The Reagan Rap

The Reagan Rap
(Or, The Ballad of Bush, Baker, Luger, Laxalt, Rumsfeld)

As the new year emerged and every candidate in the presidential election began the hunt for delegates, a curious phenomenon occurred: the hunt for Ronald Reagan. Every candidate, in some fashion, tried to lay a claim to the Reagan legacy. Some examples:
     John McCain: “I was a foot soldier in the Reagan Revolution.”
     Mitt Romney: “Ronald Reagan is one of my heroes.”
     Barack Obama: “Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America… he just tapped into what people were already feeling, which was we want clarity, we want optimism, we want a return to that sense of dynamism and entrepreneurship that had been missing.”
     Ed Rollins, Reagan’s campaign manager in 1984, had this to say, “People are always asking me, ‘Who’s the next Ronald Reagan?’ Well, I was with the old Reagan. I can promise you that this man comes as close as I’ve ever seen.”
     “This man” was Mike Huckabee.
     Mitt Romney didn’t like that. He said in a CNN debate, “I must admit that I find the vision and the direction that Ronald Reagan laid out for this country to be very powerful and very compelling. And I’ll tell you this: Mike Huckabee, you’re no Ronald Reagan.”
     The question dawned on me. How did Ronald Reagan use this “very powerful and very compelling” vision to make major decisions? I did some digging. This is what I found:

Ronald Reagan sat on the toilet in his suite at the Detroit Plaza Hotel, desperately trying to move his bowels. He’d been “stopped up lately,” according to his personal physician, John Hutton. Hutton had prescribed “the usual – figs, prune juice, coffee, laxatives. We didn’t want to put him on something more invasive, what with the campaign in full swing and the convention here. We didn’t want him having an accident in the middle of his acceptance speech.”
     The date was July 16, 1980. After a rather tame primary season – compare George H.W. Bush’s criticism of Reagan’s policies as “voodoo economics” to a group called the Vietnam Veterans Against John McCain recently calling McCain a “traitor” during his POW days and a “Hanoi Hilton songbird” – the Republicans gathered in Detroit for their national convention. Before the convention could proceed, however, Ronald Reagan had to name his vice presidential running mate. That announcement was schedule for “high noon,” according to Dr. Hutton. “And about an hour before, Ronald Reagan sat on the toilet considering men. Six men to be exact. He had no idea which one to choose.”
     Of the six potential candidates for vice president, only one truly stuck out. His name was Gerald Ford and his status as an ex-president would give Reagan legitimacy among moderates. Reagan’s sympathetic biographer, Edmund Morris, explained in Dutch: A Memoir of Ronald Reagan, “In the summer of 1980 Ronald Reagan was considered an arch conservative. There was no term ‘Reagan Democrat’ then. There was only ‘Right Wing Reaganite.’ Ford held the key to the neighborhood known as middle America.”
     Ford would also make up for Reagan’s biggest perceived deficiency: foreign policy. Rumors in fact had a Reagan/Ford team splitting up the presidency. Ford would become foreign minister. Reagan would take on domestic issues and anything having to do with the pomp and pageantry of the office. “That part of it worked for Ford,” Ford’s latest biographer, Douglas Brinkley, explained. “The Ford family did not like living in the White House.”
     That part of it worked for the Reagans too. “Nancy wasn’t going to travel all the way from California to live in the squalor of Blair House,” Edmund Morris confirmed.
     There was, however, a big negative to Ford’s candidacy as vice president. Gerald Ford harbored ill will toward Ronald Reagan. Four years earlier, Ford had defeated Reagan during a tough primary season. Ford then went on to lose a heartbreaker in the general election to the southern Democrat, Jimmy Carter. Ford never forgave Reagan for challenging him during the primaries. “Ford believed, to his dying day, that he lost the general election to Reagan, not to Carter,” Douglas Brinkley, the only biographer on both Ford and Carter, explained. “Reagan exposed all of his weaknesses, in Ford’s perspective. Carter merely repeated them.”
     So why would Reagan want Ford on his ticket and why would Ford accept the position now? Those were the questions raging in Ronald Reagan’s head. As he sat on the toilet, with dark trousers around his ankles and a starched white shirt lifted above his waist, Reagan remembered a little quote from Gerald Ford. Reagan, Ford once offered, was “intellectually thin with a penchant for offering simplistic solutions to hideously complex problems.”
     It took Ronald Reagan, not exactly the most self-aware man, some time to realize his general feelings for Gerald Ford. He hated him. He realized, in fact, that the kind of hatred he felt for Gerald Ford was the kind of hatred that clogged up bowels. He realized that if he offered the position to Ford he would never again defecate freely. “Naturally,” Edmund Morris summarized, “he couldn’t run the nation while suffering consistent constipation.”
     “Good,” Reagan said to himself on the toilet, “one down, five to go.”
     There was one man within earshot. Dr. John Hutton stood on the other side of the bathroom door. “I was worried,” Dr. Hutton explained. Reagan “had been in there for some time. I was just about to knock and check in with him.”
     Aloud, according to Dr. Hutton, Ronald Reagan then listed the names of the other candidates. He considered last names only. Bush, Baker, Lugar, Laxalt, Rumsfeld. “In that order,” Dr. Hutton told me.
     (Here are the concise political résumés of the five men as they appeared to Ronald Reagan in the summer of 1980. George Bush: Two-term Congressman from Texas, 1967-1971; United States Ambassador to the United Nations under Nixon, 1971-1973; Chairman of the Republican National Committee, 1973-1974; Liaison Officer to China under Nixon (or ambassador, had the United States maintained official relations with China), 1974-1976; Director of Central Intelligence under Ford, 1976-1977; candidate for president in 1980, finished second to Reagan. Howard Baker: Won election to the Senate in 1966, becoming the first Republican from a southern state (Tennessee) since the Civil War; served three terms in the Senate, including four years as Senate Minority Leader; candidate for president in 1980, dropping out after the New Hampshire primary. Richard Lugar: Elected mayor of Indianapolis in 1967; elected Senator in 1976. Paul Laxalt: Lieutenant Governor of Nevada, 1962-1966; elected Governor of Nevada in 1968; elected to the Senate in 1974. Donald Rumsfeld: Four-term Congressman from Illinois, 1962-1970; Director of the United States Office of Economic Opportunity in the Nixon administration and later as Counselor to the President; Chief of staff under President Ford.)
     Reagan repeated the names. Then suddenly, according to Hutton, he broke into song. “Bush, Baker, Luger, Laxalt, Rumsfeld,” Reagan sang.
     At the same time, according to Hutton, Reagan began to tap on his knee, keeping time in drummer’s mode. “Bush, Baker, Luger, Laxalt, Rumsfeld,” Reagan sang. “What makes them weak, what makes them strong? What makes them worthy, what makes them wrong?”
     According to John Hutton, Ronald Reagan “giggled to himself. Clearly he liked the rhyming scheme.”
     Reagan continued tapping. “Baker comes from the South,” he sang. “Baker leans to the left. If Baker gets the job, the conservatives will accuse me of theft.”
     According to Dr. Hutton, he wanted another witness to the ballad of Bush, Baker, Luger, Laxalt, Rumsfeld. “Was I thinking of posterity?” he asked rhetorically. “Yes. I was thinking that nobody would believe me.” Silently, he hand-motioned to the only other person in the suite at that time. The only other person was Nancy Reagan.
     For her part, Nancy Reagan has never spoken publicly about either her husband’s bowel issues or his vetting process for vice president. According to sympathetic biographer Edmund Morris, Nancy campaigned long and hard for Paul Laxalt. “He was the ‘First Friend’ of the Reagans,” Edmund wrote in Dutch. “Nancy simply adored him.”
     “Bush, Baker, Luger, Laxalt, Rumsfeld,” Reagan sang on the toilet. “What makes them appeal, what makes them dance? What makes them loyal, what makes them prance?” Again, Ronald Reagan giggled to himself. “So did Nancy,” Hutton acknowledged.
     “Laxalt be a friend,” Reagan sang. “Laxalt be a pal. Laxalt sound like a laxative, a pharmaceuti-cal.”
     Reagan’s rejection of Laxalt struck Dr. Hutton as ironic. “With Reagan’s bowels,” he said, “you would have thought Laxalt and his laxative-sounding name to be the obvious choice.”
     Reagan continued tapping. “Bush, Baker, Luger, Laxalt, Rumsfeld,” Reagan sang. “We’re down to three. Luger be a pistol. Luger be a gun. Unfortunately his inexperience makes him obviously not the one.”
     Reagan continued tapping. “Bush, Baker, Luger, Laxalt, Rumsfeld,” Reagan sang. “Rummy’s okay. Rummy’s not bad. My problem is he’s a Ford man. Not a Reagan lad.”
     Reagan continued tapping. “Bush, Baker, Luger, Laxalt, Rumsfeld,” Reagan sang. “So it’s George Herbert Walker Bush. A foreign policy whiz. A policy wonk. Will he be loyal? Will he be true? Will he suppress his own agenda in order to support you know who?”
     Ronald Reagan left his question unanswered. According to Dr. Hutton, something else came up. “The singing, I suppose, eased his stress momentarily,” Hutton revealed. “He was able to move his bowels. If not, I would have had to perform something drastic.” Hutton then pronounced Ronald Reagan’s least favorite word, “Enema.”
     According to Dr. Hutton, Ronald Reagan moved his bowels at half past eleven. Thirty minutes later, Reagan announced to the world his choice for vice president. He did so, numerous eyewitnesses reported, with a piece of toilet paper clinging to a loafer.

Bibliography

WORKS CITED:

Brinkley, Douglas. Gerald R. Ford. New York: Times Books, February 6, 2007.
Hutton, John. “The Health and Medical History of President Ronald Reagan.” New England Journal of Medicine, September 16, 2004. http://content.nejm.org/content/vol351/issue12/Reagan.html.
Morris, Edmund. Dutch: A Memoir of Ronald Reagan. New York: Random House, 1999.

INTERVIEWS:

Douglas Brinkley in his office at Rice University, December 2007.
Edmund Morris in his “country home” in Kent, Connecticut, December 2007.
John Hutton in e-mail correspondence, December 2007-January 2008.

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The Reagan Rap