Nixon & Mitchell on Ronald Reagan and Conservatism

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I, uh, very much, uh, I, uh, you know, he is hearing from the same group.

I'm older now, but I see her in great service, and so is, is, is all of that.

And I, uh, yeah, a lot of that.

Uh, Larry Meisel, you know, he's a real hard right, you know.

And the fact that we pulled them away from the walls and said, no, I don't, I don't.

It just would not be in the interest, frankly, of our future for me to sit down with that group of, frankly, you know what, for example, NOSBURG.

He's a great guy.

He's a virgin.

So is that.

So the whole, this is the old hard right version of virtue.

And that quarter of all of it is not just what you say is the old dog.

It's not.

Oh, not Jack.

Oh, Jack Lee.

Jack Lee is just basically that way.

But I think what we ought to do, I think Henry would be a great guy.

I've got to have to, he knows it's such a, but if I come in there, you know, I'm a, with just a group of normal, I mean, that's just not all that, but I don't know how you can pick that.

You see my point?

What's your view?

You get to that select group,

or those right wingers, you're not going to sell them the first time around.

You're going to have a hell of a lot of pitching and complaining.

And that's why I suggested the format was used at all, that you just have a spring league that leads people in with the others, with the other group.

But it may have, it's probably worthwhile to take a shot at it sometime when Henry's out in California

to let Ron get these folks together.

Ron, that's quite a pilot.

He just goes in and he just spores out everything we've done in a very tough way.

See, now what the hell is the alternative?

They just don't know.

That's their problem.

I mean, as I say, where are they?

Rock, box, and murder label.

We were in these fights.

Where are they now?

Well, there's nothing more basic than that, Mr. President.

That is, these conservatives are just chronic bitches.

That's their whole approach to life.

Iran is going to get all right again.

I said, Iran, you've got to save us.

He's not fighting at this point.

He's had a lot of pressure, tremendous, and so it's bodily.

What the hell can we do for him?

Is there anything he doesn't want to do after this?

No, he wants to do the Senate.

I think he wants to keep his options open.

And one of the reasons that he wants to keep his options open is because he made the damn fool mistake of saying he wasn't going to run for governor again.

He still has two years more to go as governor, and he just can't be a completely dead, lame duck.

And that, of course, is what's causing us the problems.

The fellow wants to keep his stroke.

I'm going to talk to him later about the game.

We only had three throws of an hour this morning.

Well, you know, I hear the same story every time I say break.

So we're going to talk about it later, and maybe we can totally answer this thing.

One of the arguments that he makes is that Nossinger, and I'm talking about where he has said it,

as a great liaison with these right-wingers.

I agree.

The problem is, John, Bob Seger, he could be in a campaign, there's no question about that, although he's very valuable nationally, but he can't manage anything.

We had him in the office, he's a loner.

He said, just like Buchanan, Buchanan's a great guy, but Buchanan couldn't run anything but a secretary.

And he didn't even run her because he types himself.

You cannot have a loner as a manager.

He would be a total disaster.

Just a total disaster.

And this is the point that I had with Rob, that we can't, that we don't want him to fail.

And that you could have him in it so you could give him a title.

I don't care about that.

Well, this might be, this might be the account that we'd like to have him in there.

Because maybe the, I don't know, it's hard to give him a title because basically he's so...

I'm sorry.

Well, I think he won't sell now.

No, Luce won't leave his job.

He has a romance.

I wonder if we ought to have a situation where we do something before the nomination and after the nomination.

Well, it isn't the same.

You could never do that in New York, and you can't do it in New York without Rockefeller.

But in California,

We're in a different situation.

Reagan does not have an organization.

No, they don't.

We have a backup position.

I've told the governor that this is going to be a national campaign and be run globally from California and we're going to have more than people that will be working in this tremendous state, et cetera, et cetera.

So for the purposes of harmony out there,

Uh, and we're still working out the executive committee with the Firestones and the Homies Troubles and matching them all in the conservative and liberal areas.

Uh, and we can structure this thing, but have our people, uh, in there working on the actual campaign operations.

Uh, so that ain't about something that's going to get yelled at.

One thing that I would believe about Schnauzinger, if he were out there in any capacity, he's not going to plug that.

Knopsinger, of course, has established a great rapport with the people back here, and the important thing is to pull this campaign as far away from Britain as possible.

I have no objection with Knopsinger being there.

I just don't want to give him any management responsibilities, because he just cannot manage.

Rahm admitted to that this morning when he was putting up all that he could do.

And then you want to have a title and everything else.

But then that has to change after the primary two.

