Rendezvous with Destiny: Ronald Reagan and the Campaign that Changed America (103 page)

One of Meese's aides, Tony Dolan, had written a long, thoughtful memo that had influenced the debate prep. Reagan should not try “to outpoint the other guy,” Dolan wrote; rather, the candidate should “speak directly to the American people.”
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The Sunday before the debate, Reagan canceled a previously scheduled taped interview with
Good Morning America
to spend more time getting ready for the debate. He also took time to watch video of the Carter-Ford debates of 1976.

Gerald Ford visited Reagan at Wexford for some last-minute tips on facing Carter. Ford was fully engaged now, lashing the president for “demagoguery.”
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Reagan, he warned, “has to anticipate some show of typical Carter meanness … vindictiveness.”
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Ford would know.

T
HE PRESIDENT WAS IN
fighting trim, having spent time with his trusted advisers Powell, Hamilton Jordan, Gerald Rafshoon, Pat Caddell, and Stuart Eizenstat at Camp David, boning up for the debate.
²⁹
Carter was poring over the massive briefing books covering Reagan's record over the years on all matters, foreign and domestic.

As Reagan had been active in public discussion since the late 1940s, it was a prodigious amount of material. The domestic book alone totaled several hundred pages.
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Three sets of books had been prepared—though one set had disappeared from the White House.

N
O ONE SEEMED TO
want to claim credit for selecting Cleveland as the site for the debate, though it was generally agreed that the idea had come from the League of
Women Voters. Of all the decrepit, falling-down cities in the Rust Belt, Cleveland may have been the saddest. Its river was so polluted that it had once caught on fire. Looming over the city was “Terminal Tower,” and no one doubted it for a moment.

Yet the media were thrilled to descend on the struggling city. This was the showdown that had been argued and negotiated over for weeks—months, even—and now it was finally here. Some 1,500 reporters and media support-types arrived in the city for the debate. In gratitude, the town took them to its bosom and treated them like royalty, giving them chauffeur-driven cars and limousines, baskets of fruit, receptions with shrimp and oysters, and—as always—copious adult beverages.

The ninety-minute debate was to be broadcast live on NBC, ABC, CBS, and PBS, and many national, regional, and local radio stations. It would be beamed overseas to twenty-six countries via four Intelsat satellites.
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People around the country organized debate parties to watch and cheer their favorite candidate. It was the first televised presidential debate that would feature a live studio audience.

That morning's
Washington Post
had a big story trumpeting “Carter Goes Into Debate With Lead in New Poll.” The breathless story by Martin Schram detailed, “Their clash comes on the heels of a Gallup Poll report yesterday that voters have swung sharply toward Carter in the last two weeks—a six-point shift that now gives the president a three-point lead over his Republican challenger.”
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Nonetheless, Reagan was “serene” the day of the debate, according to Jim Baker. Sitting backstage just moments before being introduced, Reagan asked Baker if he could have the holding room to himself for a moment. “I want to have a word with the man upstairs.”
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Carter's horoscope the morning of the debate said, “Confront adversaries.”
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But the president received a less auspicious sign when he arrived at the Cleveland Convention Center's Music Hall, site of the debate. He was startled to see Reagan T-shirts on the workers backstage. The men were members of the Teamsters union, which had endorsed Reagan; they hoped to throw Carter off his game with this bit of psychological warfare.
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Meanwhile, a memo authored by Reagan top aide Paul Manafort went out to the entire field staff, urging them to organize “surrogates and leadership persons for favorable debate reaction statements.” Ominously, Manafort warned, “This is an important exercise.”
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CBS
OPENED ITS PRE-DEBATE
show with Walter Cronkite telling millions of viewers, “It's not inconceivable that the election could turn on what happens in the next ninety minutes.”
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As the hour of the debate finally arrived, Carter appeared stage right, wearing a dark blue suit, white shirt, nondescript tie, and a collar bar, which had recently come back into vogue. He caught wife Rosalynn's eye and smiled, then went back to writing notes (neither candidate was allowed to bring any prepared text). Reagan, still in the wings, was also in a dark blue suit, white shirt, and nondescript tie, but no collar bar, though he did have his always present folded white handkerchief in the left breast pocket of his suit jacket.

