A Mysterious Country by Norman Mailer

Author:Norman Mailer
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Subject Value
ISBN: 9781956763591
Publisher: Arcade
Published: 2023-06-15T00:00:00+00:00

38

RONALD REAGAN, GOP CONVENTION, 1968

(MIAMI AND THE SIEGE OF CHICAGO, 1968)

It was rare when Mailer failed to refer to classic American films and actors when evaluating American politicians. In this excerpt, he notes Ronald Reagan’s longtime status as a good-natured loser in a number of Hollywood romantic films (he made more than fifty) in this profile of the then-governor of California.

Let us . . . look at Reagan. He had come forward immediately after the first ballot was in, and made a move that the nomination be unanimous. Reagan was smiling when he came up for his plea, he looked curiously more happy than he had looked at any point in the convention, as if he were remembering Barry Goldwater’s renunciation of the nomination in 1960, and the profitable results which had ensued, or perhaps he was just pleased because the actor in his soul had issued orders that this was the role to play. For years in the movies he had played the good guy and been proud of it. If he didn’t get the girl, it was because he was too good a guy to be overwhelmingly attractive. That was all right. He would grit his teeth and get the girl the next time out. Since this was conceivably the inner sex drama of half of respectable America, he was wildly popular with Republicans. For a party which prided itself on its common sense, they were curiously, even outrageously, sentimental.

Now as Reagan made his plea for unity, he spoke with mildness, a lack of charisma, even a simplicity, which was reminiscent of a good middle-aged stock actor’s simplicity—well, you know, fellows, the man I’m playing is an intellectual, and of course I have the kind of mind which even gets confused by a finesse in bridge.

They cheered him wildly, and he looked happy, as if something had gone his way. There was much occasion to recollect him on Thursday when Agnew for Vice President was announced; as the story of this selection developed, the reporter was to think of a view of Reagan he had had on Tuesday afternoon after the reception Nixon had given for the delegates in the American Scene.

On Tuesday the reporter had found Reagan at the Di Lido in downtown Miami Beach where the Alabama and Louisiana delegation were housed. In with Louisiana in a caucus, the Governor came out later to give a quick press conference, pleading ignorance of this situation. Listening to him, it was hard to believe he was fifty-seven, two years older than Nixon, for he had a boy’s face, no gray in his head—he was reputed to dye his hair—and his make-up (about which one could hear many a whisper) was too excellent, if applied, to be detected.

Still, unlike Nixon, Reagan was altogether at ease with the Press. They had been good to him, they would be good again—he had the confidence of the elected governor of a big state, precisely what Nixon had always lacked; besides, Reagan had long ago incorporated the confidence of an actor who knows he is popular with interviewers.

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