Americans are, perforce, getting used to the idea of President Reagan. Wary at first, big business is getting to like him; he is even finding a base in the trade unions. As this piece goes to press, Reagan is ten percentage points ahead in the polls. The force of John Anderson’s independent candidacy remains unpredictable: so does John Anderson. As Gore Vidal has pointed out: ‘Compared to Carter and Reagan, Anderson looks like Lincoln. Compared to Lincoln, he looks like Anderson.’ At this stage of things, ex-President Gerald Ford is being held up as a Bismarck, a Napoleon, an Alexander. The year 1980 has seen the unchallenged ascendancy of the politics of faute de mieux. If Reagan wins this autumn, we will all know where to put the blame: on the bumbling, canting presidency of Jimmy Carter. Carter gave us Tehran. He gave us Afghanistan. He may yet give us President Ronald Reagan.
Sunday Telegraph 1979
* * *
Postscript Governor Reagan prospered. Indeed, he is now floundering through his second term. And they still love him.
I have nothing new to say about this phenomenon. Two lines in American life, not quite parallel, were moving towards each other: Ronald Reagan and television. And then they met. In retrospect, it is not entirely frivolous to view the 1980 election as a vanished Reagan Western, a lost outline for ‘Death Valley Days’. Carter was the prosing weakie who kept the store. Anderson was the gesticulating frontier preacher who just held up the action. But Ronnie was the man who came riding into town, his head held high, not afraid to use his fists — well prepared, if asked, to become the next sheriff of the United States.
What is this televisual mastery of Reagan’s? It is a celebration of good intentions and unexceptional abilities. His style is one of hammy self-effacement, a wry dismay at his own limited talents and their drastic elevation. We feel the discrepancy too — over here in this Prime Target. For President Reagan is not just America’s keeper: like his opposite number, he is the keeper of the planet, of all life, of the past and of the future. Until 1988, old Ronnie, that actor, is the Lord of Time.
Mr Vidal: Unpatriotic Gore
Novelist, essayist, dramatist, epigrammatist, television polemicist, controversialist, pansexualist, socialist and socialite: if there is a key to Gore Vidal’s public character, it has something to do with his towering immodesty, the enjoyable superbity of his self-love. No, this is not infatuation; this is the real thing. ‘I can understand companionship. I can understand bought sex in the afternoon, but I cannot understand the love affair,’ Vidal has said; perhaps love is blind after all. Indeed, Vidal’s paraded auto-crush has a way of summoning the most wistful refrains. It is a love whose month is ever May. Here is a man, you feel, who would walk a thousand miles for one of Gore’s smiles.
It could be argued, of course, that Gore Vidal has a lot to be self-loving about. Gore Vidal has certainly argued as much. ‘My critics resent everything I represent: sex, wealth and talent’ is a remark attributed to him. Vidal is, for a start, preposterously well-preserved for someone who, according to my records, will soon be fifty. Whereas early photographs of the growing Gore are almost embarrassing to behold (who is this strapping exquisite?), he even now resembles a pampered heart-throb cruising easily into mid-career. Unpleasant rumour has it that Vidal’s pulchritude owes as much to the cosmetic surgeon as it does to natural health and proportion — one hears talk of face-lifts, lid-tucks, teeth-capping, etc. But those vigilant, ironic brown eyes, together with his mellifluous, patrician voice, are the energy-centres of Vidal’s person, and age will not wither them. They strongly contribute to his immediate, knowing, slightly foxy charm.
The gates to Vidal’s Ravello villa are released by a hidden electronic device. With a shy smile, Vidal operates the powerful current to allow us entry, and explains: ‘Kidnappers… I’m not big enough for them really – but someone might be dumb enough to think I’m Jackie Kennedy’s brother.” He saunters on down the path, his hysterical terrier, Rat, patrolling the steep terraces.