Reagan's Lucky Day

By CBSNews.com's Ray Bassett

(CBS)  On Inauguration Day 20 years ago, the first movie actor to become president shared the billing with the release of the American hostages held in Iran.

After more than a year of captivity under the regime of the Ayatollah Khomeini, the 52 Americans taken hostage in the seizing of the U.S. embassy in Tehran were finally freed on January 20, 1981, the same day that Ronald Reagan was sworn in as the nation's 40th president.

That was joyous news for the country and for Mr. Reagan who - unlike Lincoln and FDR - was spared the ordeal of having to begin his presidency with the nation in a state of crisis.

The hostage crisis loomed large in the landslide win by Mr. Reagan, a Republican, over Democratic incumbent Jimmy Carter in the fall of 1980. For one thing, Election Day fell on the one-year anniversary of the start of the crisis.

But Mr. Carter's hopes for a second term were scuttled by another issue that was no less daunting: the economy.

Today's skittishness over the nation's economy pales in comparison to its cold, hard realities in 1980. Unemployment was high, but that was far from all. The combination of high inflation and interest rates approaching 20 percent - a statistic that Mr. Reagan dubbed "the misery index" during the campaign. Fueling all the above: soaring oil prices worldwide, accompanied by gas shortages at home.

Yet another problem for Mr. Carter was a primary challenge by one of his party's liberal icons. Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy was the choice of Democrats who were disenchanted by Mr. Carter's more moderate politics, his economic policies, his less-than-stellar handling of a Congress held by their own party, or all of the above. And, 20 years after Kennedy's brother won the White House, the senator was seen by his supporters as a chance to restore a touch of Camelot after more than a decade of political, economic, and social upheaval.

Yet, perhaps paradoxically, the hostage crisis helped Mr. Carter clobber Kennedy in the primaries. The crisis made the president seem more, well, presidential, allowing him to appear above the partisan fray in a rally-'round-the-flag way. Kennedy did gather enough strength to win many of the late primaries, but those victories came too late to wrest the nomination from Carter.

On the Republican side, the presidential front runner from the first was Mr. Reagan, the former California governor who nearly won the GOP nod from President Gerald Ford four years earlier. But the initial field for the Republican nomination was crowded with the likes of George Bush the elder, Bob Dole, Howard Baker, and John Anderson. In the end, the race boiled down to Mr. Reagan and Mr. Bush. The Gipper prevailed and named his opponent - his successor and the father of a future president - as his running mate.

Though Mr. Carter lagged behind Mr. Reagan by 20 points in the polls in the summer of 1980, the president seemed to think that the former California governor would b easy to beat. All that needed to be done, so this thinking went, was to paint Mr. Reagan as a dangerous conservative, a la his political kindred spirit Barry Goldwater, on foreign policy, defense, and social programs. That did the trick for LBJ against Goldwater in 1964, rationalized the Carter team.

True, Mr. Carter turned things around by the fall, even leading his Republican rival at one point. But neither the hostage crisis nor the economy were rebounding in his favor. And then, just days before the election, came "showtime". In their only face-to-face debate, Mr. Reagan delivered a tour de force whose climax was a devastating rhetorical question: "Are you better off now than you were four years ago?"

In that moment, as well as along the campaign trail, Mr. Reagan's performance proved he was underestimated. His optimism, his amiable manner, and his charisma reassured many voters that he was not an irresponsible bomb-thrower - and that, despite his age, he was up to the job. Throw in John Anderson's third-party candidacy as well as what, in retrospect, would be seen as the crumbling of the New Deal coalition that had kept Democrats in the White House - and Carter was finished.

The final outcome: Reagan, 51 percent; Carter, 41 percent; and Anderson, 7 percent. Republicans regained control of the Senate for the first time since Ike. The country's answer to the hostage crisis and all its other ills in 1980 was a turn to the right.

A postscript: another Democrat who lost his job that fall was the young, energetic governor of Arkansas, Bill Clinton. Just two years later, he'd win back that job. And a decade after that, the man from Hope would move his party to the center where Mr. Carter left it and retake the White House for the Democrats for the first time since the man from Plains.