It’s worse than the Birch stuff. We can’t let these people own this party.” [7] His team nodded. Of course it was. Reagan was a lightweight. Their man was the real deal. The fact the press still wasn’t giving Bush his due was proof enough of the absurdity.
That night, George Bush went to bed convinced that he could win Iowa, and with Iowa, the presidency. As he drifted asleep, he had no idea that the campaign for the White House was about to change completely the next morning.
>>>>>>>>>>>>
[1] This meeting happened IOTL, but it ended with universal agreement on Reagan among the movement’s leaders. ITTL, where Reagan’s rollout is shakier, Connally is permitted a second bite at the apple.
Reaganland, 625.
[2]
The Lone Star, 575
[3]
https://www.nytimes.com/1979/11/18/archives/connally-coming-on-tough-connally.html
[4]
Camelot’s End, 153
[5]
Camelot’s End, 154-155
[6]
The Lone Star, 377.
[7]
The Lone Star, 382.
[8] Much of this is pieced together from Craig Shirley’s
Rendezvous with Destiny. This particular quotation is based on something Shirley attributes to Bush on pg. 97. I’ve edited it slightly.
