DAVID KEENE: A HAPPY CONSERVATIVE WARRIOR
"THE LEASH HAS LOST THE BLOCKHEAD"
There will be a celebration Saturday of David Keene, a longtime conservative activist, who passed away last month. Two guarantees: it’ll be an eclectic crowd and there will be lots of terrific stories.
David was one of the reasons I feel fortunate to have covered politics all these years. Politically, we didn’t agree on much. He was a conservative; I was not.
But he was wonderful company, a great story teller, insightful, candid -- he could be just as harsh on some conservatives -- mixed in with humor and appreciation of irony.
The son of midwestern labor union officials, he was turned off by the left wing 60s and turned to conservatism.
He worked for Vice President Spiro T. Agnew and Sen. Jim Buckley before joining the Reagan ranks. Later, he was head of the American Conservative Union and the National Rifle Association. I’m passionately anti-gun; rather than argue we just teased each other.
A committed conservative, David was never a hater. That is in marked contrast to many of today’s conservative operatives.
He was principled, welcoming gays into he party when it wasn’t popular and opposing the post 9/11 Patriot Act on civil liberties grounds. He and the liberal Morton Halperin were honored together for their devotion to civil liberties and the constitution.
Unlike some of those other young conservatives of the 70s and 80s, David basically stuck to his principles. By contrast, others like Roger Stone and Paul Manafort made a lot of money and are convicted felons.
Keene was a great source, able to analyze with detachment. I can’t remember a conversation, no matter how serious the subject, where there wasn’t laughter. He was a happy warrior.
I got to know him well covering an exciting story. It was the 1976 Republican National Convention in Kansas City; Ronald Reagan challenged President Ford for the GOP nomination. When the primaries ended in early June they each had virtually the same number of delegates. The promise of a contested convention was in the air.
Then using the perquisites of the White House, Ford was picking off a delegate or two almost daily, headed to a certain victory in Kansas City. The right-wing Reagan diehards wanted to hit hard on ideology. John Sears, the brilliant Reagan campaign manager, realized that would be tilting at windmills; he focused on the rules instead.
Sears got Reagan to throw a “Hail Mary” three weeks before the convention. The conservative champion chose Richard Schweiker, a liberal GOP Pennsylvania Senator, as his running mate. Republicans were shocked but, as Sears foresaw, it “froze the linebackers,” or stopped any delegate movement as politicians assessed this new element.
Sears followed this with a rules proposal -- 16-C -- that would require a presidential candidate to announce a running mate before the nomination. This would be a ferocious fight to decide the nomination. If 16-C passed, whichever way Ford went was risky.
The Wall Street Journal assigned two reporters to follow the showdown. I tracked the Reagan team, specifically a top strategist, David Keene, for five days leading up to the make or break vote.
Keene gave me amazing access as he charmed, cajoled and pleaded with delegates. To moderates he stressed the big tent approach of the Reagan-Schweiker ticket, the message it sent about the Californian’s flexibility. To conservatives the message was who do you think would be a stronger candidate in the fall and would govern more conservatively? To more than a few, it was about personal or political interests.
For all his selective persuasion, I don’t think he said anything he didn’t basically believe. He also had to keep a check on Reagan zealots. One was New Hampshire’s right wing Governor, Meldrim Thomson, code-named “The Granite State Blockhead.” A junior staffer, code-named “The Leash,” was tasked to shadow the Governor everywhere. The Sunday before the convention opened, a slightly panicked Keene told headquarters, “The Leash has lost the Blockhead.”
He soon found him.
MY trailing him constantly got Keene in trouble once. We went into the Reagan command trailer, Sears spotted me and yelled, “Get him out of here.”
In those five days we talked not just about politics and delegates, but also about growing up experiences, why he became a conservative, admirable and not-so-admirable politicians. It always was in good humor. It was part political education, part just a good time.
On Tuesday night out of more than 2,200 delegates Ford won by 100, though it actually was a little closer.
That sealed the nomination in the last political convention where the outcome wasn’t pre-ordained.
Although we didn’t see each other as much in later years, in Kansas City I made a friend for life.