Why Reagan Chose Schweiker: An Insider's Account

...His message was clear-join us now while you can still make a difference...

...It was certainly worth a try in light of the nonexistent alternatives and the danger of letting things slide for another week, so we started going through the possibilities...

...What would happen in the South and West when it was discovered that Ronald Reagan was going to run with a genuine, certified, Washington liberal...

...And if we were looking for someone we might be able to talk into accepting the honor even before the convention the list shrank even further...

...DavidKeene Why Reagan Chose Schweiker: An Insider's Account The post-mortems on Ronald Reagan's vice-presidential choice have tended to focus on the angry reaction from Southern conservatives...

...The tactic hadn't worked by early July, but there were signs that our support was getting softer by the day...

...There was no obvious candidate for the job...

...Sears agreed with our assessment of the situation, but insisted that we still had one card left to play: the Vice Presidency...

...I was the Southern Coordinator of Governor Reagan's campaign, and the circumstances, as I recall them, were quite different from what most of the news coverage suggested...

...A number of journalists and Reagan supporters argue that it was, and that it may have guaranteed the Governor's defeat in Kansas City...

...Early in the campaign, Reed had personally indicated that he was with us, but refused to endorse Reagan publicly or deliver his delegation to us before the convention...

...He wanted to know if I thought Reed would in fact deliver for us later on...

...Reagan was agreeable, Schweiker accepted, and the two men hit it off remarkably well...

...He was good at it...

...H e ' s got one of the worst voting records in the Senate and I think it'd be immoral to put him on the ticket...

...Was Ronald Reagan's choice of Richard Schweiker a mistake...

...He would tell Reed that Reagan was slipping in South Carolina and Louisiana and that Ford was on the verge of picking up the votes he would need to lock up the nomination...

...We clearly needed more information so I agreed to have my wife, who works on the Hill, pull the data we would need...

...Pennsylvania should move quickly--I'd expect 30 or so to come over within a day or s o - - t h e movement there could collapse New Jersey and affect New York, Delaware, and West Virginia...

...Perhaps...

...As a result, many delegates were loyal neither to Reagan nor to their own chairman...

...I had worked on Capitol Hill for two years, but had to confess that I wouldn't recognize the Senator ff he walked into the room...

...And the former Governor of California...

...The rest, trite as it may seem, is history...

...We learned later that Sears and Paul Laxalt, the campaign chairman, had already been through the same exercise dozens of times before with an eye to the general election...

...I did just that, but added that we were both on the line...

...Paul, according to John, liked Schweiker and thought that on a lot of things he was closer to us than one might gather from a study of his voting record...

...We shall never know, of course, because you can play the game only once, and in a race so close as the Republican presidential nomination virtually any change in strategy might have made some difference...

...This was devastating stuff...

...David Treen of Louisiana, before the Schweiker decision, we might have taken an altogether different course...

...Besides, Schweiker did make some sense as we looked toward the general election...

...Better stick with the President," they were saying, "because Reagan isn't even going to be able to hold his base...

...My assurances were good enough for Sears...

...I told him that he shouldn't run around making promises he couldn't keep...

...They had a point...

...After the announcement on Monday, July 26, most of our Southern support held firm, but nothing much happened in Pennsylvania or any other Northeastern state...

...I did, however, know that he was a liberal...

...But by Monday evening his attitude had changed...

...Sears had only one question...

...Most of our people swallowed hard, but went along with us...

...Reed had believed--as I must confess we h a d - - t h a t the nomination would be decided long before Kansas City, and that he could therefore let just about anybody on his delegation...

...He was right, of course, since most people were assuming that we would receive all 30 of Mississippi's votes...

...Not 24 hours, but a day anyway...

...Eventually--and by a process of elimination--Sears began to focus attention on Pennsylvania and Richard Schweiker...

...But they were worried too, because they suspected that they were being told something different than the Northeasterners...

...There was always John Connally, of course, but we'd all concluded that he would add little to a Reagan ticket...

...There was evidence to support the view that he could move right if necessary and we were willing to buy Paul Laxalt's assessment of his character...

...And if we picked the fight man we might just crack his support...

...Sears' theory, therefore, was that if we picked our man fight away we could get a good number of Ford's people to start demanding that he do the same--if only to allay their fears...

...Before noon on Wednesday, Reed was back on the phone asking me to let him break his promise of the night before...

...As a result Ronald Reagan left the convention without the nomination but with the knowledge that those delegates were his people...

