George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography - Get a Free Blog

next morning, if then, because there were still many questions about how the arrangement
might work." Reagan called Ford and asked for a prompt decision.
Reagan aide Lyn Nofziger concluded at this point: "Hey, we don't think this is going to
work, and these guys are kind of stalling for time here." Nofziger suspected that Ford was
trying to back Reagan into a corner, going down to the wire in a way that would oblige
Reagan to take Ford and accept any conditions that Ford might choose to impose. But
then Ford went to Reagan's hotel room to "give him my decision, and my decision is no."
"As Ford left, Reagan wiped his brow and said, 'Now where the hell's George Bush?'" [fn
32] Reagan had been so fixated on his haggling with Ford that he had not done anything
to develop vice presidential alternatives to Bush, and now it was too late.
The best indication that Ford had been working all along as an agent of Bush was
provided by Ford himself to Germond and Witcover: "Ford, incidentially, told us after the
election that one of his prime objectives at the convention had been 'to subtly help
George Bush get the [vice-presidential] nomination.'" [fn 33]
Drew Lewis helped Reagan make the call that he found so distasteful. Reagan came on
the line: "Hello, George, this is Ron Reagan. I'd like to go over to the convention and
announce that you're my choice for vice preident...if that's all right with you."
"I'd be honored, Governor."
Reagan was still reluctant. "George, is there anything at all ...about the platform or
anything else...anything that might make you uncomfortable down the road?"
"Why, yes, sir," said Bush "I think you can say I support the platform --wholeheartedly."
Reagan now proceeded to the convention floor, where he would announce this choice of
Bush. Knowing that this decision would alienate many of Reagan's ideological backers,
the Reagan campaign leaked the news that Bush had been chosen to the media, so that it
would quickly spread to the convention floor. They were seeking to cushion the blow, to
avoid mass expressions of disgust when Bush's name was announced. Even as it was,
there was much groaning and booing among the Reagan faithful.
In retrospect, the sucess of Bush's machinations at the 1980 convention can be seen to
have had a very sinister precedent at the GOP convention held in Philadelphia just eighty
years earlier. At that convention, William McKinley, one of the last of the Lincoln
Republicans, was nominated for a second term.
The New York bankers, especially the House of Morgan, wanted Theodore Roosevelt for
vice president, but McKinley and his chief political ally, Senator Marc Hanna, were
adamant that they wanted no part of the infantile and megalomaniac New York governor.
At one point Hanna exclaimed to a group of southern delegates, "Don't any of you realize
that there's only one life between this madman and the White House!" Eventually
McKinley's hand was forced by a group of New York delegates who were motivated