The Making of the Great Communicator
Publisher: Lyons Press
Published: 2013
Number of pages: 269
ISBN-13: 9780762778492
Description: "One week after Ronald Reagan announced his candidacy for governor of California, the San Francisco Chronicle gibed: "It was simply a flagrant example of miscasting." Reagan was tanking, and his businessmen backers panicked. Their bold experiment was about to fail. Then a think-tank friend suggested the expertise of two UCLA social pyschologists. Kenneth Holden and Stanley Plog agreed to take the job only if they could have three full days alone with Reagan. The candidate and his backers agreed, and the three men disappeared into a Malibu beach house. Those three days remade the bumbling neophyte into an articulate, confident politician whose devastating sound bites shredded the opposition. Holden or Plog remained by Reagan's side for the rest of the campaign, feeding him information about California's problems, teaching him to handle the press, writing his position papers, and helping develop the programs he offered, all while battling factions of the campaign team who seemed determine to sabotage their own man. Not everyone who voted for Reagan supported his positions, but voters preferred his honesty and forthrightness to the waffling of other politicians. Reagan won by a landslide. Holden and Plog had shaped an actor into a governor, but they were also turning a governor into a president. Here is the untold story of how they did it. "--

"Here is the untold story of how, over three days, two behavioral scientists helped Ronald Reagan win the California governorship, turning the Gipper into the Great Communicator. A bumbling neophyte, he emerged from their training articulate, confident, and incisive. They remained by his side for the rest of the campaign, feeding him information about California's problems, teaching him how to handle the press, and writing his position papers--all while battling factions of the campaign team who seemed determine to sabotage their own man. Reagan won by a landslide. They two men shaped an actor into a governor, but they were also turning a governor into a president. Here is how they did it"--