Somehow, Henry Kissinger had finagled his way into the wings with the Reagan team. He stood where he made sure the audience in the hall could see him.

Reagan looked robust, suntanned, his pompadour held in place with a bit of water and a little dab of Brylcreem. Only the veins on his hands betrayed his age. Reagan had had a light dinner and one glass of wine, “a little color for his cheeks,” Mike Deaver said.
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He was ready.

Carter's hair had been blow-dried and was neatly in place. He was wearing makeup to give his sallow skin a bit of color and to hide some liver spots. Though he was only fifty-six, his four years in the Oval Office had aged him ten years, rounding his shoulders. The famous toothy grin of 1976 had given way to a somber, burdened man. The stress of the job had clearly taken its toll on the president. Mondale worried that “Carter looked pale and drawn and sort of tense.”
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Nevertheless, the Carterites were confident. “Carter seemed intellectually poised to devastate Reagan,” said Peter Bourne.
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They didn't seem concerned that Carter hadn't debated anybody since 1976 while Reagan had already debated six times in the past year—winning all except for a debate with Bush in Texas when there was little on the line.
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While waiting for the cue from the television producer, Reagan bounded up the stairs, stage left, and strode across the stage to proffer his hand to the president. Carter, who was looking down at his lectern, jotting down notes, was momentarily taken aback when his opponent was suddenly standing there, right hand extended. Carter smiled and accepted Reagan's hand but said nothing, and Reagan walked back to his side of the stage. It was not televised, but Reagan had scored a small psychological advantage with his sporting gesture. Photographers captured the moment.

T
HE
“T
ALE OF THE
Tape” stood as follows.

Carter—once known as “Jimmy Who?”—was the defending champion with a lifetime record of 126 wins and 46 losses. His wins included the presidency of the Future Farmers and Future Homemakers of America Camp Development Committee, the Georgia Crop Improvement Association, the Lions International,
the Georgia state senate, the Georgia governorship, the Democratic presidential primaries of 1976 and 1980, and the U.S. presidency of 1976. The champ weighed in at 155 pounds, and stood 5'9”. The “Bantam Rooster” of the South had a deceptively good left uppercut but preferred body blows while sticking and moving, sticking and moving. Political pugilism was in his blood, though the word on the street was that he tended overestimate his own skills. He'd won the title four years earlier when his opponent, Gerald Ford, made a critical mistake in the late rounds.

The challenger—Ron “The Gipper” Reagan out of the West—stood 6'1” and weighed 194 pounds. The East Coast writers knew less about him. His overall record was 86 wins and 31 losses, with his victories including his high-school and Eureka College class presidencies, the presidency of the Screen Actors Guild, the California gubernatorial primaries and general elections, and the Republican presidential primaries of 1976 and 1980. The book on Reagan was that he coasted in the early rounds while taking the measure of his opponent. He sometimes used a “rope-a-dope” strategy, slipping punches and letting his opponents thump themselves weary, although he was often accused of tiring in the late rounds himself.

When aroused, Reagan had a lightning-fast right cross. Though some thought he was not a terrific puncher, most agreed that he was a great counterpuncher. He was also more nimble on his feet than many scribes gave him credit for.

Most observers expected the defending champ to wear down his challenger. But it was precisely one year earlier that Jimmy Carter had confided to Hamilton Jordan that he thought he'd be running against Reagan and that “it would be a mistake to underestimate him.”
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Carter was about to learn how right he had been.

T
HE PROCEEDINGS OPENED WITH
a statement by a very nervous Ruth Hinerfeld, president of the League of Women Voters. Hinerfeld in turn introduced Howard K. Smith, who would serve as the debate's moderator, just as he had in the GOP debates during the primaries. Smith coolly explained the ground rules and introduced the panelists: William Hilliard of the
Portland Oregonian
, Harry Ellis of the
Christian Science Monitor
, Marvin Stone of
U.S. News & World Report
, and Barbara Walters of ABC. An unusual seating arrangement kept Smith and Walters away from each other; when they once shared coanchoring duties at ABC, they had spent most of their off-camera time bickering over who got more “face time” on camera.

