What does it take to win a presidential debate? Masterful preparation and flawless execution
Roger Ailes has been dining out for years on the fact that he helped prepare Ronald Reagan for his second debate with Walter Mondale in 1984. In fact, Reagan’s 1980 debate with Jimmy Carter was far more consequential. And James A. Baker has never gotten the credit he deserves for his yeoman’s work in preparing the Gipper for his “High Noon” showdown with President Carter.
No doubt Reagan was disappointed with his first performance in 1984 against Mondale and wasn’t going to let it happen again, so it was really Reagan who spurred himself forward. He was angry with himself and frustrated with himself. He was, as Reagan adviser Mike Deaver once told me, “The most competitive son of a bitch who ever lived.”
It wasn’t that Reagan did badly in his first debate with Mondale — it’s more that expectations were out of control for him, and many were also wondering if Reagan’s age had caught up with him. It was literally the worst of both worlds.
But he walked into a buzz saw when he uttered “There you go again” one too many times. Mondale was ready and, turning it around, schooled Reagan on cutting Medicare spending. White House aide Dick Darman (now deceased) was in charge of the debate prep and whipsawed Reagan and shoved meaningless statistics down his throat. Reagan later complained of the prep team, “It was all these numbers they made me memorize.” He was very unhappy, very depressed, and mad at himself. He knew better. And America knew better.
However, the 1984 debate wasn’t crucial for Reagan. He was going to win anyway. Even after the first debate, he was still well ahead in the polls. It was the 1980 debate with Jimmy Carter, one week before the election, which was imperative.
It is this debate in which Jim Baker, the tall and cool Texan, did so much to help Reagan, and as a result, probably won the presidency of 1980. The polls were tight and Carter was surging in many.
Bill Casey, Reagan’s underappreciated manager, handed the entire debate portfolio to Jim
Baker, late of the George H.W. Bush campaign. Baker, pencil behind an ear, approached the debate preparation job with toughness and thoroughness. He assembled a group of briefers, questioners and a stand-in, a young congressman, David Stockman, who first portrayed John Anderson and later Jimmy Carter.
He put together a mock stage at a private estate, Wexford, in rural Virginia (which was once owned by John and Jackie Kennedy) and put Reagan through his paces. The camp had divided into two regarding the debate with Carter: the hawks and the doves. Surprisingly, many old hands were doves opposed to Reagan debating Carter, including Mrs. Reagan. They were fearful of what Carter would do to the Gipper. But the hawk Baker had seen Reagan up close and personal, and knew that Reagan was ready and able.
Reagan was masterful that evening in Cleveland. Defying expectations, he won — at least as far as the American people were concerned. The elites thought otherwise but it was of little matter. According to all the polls, Reagan won the debate and then won the presidency in one of the greatest landslides in American history. Carter’s pollster Pat Caddell has maintained for nearly 40 years that without that debate, Carter might well have won re-election. Baker deserves much of the credit. Baker was the right man in the right place at the right time. One shudders to think if someone less competent had been placed in charge of the all-important debate prep.
Jim Baker’s place in history is now assured, along with many other important presidential counselors. He was a U.S. Marine, a campaign manager, Rea- gan’s White House de facto chief of staff, secretary of the treasury, secretary of state, director of George W. Bush’s recount effort in Florida in 2000, and head of a commission on Iraq. But maybe none of these would have happened without his superb, reassuring, and history-altering leadership of Reagan’s debate team in 1980.
Without Baker, would Reagan have won in 1980? Would there have been a Reagan Revolution? Would Reagan have had a chance to be Reagan without Baker? In fact, Reagan once wrote, “There has not been one single instance of Jim Baker doing anything but what I’ve settled on as our policy.” Reagan knew good men when he saw them.
Reagan was surrounded by a lot of good men and women, and one of those happened to be Jim Baker, the campaign manager for a man who tried to stop Reagan from winning the 1980 nomination.
Such are the twists and turns of American history.