In the Right

But even as he takes us again through fields of history we have already trod, he finds a way to make the reader want to hurry the horse along — there’s a new page to be read.

The genius of Shirley’s work is to take stories we already know about, and fill in the details that take you, the reader, right into the room with the principals.

For instance, we’ve known for years about the events of Nov. 26, 1979, the day longtime Reagan aide Mike Deaver became the final victim of campaign manager John Sears’ struggle for absolute control of the 1980 campaign apparatus.

Called to a meeting at the Reagans’ home, Deaver arrived early, only to find Sears and aides Jim Lake and Charlie Black making the case that Reagan had to dump Deaver. Deaver saw where the meeting was headed, and relieved Reagan of the obligation of making the choice between himself and Sears by announcing his resignation and walking to the door.

Reagan followed him, urging him to stay, but did not insist to Sears that he find a way to make it work with Deaver; instead, Reagan let Deaver leave, then returned to the living room angry, and scolded Sears, Black and Lake: “You bastards! The biggest man here has just left the room!”

That much has been on the record for at least two decades. I just reviewed the accounts in Jack Germond and Jules Witcover’s “Blue Smoke and Mirrors”; Hayward’s “The Age of Reagan: The Fall of the Old Liberal Order, 1964-1980”; Cannon’s “President Reagan: The Role of a Lifetime”; Busch’s “Reagan’s Victory: The Presidential Election of 1980 and the Rise of the Right”; and Elizabeth Drew’s “Portrait of an Election.” None go into any more detail than that.

So imagine my surprise when I read this coda to the story:

“Deaver’s dramatic exit was marred a bit because his wife, Carolyn, had dropped him off and he had no way to get home. He sheepishly knocked on the door to borrow the Reagans’ station wagon.”

Imagine how mortifying, how embarrassing, that knock on the door must have been — for both Deaver and for Reagan.

A check of the footnote reveals that the information came from a conversation Shirley had with Deaver on Oct. 18, 2006.

Later, in describing the scene of the pivotal Oct. 28, 1980, Cleveland debate that gave the electorate the confidence it needed to tip to Reagan, Shirley adds this touch of detail:

“Carter’s horoscope the morning of the debate said, ‘Confront adversaries.’ But the president received a less auspicious sign when he arrived at the Cleveland Convention Center’s Music Hall, site of the debate. He was startled to see Reagan T-shirts on the workers backstage. The men were members of the Teamsters union, which had endorsed Reagan; they hoped to throw Carter off his game with this bit of psychological warfare.”

A check of the footnote reveals that, again, the information came from a conversation between Shirley and a source.

In fact, it turns out a great deal of the new information contained in the book came from original primary research, in the form of interviews Shirley conducted with participants in the 1980 campaign — more than 150 of them, in fact, including Jimmy Carter, Walter Mondale, John Anderson, John Sears, Mike Deaver, Ed Meese, Peter Hannaford, Jim Baker, Marty Anderson, Pat Caddell, Jody Powell, and Gerry Rafshoon, among others.

It appears the only people who had anything of significance to do with the 1980 Reagan campaign who were not interviewed by Shirley — Reagan himself, campaign manager Bill Casey, and Carter strategist Hamilton Jordan — weren’t interviewed because they weren’t available to be interviewed, having passed away long before Shirley began his research.

And though Nancy Reagan herself did not sit for an interview, Shirley says she was “wonderfully supportive” — she gave orders to the Reagan Library to open sealed files of the 1980 campaign that were made available exclusively for his research.

This book is good enough that I’d have recommended it to any friend who was interested in learning about Ronald Reagan, or the 1980 campaign, or American politics in general. But given the timing of its release, I’d also recommend it to those Republicans and conservatives of a younger generation, who are trying even now to figure out how to “re-brand” the GOP into relevance.

Reagan, after all, won that 1980 campaign — as Shirley reminds us — not by changing his spots, but by holding fast to them, and doing a better job of explaining to his fellow Americans how his values were theirs.

In 1976, Ronald Reagan was anti-communist, anti-tax, and anti-abortion; in 1980, he was pro-freedom, pro-growth, and pro-life.

Sometimes, it’s not what you say, but how you say it.

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