A coin toss backstage had determined who would receive the first question. Carter had won the toss, and in a bit of a surprise he chose to have Reagan field the first question and then go last with his closing remarks. As to why the president made these choices, Jody Powell joshed, “Good manners.”
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So it was Reagan who fielded the first question, from Marvin Stone, on the use of military power. The Carterites smiled. A Tolstoy question. “War and peace” was the issue the president had been clubbing Reagan with for weeks.

Sure enough, Reagan seemed a bit nervous, tentative in his response. He did, however, hit Carter hard at a couple of points. Asked to explain the specific differences between his approach to the use of military power and that of the president, Reagan said, “I don't know what the differences might be, because I don't know what Mr. Carter's policies are.” He outlined his position on how a strong military would not invite aggression, and condemned the Carter administration for continually letting “events get out of hand” until the point that the United States was faced “with a crisis.” Stone followed up, asking how Reagan could increase the military budget, cut taxes, and balance the budget all at the same time. Reagan's answer was a bit meandering and disjointed.
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When it was Carter's turn to rebut Reagan, he, too, was nervous and halting. But he touched all the right bases on peace, building up the military, and the treaty he'd negotiated between Israel and Egypt. He quoted H. L. Mencken—patron saint of cynical journalists—and made a passing reference to “simple” solutions. No one needed to guess to whom he was alluding. Stone, in his follow-up, tried to pin the president down on how and when he might use military power. Carter calmly replied that he had worked for “security” in the Middle East and that he'd deployed two carrier task forces to the region. He restated that the military budget had gone up on his watch after going down during the Nixon and Ford administrations.
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Reagan, given the chance to respond, went after Carter on this matter, making the point that military spending had declined as America was pulling out of Vietnam and that the Democrats in Congress refused to go along with any increases in the Pentagon's budget. This time, his answer was tight. He rattled off a series of military programs Carter had canceled, saying that the president had cut “sixty ships out of the Navy …, stopped the B-1, delayed the cruise missile, stopped … the Minuteman missiles, stopped the Tridents.” It was a strong swipe at Carter, but the president recovered when he accused his Republican opponent of “habitually” supporting “the injection of military forces into troubled areas” whereas he and previous presidents had exercised caution. Carter also got a dig in on the use of nuclear weapons. The president won the exchange on points when he said his military buildup would mean that defense forces would never be used and soldiers would not die in combat.
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Reagan scowled at Carter; he must have wondered whether the Democrat had stolen one of his old speeches.

Carter took the first question from Harry Ellis, this one regarding inflation and what, in the future, he would do for workers. The president faltered as he
blamed the oil-producing countries for the high inflation while seeming to suggest that the problem had started before he was elected. He was tap-dancing on the issue. Ellis followed up and gave Carter another chance to spell out what he'd do in a second term, but the president did no better, focusing on the “sacrifice” he had “demanded” from the American people. Carter came across as patronizing. He said oil imports had dropped 33 percent, which was true, but around the bars and living rooms of America, voters knew why demand had dropped: because the bottom had fallen out of the economy.
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At the time, a barrel of American-produced oil was selling for $6.50 per barrel, but the fear was that it could rise as high as $36 if price controls were lifted.
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Carter again talked about “sacrifice,” “conservation,” and a government jobs program for young Americans along with tax credits for businesses. Now he was coming off like a scold. He wasn't really addressing the problem in a way that would resonate with the voters; the American people did not believe inflation was their fault. Carter took a shot at the “Reagan-Kemp-Roth proposal,” calling it “irresponsible” and reminding the audience that George Bush had once called it “voodoo economics.”
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Reagan, upon hearing this, caught his running mate's eye in the audience and smiled, giving him a friendly wink.
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He shifted his feet, as if he couldn't wait to respond to Carter's comments.