Washington, Mar 2, 2011 - It was Reagan’s 1976 presidential campaign where I first spent quality time with “the man.” My title was Assistant Press Secretary and my primary duty was to record every word the candidate uttered in public. It kept the reporters honest, while providing them with backup in case they missed something while they were distracted or at the bar cracking jokes with the waitress. With microphone in hand, I was attached to Reagan’s hip as the campaign pushed forward through America’s heartland.

Reagan didn’t sleep on airplanes; so on the way back to California after long campaign swings, the plane would be dark, except for the lone light in the front row. Our candidate would be there reading, as totally exhausted secret service agents, staffers, and journalists dozed. I occasionally took advantage of the opportunity and talked to him during this quiet time. Talking about policy after a long day’s work would have been a bore. Instead, Reagan completely fascinated and entertained me with stories about growing up in the Midwest, his sports casting, and most of all, about Hollywood.

Reagan loved the film business. You could see it in his animation when he described making pictures. Knute Rockne was the film that made him a star. His crowning performance was in King’s Row. But the apex of his career was Santa Fe Trail. During its filming, Errol Flynn had jealously tried to keep Reagan out of various shots. The swashbuckler insisted, for example, that Reagan be placed in the back of a group scene in a teepee. Not to be obscured, Reagan built up a mound of dirt with his feet and when the cameras rolled he was head and shoulders above the rest, clearly visible and part of the scene.

Whether he knew it or not at the time of that campaign, Reagan was building another mound upon which to be seen, and more importantly, heard. The ’76 campaign raised his national profile as the Conservative standard-bearer and became the leader who would push freedom beyond America’s cutting edge to liberate nation’s full of desperate souls struggling for peace and justice. Though our candidate did not win enough delegates to have his name adorn the national ballot, the stage was set. And the die cast. Yes, it was the 1976 campaign which mounted the Reagan Revolution to come.