...He wanted the job so much that he had spent two years making himself everyone's fourth or frith choice, but we'd need more than that...

...No, we were convinced that we would have to fred something else...

...They had reason to be...

...The two men sat next to each other on the Senate floor and had learned to get along...

...Moreover, his state itself was important, i f he could deliver Pennsylvania in November and help Ronald Reagan in the other states of his region he could prove invaluable...

...And virtually every political reporter in America...

...For the first time I let my anger show...

...I knew which of the promises he felt he would have to break...

...Reed switched that evening, telling a mutual friend that he really hadn't broken his final promise because he waited until after sundown...

...Harry Dent was already running around the South saying that Mississippi's 30 votes were going to end up with Ford and now Clarke Reed who everyone thought was a Reagan man was saying that Harry might well be right...

...Ford's Northeastern liberal supporters were scared to death of John Connally and they were afraid the President just might pick him...

...He had been an early critic of detente and had great following among the ethnic voters in his own state...

...I had urged him to do both in the spring while we were still ahead in most of the public delegate counts, but he told me then that if he tried, a few Ford supporters on the delegation might get upset and break the unit rule...

...He told me that he understood and that I had nothing to worry about...

...Not good," admitted Sears, but he warned us not to take it too seriously...

...I told him to do what he had to do, but to spare me the rhetorical justification...

...And we knew that such a fight would do little good in the fight for the "uncommitteds," who tended, if anything, to be more liberal than the average delegate...

...But they were still worried...

...He said he believed that if Reagan were to announce his choice for that office he could pressure Ford to do the same and thereby fracture the rather shaky regional coalition the President's people had managed to put together for him...

...Reed didn't want to get used to anything like that...

...My wife didn't like what we were up to...

...Meanwhile, it was becoming clear to us in the campaign that the race would go to the wire, and that the real pressure would begin only after all the delegates had been selected...

...Let me do it my way," he said, "and I'll get you at least 28 and possibly all 30...

...Reed couldn't take the pressure...

...He had given us his word and I didn't think he'd break it...

...Sears, who was leading us rather skillfully to a conclusion he had already reached, felt that we needed someone from the moderate wing of the party who could, in the general election, give our man entry into the Northeast or upper-Midwest...

...The Alternative: An American Spectator November 1976 13 us as possible...

...Worse, Clarke Reed finally had the excuse he needed to move...

...That said it all...

...The perfect runningmate under the circumstances would have been a moderate or moderately conservative Italian Catholic from New York, New Jersey, or Pennsylvania...

...He called me at least a half a dozen times during the next few days and I called just as often...

...Both Andy and I asked John if he was certain of what he was saying and he assured us that he was as "sure as you can be in this business...

...But as a matter of fact, if it hadn't been for the problems we had been having with Clarke Reed and other conservatives like Rep...

...After all, Schweiker comes from a liberal state and might be expected to reflect the viewg of his constituency...

...And they were beginning, by mid-July, to pull some of our own people as well as a number of the uncommitted...

...Harry Dent was also calling...

...But I knew before the Schweiker announcement that we were in trouble in Mississippi...

...I remember hesitating for a few seconds, but I told him that I thought we could count on him...

...I believe, however, that it is important to clear up some common misperceptions of the problems Reagan strategists had to grapple with in making the Schweiker decision...

...But none of us seemed to know very much about the man...

...The campaign didn't die a silent death in late July as it might have if we hadn't played our final card...

...Sears had never met him either, but he informed us that Paul Laxah, chairman of Reagan's campaign, knew him well...

...In normal years, we might have expected to win all 30 delegates easily, for Mississippi is a conservative state and its convention delegation has traditionally operated under an informal unit rule that commits the entire delegation to the candidate supported by a majority of its members...

...Finally, though, she did agree to get us what we were looking for...

...The Alternative: An American Spectator November 1976 15...

...The details of this period are important to anyone trying to understand the context within which John Sears and the rest of us were working...

...One has to know Clarke Reed pretty well to understand him most of the time, but the message coming across didn't need much interpretation--Reagan was slipping badly in the South...

...I told him that regardless of how he felt about Reagan or Ford or Dick Schweiker, he owed me something and I wanted it--24 hours...

...Thus it was that on Saturday, July 17, Andy Carter, the crusty, conservative former Goldwater hand who was serving as our Director of Field Operations, and I sat in John Sears' office nodding agreement as John ran through the situation with us and asked if we could think of any way out of our predicament...

