Musing on Reagan in Reagan country

As you read these words, I’m at the Reagan Library in Simi Valley, Calif. Spending time here naturally leads to consideration of Ronald Reagan the governor, particularly given the parallels between his experience in California and some of things now going on in Virginia.

Last week’s announcement by Sen. Russell Potts that he would leave the Republican Party and run as a “moderate” independent prompted speculation that Virginia Democrats might try to use Potts to manipulate the governor’s race in favor of their nominee. Reagan’s experience as a candidate in 1966 suggests that Virginia Democrats may wish to act with caution.

Reagan was pitted in the Republican primary against a moderate Republican, former San Francisco Mayor George Christopher. Christopher tagged Reagan as “too conservative for California,” using much the same words Potts used to describe Republican Jerry Kilgore. The Democrat candidate in California was two-term incumbent Edmund Brown. Brown’s pollsters assured him that Reagan would be the easier candidate to defeat in the general election. Not content with hoping Reagan would win the GOP primary, Brown decided to sabotage the Christopher campaign.

Brown directed his staff to dredge up an old case in which Christopher had been convicted of violating some technical provisions of California’s milk pricing code. A friendly columnist used the leaked material to portray Christopher as corrupt.

Brown’s dirty trick had devastatingly negative consequences -- for Brown. Although the smear hurt Christopher, he had been losing ground to Reagan in the primary election polls anyway. More important, the smear erased Brown’s long-standing image as an honest and sincere leader. Suddenly, Brown was just another politician. Brown got his wish; he got to run against Reagan. But Reagan was running as a non-political “citizen leader.” Brown’s interference in the other party’s primary played right into Reagan’s strategy.

Given the fact that he is leaving office, and can exercise power for only a few more months, look for Mark Warner to try something similarly clever, and underhanded, in Virginia. Warner’s apparent success in using fraud and fear to get a tax increase passed will likely make interfering in the electoral process an irresistible temptation.

Reagan won a huge victory against Brown in 1966, and served two successful terms as California’s governor. One of the best examples of Gov. Reagan’s leadership came in 1968, when his budget director told him that the state had a budget surplus of $100 million. Reagan’s aide advised him to decide how he wanted to spend the money, since it was just a matter of time before the Democratic-controlled legislature learned of the surplus. Once that happened, Reagan knew, the Democrats would spend every last dollar.

As Reagan recounted the story in his autobiography, “if there was one thing I’d learned about government, it was that if there was any loose money lying around, the people in government would find a way to spend it.” This all sounds eerily familiar to Virginia taxpayers.

Reagan decided to give the money back to the taxpayers, in the form of a rebate. He knew that the Democrats would fight him tooth and nail. So Reagan decided to tell the people of California about the surplus before he told the legislators. He also devised a strategy to keep the heat on the legislators once they did find out about the surplus.

Appearing on television across California, Reagan pointed out that the amount of the surplus was just about equal to 10 percent of the annual income tax revenues in California. He mentioned the tax rebate for Californians, and suggested that the easiest and cheapest way to do this was for everyone who paid state income taxes to figure the amount of the tax, and write a check for 90 percent of it.

Like Jim Gilmore’s idea of eliminating the car tax, the idea had a strong appeal to California’s long-suffering taxpayers. In fact, Californians went wild over the idea. The Democrats in the legislature went wild also. The legislative leadership declared the rebate idea dead on arrival (just what then-House Majority Leader Dick Cranwell said about the car tax cut exactly 30 years later).

However, Reagan kept talking about the “pay 90 percent” plan so much that California legislators were faced with two choices: grant the rebate or face the prospect of prosecuting millions of Californians for tax evasion. They capitulated, and the taxpayers won.

Here in Virginia, the governor also kept news of a surplus secret. But in our case, Warner did so to make sure the money stayed in government hands, not to make sure it was returned to the people who earned it. This is just one of the reasons why Reagan went on to become President, while Warner’s political power is, even now, starting to slip away.

Read columnist Preston Bryant's take on Reagan's governorship.