Reagan's First Race

(First published April 22, 2003)

The first book on Reagan that I read was by Lou Cannon. It's title: Reagan. I picked it up one summer back in the 1980s while serving my annual two weeks of active duty for the naval reserve. It was the first balanced account of the man I had read, and I remember telling people that.

Cannon's 1991 book on Reagan, The Role of a Lifetime, begins with an interesting story. He recalls the first time he met Reagan in 1965. Reagan was in Sacramento in the fall, touring the state to see how much interest he could generate in a run for the governor's office the next fall. He gave a short speech, answered questions, then chatted with Cannon and other reporters afterwards. The session went well, and everyone there seemed to like Reagan.

The Democrats, meanwhile, thought that Reagan was the weakest of all the candidates they might face in 1966. They hoped he would be the Republican nominee, because that would give Pat Brown, the incumbent governor, the best shot at winning a third term. They figured there was no way an inexperienced former actor would get voted in.

When Lou Cannon's editor at the San Jose Mercury-News asked him what he thought of Reagan, Cannon said that he "couldn't understand why anyone would want to run against such a self-assured and friendly man." It turned out Cannon had good judgment: Reagan won the election in 1966 by more than a million votes. And we know now that Pat Brown was only the first of many to underestimate Ronald Reagan's political abilities.