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Reagan never, ever uttered such a phrase when it came to Gerald Ford in 1976. Not by a long shot. Not at the Kansas City convention and not afterwards in the fall. Nor did he ever campaign for Ford. These are matters of undeniable fact, despite the attempt of some Trump boosters to rewrite history by suggesting that Reagan really did support Ford, and Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas (A, 97%) was alone in not endorsing Donald Trump this time around. History is too precious and important to be rewritten by a few uninformed Trump revisionists at CNN, just to satisfy a new story line.
When a bloodied but unbowed Reagan reluctantly took the stage in Kansas City in August of 1976, he was bitter. Bitter and angry. His very close aide, Lyn Nofziger said of his longtime companion, “To my surprise, Reagan, who is seldom bitter, went to California a bitter man, convinced that Ford had stolen the nomination from him.” The Republican primary battle of 1976 was over, and as far as the nation was concerned, so was Ronald Reagan’s political career. Defeated and fuming, the man who bested and despised Ronald Reagan, asked him to the podium, but it was to show the world a unified Republican Party and not as any expression of kindness on Ford’s part towards Reagan.
Gerald Ford and Reagan differed as much personally as they did ideologically. The détente policies of Henry Kissinger, embraced by Ford, were reviled by Reagan. On foreign policy, Ford thought Reagan was a warmonger who would start World War III. At the lowest point, Ford actually ran television ads with the tagline “Remember, Governor Reagan couldn’t start a war. President Reagan could.” Reagan was fit to be tied, furious with Ford and Nancy Reagan was outraged. It was one thing for a liberal to hurl this awful insult at Reagan but quite another when it came from a member of his own party. Ford has crossed a line but he didn’t care, defending the ad to anyone who would listen.
Ford thought so little of Reagan, he attempted to fan the flames of his own draft campaign committee in the spring of 1980, as the Californian was marching to the nomination, just to stop him. He told reporters that Reagan was “too conservative” to win in the fall.
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Reagan got into the 1976 race in part because he was incensed by Ford’s snubbing of Alexandr Solzhenitsyn—at Kissinger’s suggestion—-seeing it a knuckling under to Moscow. And Ford’s signing of the Helsinki Accords, which essentially ceded Eastern Europe to the Soviets, and surrendering the West’s interests in the region.
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The depth of their loathing for one another was captured in the events that transpired before Reagan mounted the stage than night in Kansas City. Nancy and Ronnie were content to quietly watch Ford accept his party’s nomination from a crowded skybox above the stage. A quiet dinner with his family was the only event left on the Gipper’s schedule. As Reagan prepared to leave, an anxious and drunk RNC aide approached the Reagan team and asked for Reagan to join Ford on the stage, an offer which Reagan declined. Reagan’s team then received a flurry of calls, practically begging for Reagan to join Ford on the stage. Ford knew he needed unity and that meant getting Reagan on the stage, one way or another. Finally, Ford, in front of tens of thousands of supporters and a live national audience, asked his “good friend, Ron Reagan to come down and bring Nancy.” Only a few minutes before, Tom Brokaw of NBC News asked Reagan if he was going to address the hall that night and the Gipper replied “No.”
A seemingly clever, if not downright devious maneuver by Ford to get Reagan on stage, Reagan had nothing prepared. If he had declined, he would be seen as vindictive and mean-spirited, if he took the stage and made a fool of himself, all the better to solidify support behind Ford. After Reagan declined again and again, finally Ford added the weight of the entire convention hall and national television to his voice. With calls of “We want Ron!” “We want Ron!” and “Speech!” “Speech!” Reagan paused, and then moved slowly toward the stage.
Years later, Reagan, when president, kept a plaque on his desk with the words “There is no limit to what a man can do or where he can go if he does not mind who gets the credit.” He knew Ford was not the man to lead the nation forward, but that was secondary, the greater principle was the conservative movement and the ideals that brought him there. With this, the livid and defeated Reagan took the stage and changed the nation forever. The speech he gave has been documented time and time again as one of his greatest and certainly his greatest extemporaneous speech. In it he celebrated a bold vision of America, without ever mentioning Ford. He never endorsed the man, only stating that we must go forward united. Revisionist Trump supporters are deliberately confusing Reagan philosophy and good manners with an endorsement.
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As Ford continued to sink, his team reached out to Reagan again and again. Reagan, in total, campaigned in 25 states, but for down ticket candidates, rarely mentioning Ford, and was even asked to become Honorary Chairman of the Ford Campaign, but he politely declined. When he spoke at a joint fundraiser in Los Angeles, he talked of the platform and of the party, but barely Ford. When even he did mention the candidate, his body language and voice were so visibly tortured that Washington Post reporter Lou Cannon, remarked dryly, “This is not much of an endorsement.”
Indeed, it was no endorsement at all.
In Kansas City, by every estimate, Reagan was finished politically. The only thing he could control was how he said goodbye. He was comfortable leaving quietly but Ford pushed him into a spotlight he never sought. In that moment he chose to go out, not publicly bitter, defeated, or angry but hopeful. He went out affirming “a platform of bold unmistakable colors with no pastel shades.” He chose to leave the stage, not a supplicant to a party line or to an accidental president, but as a principled man affirming a party that had chosen someone else. He knew there was no limit to what this movement could do or where it could go, and it didn’t matter who got the credit. The principle mattered most and the Party and conservatism mattered, not the person.
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Do not read this. Repeat, do not read this. Just keep marching. https://t.co/ZYpnWfJsRS
— Mark R. Levin (@marklevinshow) July 24, 2016
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