The Triumph of Nancy Reagan by Karen Tumulty (short books for teens txt) 📕

showing everyday Americans going about their lives of contentment and prosperity: a lobster boat heading to sea, a man carrying a briefcase getting out of a taxi, a farmer on a tractor, a neighbor waving to a paperboy on a bicycle, a family moving into a new home, proud grandparents watching a bride and groom walk down the aisle, campers raising an American flag. The narrator’s soothing voice intoned: “It’s morning again in America, and under the leadership of President Reagan, our country is prouder and stronger and better. Why would we ever want to return to where we were less than four short years ago?”

The ad was both nostalgic for the past and upbeat about the future. Notably, Ronnie did not appear in it, except for a brief shot at the end that showed his face set against an American flag. The ad makers had titled this spot “Prouder, Stronger, Better.” But it soon became known as the “Morning in America” ad. Nancy loved it. Rollins made sure the commercial got heavy play in California, where the people she talked to most frequently would see a lot of it. Spending so much on ads in California—at least $1 million, the campaign manager recalled—was a waste of money strategically. But if it calmed Nancy down, Rollins thought it was worth it. “It was really to please that element as opposed to driving a campaign message,” he told me.

Nancy was not so enamored with another proposed concept for an ad. It was to begin with a close-up shot of fit young men playing volleyball, with the ocean sparkling behind them. As the camera pulled back, it would become clear that these were sailors getting in some recreation time on the deck of an aircraft carrier. The announcer was to have said: “Thank you, Mr. President. We’re now prepared for peace.” A similar spot was planned with army soldiers playing softball, where the frame would have widened to reveal tanks in the background. This would have been a way of highlighting the buildup in the military budget that Ronnie had pushed through during the first term. But Nancy, Deaver, and Baker, among others, were concerned that it would only remind voters of their fears that Ronnie was spoiling to get the country into a war. It might also stir growing public concerns about the explosion in Pentagon spending, which had helped create an enormous budget deficit and was bound to bring a fiscal reckoning. The ads were vetoed. Later, Rollins would learn it was in part at Nancy’s behest. “They were spectacular ads,” he recalled mournfully more than thirty years later. “They were my favorite ads of all time.”

In at least one respect, Nancy was having an easier time during the 1984 campaign than she had four years before. The media was much gentler on her. Maureen Dowd of the New York Times observed: “These days it is generally acknowledged that the First Lady has grown into her role. She is still reserved, but she shows more humor about herself and has become a more relaxed speaker.”

During the Republican convention in Dallas in August, Boston Globe syndicated columnist Ellen Goodman wrote that “it’s hard to pinpoint the moment Nancy Reagan’s image started to improve. It’s harder to know whether it’s her image or her identity that’s been changing. At some point, said a friend, ‘she stopped crying and started to cope.’ ” Goodman added: “The most important changes are substantive ones. Nancy Reagan has become less associated with Beverly Hills and more associated with an antidrug campaign. She has gone from donating her designer clothes to museums to donating her time in a campaign against addiction.”

The Reagans’ love story was one of the convention’s major themes. The night before Ronnie gave his acceptance speech, Nancy delivered a brief address that concluded with: “Let’s make it one more for the Gipper, and thank you.” The screen behind her suddenly lit up with a gargantuan image of Ronnie in shirt sleeves, sitting in his hotel suite and watching her on his television. She turned her back to the hall, waved at her husband on the screen, and he waved back. It was hokey, cloying—and in the eyes of most Americans, adorable. An eight-minute video tribute to Nancy that played before her speech included a scene of the Reagans strolling hand in hand through the sun-dappled woods. It was shot from behind and caught Nancy taking a flirtatious, gentle kick at her husband’s behind. As Ronnie spoke of his wife on the video, he appeared to be on the verge of choking up when he said: “I can’t imagine life without her.”

Meanwhile, things were not going so well for the Democrats. At their convention in San Francisco, Walter Mondale accepted his party’s nomination with what turned out to be a politically disastrous pledge to raise taxes. His historic decision to put a woman on his ticket soon ran into trouble when the media began raising questions about the finances of New York congresswoman Geraldine Ferraro and her husband.

Heading into the first debate with Mondale in Louisville on October 7, both Wirthlin’s tracking poll and a public one by the Washington Post gave Ronnie a hefty 55-percent-to-37-percent lead over the Democratic nominee, with a relatively small 8 percent of voters undecided. Still, Nancy was nervous. “I’m against debates,” she wrote later. “They’re long, often boring, and the incumbent is at a disadvantage. The candidate who has never held the office can just attack, without having to defend his own record.” What’s more, incumbent presidents often cruise into those matchups overconfident and rusty. That had happened to Ford in 1976 and to Carter in 1980.

The president’s performance in Louisville was a disaster. Nancy called it “the worst night of Ronnie’s political career. Right from the start, he was tense, muddled and off-stride. He lacked authority. He stumbled. This was a Ronald Reagan I had never seen before. It was painful to watch. There was no way around