Transcript: Chapter 09

Narrator: Reagan retreated to his new ranch in the mountains high above Santa Barbara. Rancho del Cielo: the ranch in the sky.

Ron Reagan: It was a place where he could renew himself and rejuvenate himself. And he would go out, you know, for hours at a time.

He'd just sort of disappear up into the hills and into the brush with you know sometimes with a chain saw. And, he, you know, was just happy as a clam out there, doing his ranch thing.

Dennis LeBlanc, Ranch Manager: His form of relaxation was very hard physical labor. He was not a type of man to relax. We started building fences. It's been over the course of quite a few years because he actually built the fences or designed the fences out of telephone poles. He designed it so when you looked at the fence everything was uniform. We started to just do it around the house. But then when we finished with that and we sat back and looked and said, well, wouldn't it look nice if we went around the pond. Well, we went around the pond and we created a pasture. Well, the pasture needs fencing. So we went around the pasture. Then we built an orchard, and well, you know we should probably continue the fence around the orchard. These fences are not going anywhere.

Narrator: Reagan was killing time, waiting while America ripened toward his conservative message. "People were rebelling," he observed," [A] prairie fire, was ... spreading across the land."

Smith: Stop and think what this country had been through by 1980. We had been through the Vietnam War, we'd been through Watergate. We'd seen one president after another tarnished, by scandal, by failure, by an assassin's bullet. By 1980, we were pretty cynical. By 1980, we had just been through a couple of years of double-digit inflation. We'd seen the Soviet Union seemingly on the march around the world, most notably, in Afghanistan.

Narrator: Reagan ran for president on a conservative platform of less government and stronger defense, promising to restore America's greatness.

Reagan: My fellow citizens of this great nation, with a deep awareness of the responsibility conferred by your trust, I accept your nomination for the presidency of the United States. They say that the United States has had its day in the sun, that our nation has passed its zenith.

They expect you to tell your children that the American people no longer have the will to cope with their problems, that the future will be one of sacrifice and few opportunities. My fellow citizens, I utterly reject that view.

Maureen Reagan: He was so unhappy about what was happening to the country. The fact that people didn't believe in themselves, they didn't believe that they could make things better, that America was a nation in decline. All of those things and he knew in his heart those things were not true and he believed that as president he could make the American people look inside themselves and recreate what they needed to have their own American dream.

Morris: I think he felt sincerely in his heart that he was rescuing the United States from a period of poisonous self-doubt, loss of direction, loss of belief in itself. I think he felt in the late 1970s that he could rescue Jimmy Carter's America and carry her back to the shore and make her alive again.

Narrator: Reagan kicked off his fall campaign in Jersey City, with a great American symbol as a backdrop. He addressed a blue-collar ethnic audience -- appealing to their patriotism and to their growing sense of insecurity.

Reagan: Let it show on the record that when the American people cried out for economic help Jimmy Carter took refuge behind a dictionary. Well, if it's a definition. If it's a definition he wants I'll give him one. A recession is when your neighbor loses his job. A depression is when you lose yours. And recovery is when Jimmy Carter loses his.

Meese: Most people don't remember now, but that was probably the worst economic situation the United States had been in since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

Anderson: Inflation was roaring, interest rates were going up. People couldn't afford to buy a home. A lot of people remember very clearly if they were old enough to drive a car then, you couldn't buy gasoline no matter how much money you had. We had a hostage crisis in Iran. People were getting worried.

Narrator: Fifty-two American diplomats had been held hostage in Iran for a year. They were a daily reminder of America's impotence and a political liability for Jimmy Carter.

Reagan: I believe this administration's foreign policy helped create the entire situation that made their kidnap possible and I think the fact that they've been there that long is a humiliation and a disgrace to this country.

Narrator: Everyday the American hostages remained in captivity Carter's prospects for re-election dimmed.

Reagan: Earlier this evening I spoke on the phone with President Carter. He called, John Anderson called. But the president pledged the utmost in cooperation in the transition that will take place. [Applause]

And now just, all I can say to all of you is thank you. And thank you for more than just George Bush and myself. Thank you because if the trend continues we may very well control one house of the Congress for the first time in a quarter of a century.

Narrator: The Republicans did gain control of the Senate. Reagan beat Carter in a landslide, carrying 44 states. It was a great victory for Reagan and the conservative movement.

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