...They began inviting delegates to the White House to see their President, to talk to Cabinet officers about pet projects and to impress upon them the majesty of the Office they were being asked to support...

...So was the President of the United States...

...Or get used to the fact that your 30 votes aren't going to matter and that there won't be any more invitations to State Dinners or informal calls from the Oval Office...

...Newsmen tended to focus on the angry reactions by conservative and Southern Republicans, particularly Clarke Reed, Chairman of the Mississippi delegation and one of the most influential party leaders in the South...

...Reed knew exactly what I was talking about when I said we were both on the line...

...We could ask the Mississippian to commit as many as possible right away (which I was afraid he might not be willing or able to do regardless of what he was saying) or we could trust him to handle things his own way...

...The President's people could direct all their attention for several weeks on a finite number of men and women, committed and uncommitted, who might be convinced, cajoled, threatened, or, yes, even bought...

...And character is important...

...Both Andy and I thought we were going to have to find it soon, too...

...And we were convinced that outside Texas Connally could be a real disaster...

...We had already lost a couple of delegates in New York and Andy was convinced that a dozen or so in other parts of the country might move to Ford at any minute...

...Or so I thought...

...Therefore, if he was to try to bring out his delegates he might only be able to deliver 25 or 26 and that, he assured us, would be viewed in the press as a victory for Ford, not Reagan...

...By moving to Ford, Reed had for the second time thrown an almost insurmountable roadblock in the way of our efforts in the Northeast...

...Dent spent a good deal of time during this period badgering Reed about how it felt to be backing a loser...

...While Harry Dent travelled the South, other Ford operatives were directing the attention of soft Northern delegates to Mississippi...

...Moreover, the reaction among our own people focused attention on our problems rather than the President's predicament...

...The conservatives are sticking with u s , " I told him, "and if you desert Reagan now you will be deserting them...

...As soon as he finished one of his calls to Reed, Dent would call delegates in other Southern states with the corollary: Reed is about to jump so you'd better move first before it's all over and your vote doesn't matter...

...And those who wanted something a bit more explicit were told that it would probably be either Reagan (if he would take i0 or good old John Connally...

...It didn't feel very good and Reed began to show it--publicly...

...The man's no good," she insisted...

...He called me at home at 11:30 on Tuesday evening to inform me that he was going to endorse Ford the next morning...

...We knew this and so did Clarke's old friend Harry Dent, a former Nixon operative from South Carolina, now working virtually full time in the South for the President...

...There were other possibilities, but for one reason or another we were forced to rule them out...

...The President's managers had never been able to handle our candidate very effectively in the primaries, and the fervor of Reagan's following even gave us an advantage in some of the convention states, but once all the delegates were chosen our running room would vanish...

...I was playing for the time we needed to further solidify our Southern and right flanks and to allow us to break loose those delegates John was sure we'd get in the Northeast...

...He told me to get back to Reed and tell him that we would be counting on him and that he could handle things his own way...

...I told him that the timing of the movement in Pennsylvania could prove to be very important because I wasn't at all sure that we could hold the South for more than a few days without it...

...He had a pro-labor record, but was fairly conservative on a number of the so-called social issues...

...By the ~ime we finally got around to Senator Schweiler, we were just about ready to buy anyone...

...If our man was going to need Connally's help to carry Texas in the general election, he would probably be in hopeless shape almost everywhere...

...The alternative was defeat, and I don't think any of us were prepared to lose if there was any honorable way of winning...

...At the very least we would be off the defensive and that would in itself be worthwhile...

...The Mississippian agreed...

...For the first time since March, we were on the defensive...

...Reed wasn't buying, so I made one more try...

...I told him he couldn't do it because he had given his word and because we were going to win...

...But John didn't seem to have any details on his voting record...

...We didn't win there, but we came close...

...This time, however, Reed had made a personal commitment, and I was convinced that he would stick...

...asked Carter...

...Reed and I had known each other for a number of years...

...What about his voting record...

...Many of them had already attended a "stop Connally" meeting hosted by Nelson Rockefeller in Maine and they had received assurances, both implicit and explicit, that they had nothing to worry about...

...Richard Schweiker, who turned out to be everything Paul Laxalt had promised and more, came close to breaking Pennsylvania...

...They maintain that by selecting someone so liberal, Reagan destroyed his credibility as a conservative leader and dealt a death blow to his campaign for the Republican nomination, particularly in the South...

