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(More customer reviews)The 1980 presidential election ranks with the elections of 1800, 1828, 1860, and 1932 as one of the most important in American history, and this book by Craig Shirley provides a comprehensive look at this pivotal contest--the author was able to gain interviews with many important figures in the campaign and unearth previously unknown facts.
Shirley outlines the social and economic conditions at the end of the 1970s that led to Reagan's election, and gives details on Reagan's activities in the years leading up to the 1980 nomination fight.
The descriptions of the long nomination fights for both parties are excellent. The author provides inside information on some of the conflicts among the Reagan staffers, recounts the famous "I am paying for this microphone" Nashua debate, and remembers the times when it looked as though Ronald Reagan's campaign and political career were over. Many do not know or remember that Gerald Ford gave serious thought to running in 1980--Shirley recalls the points in the campaign at which the former president was tempted to jump in.
The Reagan-Ford "Dream Ticket" saga, the Reagan acceptance speech, and the selection of George Bush as the vice-presidential nominee at the Detroit convention are thoroughly covered.
Even though the election ended in a landslide, the fall campaign of 1980 was one of the most suspenseful of all time, as the race looked close right up until Election Day. The author chronicles the ups and downs for both Carter and Reagan, including the all-important Cleveland debate, and even solves the mystery of the missing Carter debate briefing books.
Those of us old enough to remember Election Day 1980 will have their memories jogged by Shirley's look back at the networks' coverage of the election. My parents were going to allow me, a ten-year-old Reagan supporter, to stay up as late as necessary to see the outcome, but, as the book remembers, the result was settled VERY early (and I didn't get to stay up nearly as late as I thought I might get to stay up).
The foreword by George Will and the epilogue examining the Gipper's place in history round out this volume that would be enjoyed by all conservative political junkies.
Click Here to see more reviews about: Rendezvous with Destiny: Ronald Reagan and the Campaign That Changed America
As late as Election Day, headlines across the country blared that the race was "too close to call."
Even on the verge of his historic triumph in the 1980 presidential election, political observers continued to underestimate Ronald Wilson Reagan.
In Rendezvous with Destiny, the long-awaited follow-up to his widely praised account of Reagan\'s insurgent 1976 presidential campaign, Craig Shirley tells the incredible behind-the-scenes story of Reagan\'s improbable run to the White House in 1980—of how the "too close to call" election became a landslide victory over incumbent Jimmy Carter and independent candidate John Anderson.
And this, Shirley shows, was no ordinary election. It dramatically altered the course of American—and world—history. Reagan\'s victory gave rise to a new generation of conservatism, ended liberalism\'s half-century reign of dominance, reversed the second-worst economic crisis in American history, and led to the demise of the mighty Soviet Union.
To write Rendezvous with Destiny, Shirley gained unprecedented access to 1980 campaign files and interviewed more than 150 insiders—from Reagan\'s closest advisers and family members to Jimmy Carter himself. The result is the first comprehensive history of the hard-fought 1980 campaign, a gripping account that follows Reagan\'s unlikely path from his bitter defeat on the floor of the 1976 Republican convention, through his underreported "wilderness years," through grueling primary fights in which he knocked out several Republican heavyweights, through an often-nasty general election campaign complicated by the presence of a third-party candidate (not to mention the looming shadow of Ted Kennedy), to Reagan\'s astounding victory on Election Night in 1980. Shirley\'s years of intensive research have enabled him to relate countless untold stories—including, at long last, the solution to one of the most enduring mysteries in politics: just how Reagan\'s campaign got hold of Carter\'s debate briefing books.
Rendezvous with Destiny reveals how Reagan successfully battled the headwinds of the national media, the Republican Party establishment, and even his own campaign team to become one of America\'s greatest chief executives.
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