I loved the first 3/4 of this book! 2010-07-01

Reviewer: Shogun Len

I so enjoyed most of this well written, documented, and researched book. It was full of interesting quotes and stories about the 1980 election and not just about Reagan, but his team, and Bush, and the other GOP candidates, President Ford, President Carter, Ted Kennedy, the debates, the conventions, the primaries. This is an incredibly engaging read that really brings you back in time. My problem was that after the conventions which is about 3/4 of the way through, I felt the book lost a lot of steam and until his great conclusions was a bit anti-climatic.

A Magnificent Read 2010-04-03

Reviewer: Sydney guy

This is a rich, detailed account of the 1980 campaign. This goes beyond the petty gossip of modern campaign accounts and provides a deep insight into the forces that shaped the Reagan revolution. This is a first class and first rate read.

It Took A Carter to Give Us A Reagan 2010-03-27

Reviewer: J. Lebakken

Growing up as a pre-teen in this era I didn't thing I was very aware of politics and had only a vague notion of how bad the economy was. Reading this brings back a lot of personal memories as I juxtapose those again the historical context offered in this book. It also surprises me to realize that maybe I was more politically aware or at least better versed in current events than I originally thought I was.

Craig Shirley does a good job of building momentum around the key events of the campaign season that led up to perhaps the greatest presidency of the last 100 years. Slow going at first it does a good job of ratcheting up the tension that leads up to Sears dismissal. By the time I was that far in I wanted to read ahead (as if I didn't know the ultimate outcome). This book is also a good reminder of the fact that the media was becoming quite biased and fairly liberal long before msnbc or CNN. I had forgotten the John Anderson love-fest. I didn't forget the Iranian Hostage crisis, the upset summer Olympians denied visas to attend the games in Moscow or the way the media cast Reagan as a nim-wit Hollywood actor and a hard right warmonger. But even if you remember all that you may know little of how close Reagan was to losing his third and final run at becoming the President of the United States. George Will's Forward frames that drama accordingly. Don't skip it. It is short and poignant.

And I think there are some lessons here for true conservatives on what victory in upcoming elections will require.

Essential, despite the occasional gaucheries 2010-02-24

Reviewer: Christopher Barat

Well... (as the hero of the story might have put it...) the wait for the followup to Shirley's REAGAN'S REVOLUTION, though somewhat longer than expected, was certainly worth it. As Shirley's earlier book has come to be regarded as a definitive portrait of Ronald Reagan's near-miss challenge of Gerald Ford for the 1976 Republican Presidential nomination, so this much thicker tome is likely to stand as the standard account of Reagan's successful capture of the White House in 1980 -- at least from a Reagan-friendly perspective -- for the foreseeable future. That all-important election is now far enough in the past that the story needs to be retold, especially now that the first great wave of "Reagan revisionism" is being met by counterblasts from some writers on the Left. The facts that Reagan was anything but a universally respected and popular figure (even within his own party and campaign staff), and that Reagan nearly blew what should have been a clear victory over a fatally weak and incompetent incumbent President, have been blanketed beneath the haze of golden memories streaming from the unforgettable experience of Reagan's state funeral. Shirley lays out many familiar anecdotes from the campaign trail, rustles up a few new ones for our delectation, solves a long-standing "mystery" in the bargain, and, though his bias in favor of Reagan is always evident, gives both friends and foes their fair share of ink. (Shirley's favorable description of Ted Kennedy's speech at the 1980 Democratic Convention is particularly notable. Perhaps his discovery that a number of Kennedy hands, angry at Jimmy Carter for personal, political, and ideological reasons, apparently voted for Reagan influenced his posture here?)

One of the great questions about the 1980 campaign concerns how a set of Carter's debate briefing books got into the hands of Reagan's people. Shirley presents evidence that Paul Corbin, a shadowy figure on the Kennedy periphery, was responsible for the theft. I remember when "Debategate" blew up and how some elements of the media seized on it as a way of trying to, in some sense, delegitimize Reagan's election. Shirley argues that the books contained nothing more than records of Reagan's past statements and, as such, didn't materially affect the candidates' debate performances. While that can be fairly debated, I think that Shirley puts the kibosh on any claims of "Republican dirty tricks" here.

As thorough as Shirley is, I think that his text could have done with just one more read-through by an objective editor familiar with Shirley's style in REAGAN'S REVOLUTION. The earlier book was informally written and contained several funny anecdotes but never strayed over the line separating seriousness from silliness. The tone of RENDEZVOUS WITH DESTINY, by contrast, can only be described as sophomoric in places. The use of words like "kinda" and "natch" in what purports to be an exhaustive history of an historic election rubbed me the wrong way, I must admit. I mean, Teddy White pioneered the "campaign biography" and never resorted to such shenanigans. Also, a few too many sentences are "clunkily" written for my taste. Perhaps Shirley was so focused on packing the narrative with detail (did the original version of the text really run to 1700 pages, as one Amazon reviewer claimed?) that he paid less attention to how he was writing. If you can ignore the occasional gaucheries, however, you'll find this to be a truly fascinating read.

" What I learned about the 1980 campaign" 2010-02-22

Reviewer: Usaa

the campaign of 1980 turned out to be so important for the american public.The american people could see what a leader is. The author brings us readers facts about the year 1980.