Republicans nominate Reagan for governor, June 7, 1966
On this day in 1966, California Republicans nominated Ronald Reagan, a former actor who had never held public office, as their gubernatorial candidate.
Waging a law-and-order campaign, Reagan won almost two-thirds of the GOP primary vote against George Christopher, the moderate former mayor of San Francisco.
Reagan’s first stint as a political leader had been as president of the Screen Actors Guild from 1947 to 1952.
At the time, he was a staunch Democrat. But he became disaffected with New Deal policies and switched to the GOP in 1960. He had been strongly influenced by Loyal Davis, his conservative father-in-law, who was a prominent Chicago neurosurgeon.
Reagan burst into national politics in 1964, with a rousing televised speech for presidential candidate Barry Goldwater.
In the 1966 general election, Reagan faced Edmund G. (Pat) Brown, a Democrat seeking his third term after defeating Richard Nixon in 1962 — in what was then a Republican-leaning state. Brown, however, had been battered in a tough primary fight against Los Angeles Mayor Sam Yorty.
As Reagan’s poll numbers surged, Brown told a group of schoolchildren that an actor, John Wilkes Booth, had assassinated President Abraham Lincoln. The comparison between Reagan and Booth was soon viewed as a major gaffe. On Election Day, Reagan won in a landslide, trouncing Brown by nearly 1 million votes.
Reagan served two four-year terms as governor. In 1969, he called out the National Guard to quell an anti-Vietnam protest at the University of California, Berkeley.
“If it takes a bloodbath,” Reagan said, “let’s get it over with, no more appeasement.”
In 1980, he successfully challenged the embattled Democratic incumbent Jimmy Carter for the presidency. Reagan’s win ushered in a new conservative era for U.S. politics.
SOURCE: “THE AGE OF REAGAN, 1964-1980: THE FALL OF THE OLD LIBERAL ORDER,” BY STEVEN HAYWARD (2001)