Reagan agreed to meet with them and went backstage into a small office with the other caandidates.
He expressed a general willingness to let them join in. But Bush refused to talk to the othercandidates, and sat on the stage waiting impatiently for the debate to begin. John Sears told Peter (^)
Teeley that Sears wanted to talk to Bush about the debate format. "It doesn't work that way," hissed
the liberal Teeley, who sent James Baker to talk with Sears. Sears said it was time to have an open
debate. Baker passed the buck to the Nashua Telegraph.
From the room behind the stage where the candidates were meeting, the Reagan people sent US
Senator Gordon Humphrey out to urge Bush to come and confer with the rest of them. "If you don't
come now," said Humprhey to Bush, "you're doing a disservice to party unity." Bush whined in
reply: "Don't tell me about unifying the Republican Party! I've done more for this party than you'll
ever do! I've worked too hard for this and they're not going to take it away from me!" In the backroom, there was a proposal that Reagan, Baker, Dole, Anderson, and Crane should go on stage
together and announce that Reagan would refuse to debate unless the others were included.
"Everyone seemed quite irritated with Bush, whom they viewed as acting like a spoiled child,"
wrote an aide to Anderson later. [fn 22] Buswho had helped him get started as GOP chairman; of Anderson and Crane, former Househ refused to even ackowledge the presence of Dole,
colleagues; and of Howard Baker, who had helped him get confirmed at the CIA. George kept
telling anybody who came close that he was sticking with the original rules.
The audience was cheering for the four excluded candidates, demanding that they be allowed tospeak. Publisher Pouliot addressed the crowd. "This is getting to sound more like a boxing match. (^)
In the rear are four other candidates who have not been invited by the Nashua Telegraph," said
Pouliot. He was roundly booed. "Get them chairs," cried a woman, and she was applauded. Bush
kept staring straight ahead into space, and the hostility of the crowd was focussing more and more
on him.
Reagan started to speak, motivating why the debate should be opened up. Editor Breen, a rubbery-
looking hack with a bald pate and glasses, piped up: "Turn Mr. Reagn's microphone off." There was
pandemonium. "You Hitler!" screamed a man in the front row right at Breen.
Reagan replied: "I'm paying for this microphone, Mr. Green." The crowd broke out in wild cheers.
Bush still stared straight ahead in his temper tantrum. Reagan spoke on to ask that the others be
included, saying that exclusion was unfair. But he was unsure of himself, looking to Nancy Reagan
for a sign as to what he should do. At the end Reagan said he would prefer an open debate, but that
he would accept the bilateral format if that were the only way.
With that the other candidates left the podium in a towering rage. "There'll be another day, George,"
growled Bob Dole.
Reagan and Bush then debated, and those who were still paying attention agreed that Bush was theloser. A staff member later told Bush, "The good news is that nobody paid any attention to the
debate. The bad news is you lost that, too."
But most people's attention, and the camera teams, had shifted to a music room where the ejected
hopefuls were uniformly slamming Bush. Anderson asserted that "Clearly the responsibility for thiswhole travesty rests with Mr. Bush." "He refused to even come back here and talk." Howard Baker
called Bush's behavior "the most flagrant attempt to return to the closed door I've ever seen." Baker
was beside himself: "The punkest political device I ever saw!" "He wants to be king, " raged Bob
Dole. "I have never been treated this way in my life. Where do we live? Is this America? So far as
George Bush is concerned he'd better find another Republican Party if he can't talk to those of us