The 1976 Republican primary campaign between Ronald Reagan and incumbent Gerald Ford was a hard-fought and close race.

After President Ford had been given the nomination and he and Bob Dole, his running mate, had made their speeches the delegates called out for Ronald Reagan to speak.

Being the gentleman he was he spoke and was not bitter in his speech.

Listen to it and remember the good old days when candidates were somewhat respectful of each other:

Thank you, Mr. President, for showing us how a person loses gracefully.

As you all know, he came back in 1980 to win the White House. I was proud to have worked in both those campaigns, and my proudest moment was when North Carolina was the first state to go to Reagan in 1976, as I was a resident of North Carolina and got my feet wet in national politics in this election contest.

It’s difficult to fathom that someone could work for fifty years in the political arena, be a vital player in major elections and not be a household word nationally. Well, Tom Ellis, appears to have managed to do just that.

Few people have had a chance to grasp the levers of history.
Tom Ellis saw his chance, and he took it.

Which is one reason why Ellis, the 87-year old pipe-puffing Raleigh barrister, will be honored Wednesday by the conservative movement he helped build.

Ellis never held elective office, nor has he ever been a public figure. But for the past 50 years, arguably, no Tar Heel has been more politically influential than he — as the chief strategist for Sen. Jesse Helms, helping elect John East and Lauch Faircloth to the Senate, elevating his friends and proteges to the federal bench and shaping the modern conservative movement.

Ellis’ signal moment occurred in 1976, when he almost single-handedly rescued the career of Ronald Reagan.

At the time, Reagan’s political career seemed near an end. He had lost a string of GOP primaries to President Ford, and it seemed likely that the North Carolina primary would provide another nail in his coffin.

Ellis thought Reagan’s campaign was being mismanaged by his national staff, who were portraying Reagan as a pragmatic California governor. So Ellis, who headed Helms’ political organization, commandeered the state Reagan campaign and began running ads highlighting Reagan’s conservatism, most notably his opposition to the Panama Canal Treaty. Ellis let Reagan be Reagan.

Reagan won North Carolina — the first time a sitting president had been upset in a primary. The victory reinvigorated Reagan. Although he did not win the 1976 Republican nomination, it set the stage for Reagan to capture the White House four years later.

Lou Cannon, a Reagan biographer, wrote that North Carolina’s primary was “the turning point” of Reagan’s political career.

Imagine half a century in the political arena, surrounded by what were and are major players in our history. Oh the stories this man could probably tell.

HT: Lucianne