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able aides, including Nofziger, Deaver, Hannaford, and Ed Meese, who was Governor Reagan's chief of staff, began meeting over coffee one day a week, usually on a Friday morning, at the Bicycle Club restaurant to coordinate matters. CFTR also had substantial funding, starting out with a budget of nearly $1.5 million left over from the 1976 campaign committee, Citizens for Reagan (though at year's end about $600,000 would be returned to the Federal Election Commission because it represented unused matching funds). 38

    As Reagan was the most in-demand conservative in America, Deaver and Hannaford expected the governor's personal income from his syndicated column, radio commentaries, and speaking fees to range between $400,000 and $750,000per year. The demands kept Reagan perpetually in motion. His young aide Dennis LeBlanc recalled that as they flew together, Reagan was either reading or writing, making the most of his time. Nancy Reagan remembered the same: “But all the time he was writing. He would always fly first class. He'd sit by the window, and I'd sit in the aisle next to him. It didn't matter whether or not there was a movie being shown and all the lights were out—he'd turn on his reading lamp and would constantly be writing.” 39

     
    J IMMY C ARTER MOVED AHEAD quickly with his first address to the nation after becoming president, appearing on television less than two weeks after his inauguration. Dressed in a light-colored cardigan sweater in front of a roaring fire in the White House, Carter followed his populist instincts and took on the Washington establishment, vowing to bring the federal government to heel by freezing federal hiring and cutting regulatory red tape, and also the oil companies and utilities, calling on them to sacrifice.
    Taking on the oil companies was easy. They were unpopular and were already a favorite whipping boy in Washington. Taking on the entrenched bureaucracy was quite another thing. Shrink government? Since when did any Democrat advocate this? Moreover, in telling the American people that their future would be one of scarcity and sacrifice, Carter was making himself and his party the skunks at the garden party. The Democrats had owned the future since 1932, being the party of hope, but now Carter was ceding the political battleground of the future. The sour speech set the tone for Carter's presidency.

    Fittingly, the first movie aired in the Carter White House was All the President's Men . but Carter fundamentally misunderstood the consequences of Watergate. He made symbolic gestures, including taking limousines away from the White House staff, banning the playing of “Hail to the Chief,” carrying his own suit bag slung over his shoulder (though rumors were rampant that the bag was empty), wearing dungarees, and other “depomping the presidency” efforts. He thought the American people wanted their next-door neighbor to be president. 40 Carter, like Ford before him, confused the dignity of the office with the character of the individual occupying it. The American people wanted somebody with a common touch, but they also wanted somebody with uncommon dignity. They didn't mind—indeed, actually liked—a little bit of pomp; what they objected to was pomposity.

    A New York Times story three weeks after Carter had taken office reflected Americans' skepticism about the Carter emphasis on “showboat populism.” “I want my President to have some class,” one American complained. Carter “carryinghis own suitcases” put another off. “That's going too far.” 41 Even Carter worried in his diary that he'd gone too far with the whole “depomping” thing. 42

    Carter's peripatetic pollster, Pat Caddell, wrote, “We must devise a context that is neither traditionally liberal nor traditionally conservative, one that cuts across traditional ideology.” 43 Carter's instincts were already in this direction, but he was governmentally tone-deaf.

     
    R EAGAN'S METHOD OF TAKING