After we get past that convention, so that you don't have anything in the links.

Ron is in a very jittery position.

out there, personally, generally, because he's found that Tom Reed is double-dealing.

Is he?

And this one was...

There has already been a couple of national administrations that have carried the favor here, and that's made him extremely jittery.

But what he's concerned about is his star, who they know is not going to rise, so they moved to someplace else, and he should have expected it.

The other thing, too, he's gone down in the public.

which is inevitable.

He'll come up with that joke again.

Maybe he gets a good subject to fight about.

See, the problem in his case has been if he re-analyzed the Reagan strength in California, it was his enemies.

Now his enemies are quiet.

I mean, if the canvases are going up, he'd definitely be up, right, and sub-accompanied the rest of the people at all before their enemies.

So that's hurting him, the fact that his enemies are quiet.

The second part of it is that

He has never had anything positive run on him.

So his situation now is, he's weakened by the fact that not having his enemy, which anybody, which made him poor, having gotten him positive, he's still interested.

And in addition to that, he's had to wire up all these taxes that he imposed.

had to be tough on the attack side.

And, uh... Now on this stand, the situation regarding this matter recounts, and recounts, and recounts, and I have here observed in the Senate, and it has made it to the Water.

But how many other persons got into problems of his own?

You know, being old, and Rick getting the victory and all that sort of thing.

Which, which occurs, Rick makes the mistake of letting it come to him.

That we're going to fight.

He wants the power of election.

He wants the issue, John.

He doesn't want Wisconsin out.

Well, listen Chris, we went through and stayed with that over the other problem.

Yeah, because he had a condition up there.

And I'm sure, you know, I might have to roll that in on the child care thing.

He was pushing people out for it, shouldn't he?

Yes, because basically he thought it was consistent with the other thing.

He's basically bored anyway.

But if there's anything I want to let him know, I'm fine with it.

I'll never, never sign anything with that son of a bitch in the head.

I don't care what it looks like.

He's not made his case, but it's awful tough on him, because he's testified for the goddamn thing.

I'm against it.

What the hell did they do with that poster?

You know there is a certain liberal

few kids should not be raised.

You know what this is all about?

It's about the Negroes, let's face it.

It's about the blacks.

The blacks have no family.

They don't have a family, so they believe they should take the little black bastards and have them raised out of the places.

Well, I'm concerned about them.

Maybe it's better for them, but I...

I don't know.

But I just think if you started on that road, it would pop over to the whites, so then the poor whites, the Puerto Ricans, the Mexicans, then the poor, poor whites, and so forth, and up the line and say, well, this family or that mother is raised in the state race and everybody.

Yes, and it breaks down the whole thread of family life.

I think you've got to handle the balance.

problem by attempting to strengthen the family rather than weaken it.

If you take those kids away, you're going to weaken it.

I think the little black kid is raised better than his mother than he is by a goddamn social worker.

No question about it.

Those black mothers are pretty nice people because you know what they're going to start teaching.

Oh, I hadn't thought of that.

Watch your comments, socialists.

Well, on this other thing, if you would, you can follow up with me.

and just put it right to Henry Scott, to me.

You set up a meeting, if you would, of some of these key right-wingers, and he meets with them, maybe under your sponsorship, but at this point, I should not.

I just don't want to get at it at this time.

Maybe others should be included.

Maybe they shouldn't.

I don't know.

Maybe Henry should do it when he's out here.

I have to go out over Thanksgiving and get a few together then.

But maybe it's been a lot of time for Littles, but it's been some time with the Conservatives.

And really lay it to him.

Henry does a pretty good job when he gets cranked up.

Sir, on this Mizell business, you know, we sent a gal.

Did you see if that would help, sir?

Yep, we have all the audience.

I don't know what you're talking about.

You know, one of our problems in this area was that damn cool study that George Champion came up with that kicked all these guys off.

What study?

The American Foundation or some operation.

Some of us did it.

Realized that it was going on, headed in other directions, and I never heard of it until I started to hold on.

It's a passing thing.

Okay.

How it affects us, though, is not to make wrong random things.

Those people are going to be out on the right, and they can squeal and say something.

They are still a small, hard knot.

They may not kill us with their gifts.

I could just do this.

They were forced to succeed.

their influence is something we can do without their money.

We don't need their money now, as you well know.

We don't need their money.

And their influence, you see, is not on them.

What we have to realize is that

It's him we're concerned about.

We've got to keep that in the air above the air.

I'm sorry.

Nixon & Mitchell on Ronald Reagan and Conservatism

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on November 17, 1971

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