As another Lame Cherry exclusive in matter anti matter.
The public from Frank Capra type movies and the way Jimmy Stewart and John Wayne conducted themselves always presumed that politicians would not be foul mouthed gutter trash in important meetings of state.
Donald Trump in the shit hole, seemed to not be a President of a nation, but could not even conduct a meeting which was not filled with obscenities. That points to a most weak leader for all of his pastoral cleavage which spiritually advises him.
President Gerald Ford was another frustrated and weak man, as he once said in a meeting as Ronald Reagan attempted to gain the GOP nomination for President, "I'm through with that son of a bitch".
Ford though being weak had to put forward appearances and in that Ronald Reagan suggested that Bob Dole of Kansas would make an excellent Vice President as Ford was so weak, if he picked liberal the conservatives would bolt and if he picked east the people of the west would stay home and vice versa.
After President Ford acquired the nomination, it had been agreed to between John Sears, Reagan's campaign adviser and Chief of Staff Dick Cheney for Gerald Ford, that the candidates would visit each other as a sign of unity.
The Reagan family knew this because Maureen and Ron jr. were listening at the door.
Ronald Reagan made Sears promise that President Ford would not be asking him to be Vice President as Ronald Reagan did not want the job, and he did not want to have to be in position of turning the President down.
President Ford visited the Reagan's in the early morning and no mention of the VP slot was made, but that changed in the morning when Mike Deaver awoke Ronald Reagan and said "people" were there to talk to him about being Vice President.
The trio was Holmes Tuttle, Justin Dart and William French Smith. Reagan climbed out of bed, and informed his powerful supporters that he was not interested in being Vice President and then the phone rang, and Ronald Reagan picked it up and said, "Terrific, you made the right choice".
And with that Bob Dole was Vice President as Jerry Ford was on the other end of the phone.
In the earlier meeting between Reagan and Ford, Gerald Ford had mentioned a list of six candidates that he asked Reagan's judgement on. They were Howard Baker, Elliot Richardson, John Connally, William Simon, William Ruckelshaus and Robert Dole.
Most of those names are no longer remembered, but Ronald Reagan stated he thought very highly of Bob Dole of Kansas. Dole was a right choice for Ford as he was a war hero, honest, solid and would unite the Reagan people to a certain extent. Things did not prove out the way it was hoped though, and it makes one ponder if John Connally who had been shot with John Kennedy in Dallas, might have been a wiser choice for campaigning in the West and South, as Carter was very strong in the South being from Georgia.
Equally good would have been from Tennessee, Howard Baker of Watergate fame who would become Reagan's Chief of Staff later. Baker could have impressed enough voters with his "What did the President know" and his being from the South, would contend in those states too.
It was all mute though as if Jerry Ford had not lost, Ronald Reagan might never have been President due to the disaster of Jimmy Carter in the Oval Office.
These are the histories which we would not have, if not for a wife of a President who was most honest in her memoirs about everyone and specific events. No one else could have described 1976 AD in the year of our Lord in Kansas City, the way Nancy Reagan did, in that hard fought campaign and how it did change the world, and revealed how the leaders of America mind's worked.
Nuff Said
agtG
