Ronald Reagan's Biggest Mistake

Most people would say that Iran-Contra was Ronald Reagan's biggest mistake. Certainly from the limited perspective of his own administration, and of Reagan's own goals, it was that. From the longer perspective of American political history, though, Reagan's biggest mistake was his selection of George Bush as his running mate in Detroit at the 1980 Republican National Convention.

We can't lay at Reagan's door all the bad consequences of this decision. No one would expect him to see what would happen a generation later because he put George Bush on the ticket that year. In the summer of 1980, Reagan wasn't even sure he could unseat a sitting president. His main concern was to select someone who could help him win. So let me tell you how this choice turned out wrong, how for want of a vice-presidential nominee, the republic was lost.

The usual story is that Reagan and Ford talked about a Dream Ticket in 1980, a former president and a popular candidate teaming up to make the Republican ticket unbeatable. Then the talks failed when Ford suggested something like a co-presidency. Reagan didn't like the sound of that, so in the middle of the convention he turned to George Bush, his strongest opponent in the primaries. Gerald Ford had overreached, the story went, and Reagan chose a natural alternate when he couldn't agree to Ford's terms.

That version tells part of the story, but it overlooks some interesting nuances. Those nuances explain why Reagan, usually so astute about things political, made a decision that he might not have made if he had spent more time on it. As it turned out, his choice of a running mate was more consequential than he might have guessed at the time.

Anne Edwards recently published a book called The Reagans: Portrait of a Marriage. She takes us to the spring of 1980, when Reagan is wrapping up the delegates he'll need to gain the his party's nomination at the Republican National Convention in August. Reagan first approaches Ford about the vice-presidency in March 1980, five months before the convention. "Will you help the Republican party out and be my running mate?" Reagan asks.

They'd mended their fences from the 1976 battle for the Republican presidential nomination, but Ford politely turned Reagan down. Vice-president isn't a role you take on readily after you've been president. Reagan, however, isn't one to take no for an answer, especially if he sees any possibility at all of success. He asks Ford to reconsider, and asks him again, until Ford agrees to talk about it. These talks become intense during the convention in Detroit, Michigan. Then Ford goes on live television...

The interview with former President Ford is part of CBS's broadcast from the convention hall. Walter Cronkite asks Ford about his role as vice-president. Ford answers in a way that seems to put him on an equal footing with Reagan. That raises doubts for Reagan, so he places a phone call to Ford's room in the hotel. Reagan presses Ford's representative for an answer. No more complications and negotiations - and I need your answer in three minutes! Ford doesn't come through with a positive reply within the time limit, so Reagan calls George Bush. Bush accepts immediately. The next thing you know, they are out on the convention floor together, a happy pair waving to the delegates!

We can see now that Ford really didn't want to accept. You can't fault him for thinking, "I would only do it if..." For Reagan, the negotiations with Ford were too public and too drawn out. He wanted to bring them to a quick end. He had to, because the convention was going to be over in a couple of days, and the delegates weren't going to wait around while he and Ford figured things out!

Problem was, Reagan's negotiations with Ford displaced the normal selection process, a process that takes quite a range of vice-presidential candidates into account. When the talks with Ford didn't produce an agreement, Reagan didn't have an alternate other than Bush ready to go out on the floor with him. He couldn't start the usual sounding out, vetting and selection process at that late hour.

Bush was a safe candidate. He was there in Detroit. Reagan could be confident that he would say yes. He had a lifelong record of service in the Navy, in the Republican party, and in the federal executive branch. The voters knew him. He was from the big state of Texas, and from the Northeastern establishment. So Bush had a lot to recommend him, even though Reagan thought that he was weak.

Reagan's opinion of Bush improved over the next eight years, but at the time he didn't respect his running mate that much. Reagan's assessment arose from their famous encounter at the high school gym in Nashua, New Hampshire, where Reagan stirred the audience when he declaimed, "I paid for this microphone!" Bush had not behaved with courage and grace during that episode, and Reagan observed it. But George Bush had all those other things to recommend him, so Reagan put him on the ticket.

I thought Reagan's selection of Bush was a mistake well before W. ran and won in 2000. Reagan needed a true believer like Jack Kemp on his side. It's not that Kemp or anyone else would have helped Reagan do a better job during his eight years in office. Bush himself served well as vice-president, and we know that the formal powers of the office are pretty limited to begin with. Bush did what Reagan asked him to do.

Bush turned out to be a poor choice because his role as vice-president made him Reagan's natural successor in 1988, and Bush was not a good successor for Reagan. In politics, though, you don't think about succession to an office you haven't even won yet. In 1980, Reagan and his team focused their energies on defeating an incumbent president. Their concentration would have been misplaced if they had been thinking about succession eight years down the line.
So I'm going to leave the rest of the analysis up in the air here. Part two comes next month. If I don't come through in February with some more remarks about Reagan's Republican successors, please catch me on it. You have a right to know!