The Presidency: Riding into the Sunset

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The gracious little speeches of meeting and parting by Ronald Reagan and George Bush were finished. Grandchildren hopped about the New Orleans tarmac; wives chatted. Bush steered Reagan to the foot of the ramp, leaned close to his ear and told him he had chosen Dan Quayle to be his running mate. The President never changed his expression. But something happened, more felt than seen.

"He's told him," whispered one journalist. The tableau of political power that had played out with Reagan at the pinnacle had reversed. The Vice President was telling the President a secret. The Bush crowd went off to its rally. Reagan, arm around Nancy, went slowly up the ramp, turned at the top and gave a wave and a smile. A touch of sadness in the presidential eye, a hint of a slump in the shoulders? Reporters rushing to the rear door of the jet thought they saw it. On board, Reagan told his aides that the singular rite of passage with Bush "seemed natural." It is still a tough season for an old campaigner, sliding down the far side of the mountain.

The memories reach out and claim him even more these days. Before he left for New Orleans, he leaned forward in his chair in the Oval Office and recalled when it all started back in 1964. "Talk about a thrill," he said. "That was the speech that I made on behalf of Barry Goldwater. There was some question on the part of some of his staff. After I'd done the speech, I went to bed worrying. But around midnight I got a call from his campaign manager telling me that the switchboards were still lighted up." Beginnings leave deeper marks than endings.

But Reagan's juices were flowing before New Orleans, the prospects of a huge audience focused on him for a day. "I think television gives us back something that our size has taken away from us," Reagan said. "Stump speaking? What did that mean? It meant that the candidate went out and he got up on a stump to speak face to face with the people. Today, with 240 million Americans, there's no way a candidate can do that. But television offers you that."

Some 27 million Americans tuned in to watch him on last Monday night's lavish Superdome stump as he kidded, cataloged his Administration's record, pumped up Bush and walked down memory lane. "We lit a prairie fire a few years back," he said. "What times we've had." Though his address was too crowded with his "stubborn" facts, a bit too long, there was enough old magic to hold his audience.

Goldwater, slowed by his hip ailment, sat in the Vice President's box. Somebody asked how he was. "Great from the waist up," he said. "From the waist down, not worth a damn." Political Consultant Clif White, one of the principal architects of modern conservatism, stood on the convention floor and felt the tug of history. "Reagan has held off these young people for a generation," he said. "Now it's time." Maybe the main reason for Dan Quayle.

After their convention valedictories, the Reagans gave a reception for longtime friends back at their New Orleans hotel. The Charles Wicks were there. So was Betsy Bloomingdale. Weatherman Willard Scott, who played White House Santa Claus, attended, as did Actor Tom Selleck, who helped Nancy in her antidrug campaign. Long after midnight the Reagans held forth, savoring every tribute, clinging to the echoes of the old army.