ELECTION #49, 1980. The NASTY-METER goes up to 4.

QUOTE from Ronald Reagan after being shot on March 30, 1981: "Honey,I forgot to duck."

The CANDIDATES in 1980.

DEMOCRAT: JIMMY CARTER.

Things weren't looking good for Carter when he ran for re-election in 1980: there had been double- digit inflation; in July, 1979, 75% of the gas stations of New York were forced to close; Ted Kennedy had challenged Carter for the nomination and the party torn apart; the Soviets invaded Afghanistan; over 400 Americans were taken hostage in Iran; a rescue attempt of the hostages had failed miserably with the death of eight marines; and Americans didn't want to hear from President Carter that austerity measures were needed to revive the economy. It was going to be an uphill battle for Jimmy. He kept Mondale as his VP mate.

REPUBLICAN: RONALD REAGAN.

Reagan, at age 69, was handsome, smiling, and a star of such movie classics as GIRLS ON PROBATION, KNUTE ROCKNE - ALL AMERICAN, and the beloved BEDTIME FOR BONZO. He had been governor of California. He was about to run a campaign with a whole lot of secrecy. His campaign manager was William Casey, the future CIA director. He chose George H.W. Bush as his VP mate.

The CAMPAIGN in 1980.

Reagan had a great campaign slogan: "Are you better off today than you were four years ago?" With the "misery index" at an all-time high of 22% a lot of Americans had to answer a resounding "NO."

The Democratic strategy was to strike hard at Reagan by comparing and contrasting Carter with Reagan. They would attack in four ways:
1. Carter was safe/sound --- Reagan was untested.
2. Carter was young, age 55 --- Reagan was old, age 69.
3. Carter was vigorous --- Reagan was old.
4. Carter was smart ---Reagan was dumb.

It turned out that whatever Carter tried it didn't stick - Ronnie was becoming the teflon man and it would continue throughout his eight years as president.

The biggest issue in the campaign was the Iran hostage situation. Carter tried his hardest to pull an October surprise - which would be the release of the hostages. The Republicans knew this and they pulled off their own surprise. William Casey, Reagan's campaign manager, met with Iranian cleric Mehdi Karroubi in August of 1980. He offered military assistance to Iran if they would wait until Reagan won the election. Afraid that the Iranians would double-cross them and work with the Carter administration Casey and other Republicans met with the Iranians again in October and sweetened the deal by offering more guns and the unfreezing of Iranian cash in U.S. banks - but only if the hostage release was delayed until Reagan's swearing in on January 20, 1981, so that Carter would get absolutely no credit. Ayatollah Khomeini approved the deal. In the meantime, Casey had his network of retired military officers monitor U.S. air force bases for any sign of unusual activity, which might indicate a Carter deal with some other faction in Iran.
The Reagan/Casey deal worked - when Reagan was sworn in on January 20, 1981, the hostages (already sitting in an airplane on the tarmac in Tehran)), were flown to Germany - a few days later the weapons from the U.S. began arriving in Iran. When Reagan was asked about contact with Iran during the campaign he answered, "Not by me, No. But I can't go into details. Some of those things are still classified."

And another thing happened that I did not no about in this 1980 campaign. It is an indisputable fact that Carter's predebate briefing book was stolen and given to Reagan's people before their October 28 debate so that the Gipper would have all the right rebuttals to Carter's attacks - and he did with his famous line, "There you go again, Mr President." There was obviously a Republican spy inside the Carter campaign team. In a 1983 Congressional investigation it was confirmed that Reagan campaign manager William Casey had recieved "classified reports on closely held Carter administration intelligence on the Carter campaign and the Democratic president's efforts to liberate the hostages." Reagan never denied that the briefing book was stolen.


The WINNER was Ronald Reagan and he became the 40th president of the United States.

Reagan got 43,899,248 popular and 489 electoral.

Carter got 35,481,435 popular and 49 electoral.