The Cheerful Reaganite
HANNAFORD, PETER
The Cheerful Reaganite Lyn Nofziger, 1924-2006 BY PETER HANNAFORD It's a guess, but about now I imagine Lyn Nofziger may be regaling St. Peter with some of his best puns. He certainly had a great...
...But when we first met over 30 years ago, poetry was far in Lyn Nofziger's future...
...He certainly had a great store of them and was always adding to it...
...then-governor's senior staff...
...I'm referring to Citizens for the Republic (CFTR, as we all came to know it...
...I'm sure St...
...I remember when he published a book of poetry under the pseudonym "Joy Skilmer," a takeoff on the name of the "Trees" poet, Joyce Kilmer...
...Reagan was the keynote speaker...
...No man, his home, or his family is safe when the legislature is in session" was one of his favorite lines...
...At other times I wish I were a libertarian because Republicans are too much like Democrats...
...What I am actually is a right-wing independent who is registered as a Republican...
...As the years went on, he was always part of the small circle of aides and advisers around Reagan, but he predated the rest of us...
...It may come as a surprise to political opponents who thought of him as a fierce conservative, but mirth was a large component of Lyn's life...
...He understood human folly and realized that there wasn't much one could do to stop it, so he decided to enjoy the amusing side of it...
...Lyn called me— it must have been three or four times—to remind me to make sure we included "a strong beggar" at the end of the talk...
...Lyn Nofziger leaves a lot of friends and admirers, some former adversaries, but no enemies...
...He worked the grassroots for Reagan, and loved it...
...The "beggar" brought in over a million dollars...
...He was there first, as press secretary in Reagan's first campaign in 1966...
...Peter is smiling...
...He liked his tactical astuteness, his loyalty, his advice, and his irreverence—from the rumpled look to his habit of breaking up a serious conversation with a quip (after all, Reagan was known to do the latter, too...
...By that, he meant a strong appeal for funds...
...sometimes I wish I were a Democrat because Democrats seem to have more fun...
...He was right...
...The idea was to create a national network of potential Reagan presidential campaign volunteers...
...He thought the liberal notion that government was the most honest, surest way to accomplish any purpose was nonsense...
...He provided the reality check to a lot of ideas the rest of us floated...
...He was a consultant to Ronald Reagan when I joined the Peter Hannaford was closely associated with the late President Reagan for a number of years...
...And he didn't hesitate to criticize conservatives when they strayed from such basic principles as limited government and self-reliance...
...Having left journalism to join the advocacy side, he brought with him a journalist's dose of skepticism to any political initiative or proposal being considered...
...I remember—as if it were yesterday—the day we learned in late 1976, to our surprise, that the campaign that year ended up with a surplus of $1.5 million (there had been days when we were unsure there was enough money to get the campaign plane off the ground...
...Lyn's ingenious and farsighted plan for spending the money was to create a multicandidate political action committee, CFTR...
...Although Lyn did a stint in the early Nixon White House, it's Ronald Reagan who was his real political hero...
...Those attending spent the rest of the time in sessions on practical matters such as how to get out the vote, run phone banks, do local campaign advertising, and so forth...
...Ronald Reagan had a great affection for Lynwood (as he usually called him...
...Lyn always had strong views of the role government should play in the life of the citizenry...
...Reagan could not receive any contributions from CFTR, but it could make contributions to candidates favorable to him...
...And whether it was over a cup of coffee or a Bombay Gin martini, an hour or so spent with Lyn involved a lot of laughter, interspersed with wise observations about the issues and politicians of the day...
...In 1976, after that roller coaster ride through most of the primaries, he dropped off the campaign trail to go back to California to organize Reagan's campaign there, to ensure a large victory on primary day in June—and produced it...
...It was fun to read those innocently titled verses that turned out to skewer, in rhyme, political sacred cows and those who championed them...
...He would become the chairman of the organization, which proceeded to conduct weekend grassroots political workshops all over the country...
...He defined his place on the political spectrum very nicely when he said, "I am a Republican because I beheve that freedom is more important than government-provided security...
...Lyn deserves the credit for creating an organization that played an important role in Ronald Reagan's road to the White House in 1980...
...By 1980, Candidate Reagan had a ready-made grassroots network of prodigious size...
...I remember that spring, when the campaign was interrupted for a few days to plan and produce a nationally televised talk by Reagan (which I was coordinating...
...That's exactly what happened...
...Who could ask for more...
Vol. 11 • April 2006 • No. 28