...In the South Ford operatives were assuring delegates that they didn't have to worry either: Ford would pick someone they would like rather than someone who might appeal to the Nelson Rockefellers of the world...

...Clarke Reed realized about this time that if we didn't do something soon, we were going to lose--and the prospect of being on the losing side made him neither comfortable nor happy...

...But in fact i f it badn't been for the trouble Reagan was already having in the South, the campaign might have taken an altogether different course...

...This approach incidentally was typical of John's usual way of tailing people into doing things willingly that they would ordinarily have no part of...

...I know t h a t , " he replied...

...Sears had a point...

...After analyzing his votes we had some serious misgivings, but none of us saw any other way out of our predicament...

...So the ploy failed...

...That very afternoon, I took the matter to campaign manager John Sears and outlined our options...

...He assumed, correctly I believe, that Reagan already had a solid base in the far West and in the Mountains, that his running-mate wouldn't add much to the strength he already enjoyed in the South, and that we should therefore look for ways to strengthen his appeal in the rest of the c o u n t r y . This made real sense--especially as the polls showed Jimmy Carter with problems among ethnic and Catholic voters in the highly industrialized states of these regions...

...Reed had never really been for Reagan in 1968 and certainly hadn't made any commitments...

...He started telling reporters that our count was no good, that although he was leaning our way he fully expected Ford to win and, worse, that he wouldn't be at all surprised if his own delegation went for Ford...

...The resources of the White House could prove unbeatable in such a contest and the President's people knew it...

...I told someone after the whole thing was over that a tight political campaign is a little like a war in that it reveals an awful lot about the character of the combatants...

...Moreover, Sears had also discussed the Schweiker possibility with Charlie Black who was working Pennsylvania for US, 14 The Alternative: An American Spectator November 1976 All he would say was that the Senator had a high COPE and ADA rating, but stood with us on a number of gut social and defense issues...

...John, Dick Schweiker, and the rest of us worked mightily to force Ford's hand on the Vice Presidential question, but for once his people resisted the urge to panic...

...We weren't going to get the delegates we'd need up there because those who were inclined to come over because of the Schweiker choice were now convinced that we would lose...

...And delegates we were talking to in other parts of the country began to use Clarke Reed and our weakness in the South as an excuse to stay away from us...

...In the South Dent was playing one weakness off against another...

...John had one more question...

...We knew better than anyone that our candidate was in, trouble--that the whole thing was beginning to slip fight through our fingers...

...Ronatd Reagan arrived In Kansas City alive and still fighting...

...But the perfect candidate simply didn't exist...

...It was a question I thought Ronald Reagan would ask and it was one that John would have to _9 answer if he expected any of us to go along with this scheme...

...We had another 24 hours...

...He knew he couldn't just break his private commitment to u s - - a t least not without a good reason--but he began to move as far away from David Keene, Southern Coordinator of Ronald Reagan's campaign, is currently ale/low of the Institute of Politics at the ffohn F. &~nnedy School of Government, Harvard University...

...I also told him that I would remember the value of his word...

...This delegation, however, had been sloppily put together...

...But I've made other promises to other people...

...I f we do this," John mused, " I think we'll win this thing...

...I had told him of the Schweiker selection on Sunday, July 25, and he had seemed to take it fairly well...

...And there was Howard Baker of Tennessee, but we suspected that he would add even less to a Reagan ticket...

...We had worked closely together in the past, and I considered him a good personal friend as well as a political ally...

...He because he had given his word and me because I had backed him up...

...Andy thought we'd be safe in the West and in the Mountains and I believed we could hold the South for a few days--which brought us to the crucial question...

...John wasn't worried--or at least he didn't seem to b e - - s o we all figured it was worth a try...

...We couldn' t. We did explore, for perhaps the tenth time, the possibility of gaining delegate support at the convention by exploiting platform differences, but Sears was convinced that the Ford people would go to extraordinary lengths to avoid an "issues" fight...

...In Reagan's abortive campaign for the Presidency in 1968, Reed had let Reagan forces down after publicly hinting that he might join them, and some of the Governor's closest advisers were still a little bitter about it...

...He knew I would be taking some heat within the Reagan organization for backing him u p - - f o r trusting him...

...Or did it...

...I f we buy this and hold most of our people what kind of movement can we expect in the Northeast...

...You'll be seen as a sell-out and you won't have enough influence left after this thing is over to speak for anyone...