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California Republicans Eye Reagan as Possible Gubernatorial Candidate

Jan. 22, 1965 - “By the way — I play the Senator.”

The remark by Ronald Reagan to a national television audience Wednesday night introduced an episode of “Death Valley Days,” but there was a certain real-life aptness to it.

The 54-year-old actor’s chances of following in his colleague George Murphy’s footsteps as a U.S. Senator are at best four years off — when Senator Thomas Kuchel’s term expires — unless Reagan goes to another state.

However, the newly germinated possibility of his being a candidate for Governor next year is intriguing both Californians and the actor himself.

A number of rank-and-file conservative Republicans see Reagan as a shining standard-bearer to lead the party out of the wreckage of last November. A businessman in Owosso, Mich., has even mounted a Reagan-for-President movement.

“I’m honored by all the interest,” Reagan said today. “Politics is nothing I’d ever thought of as a career. But it’s something I’m going to give deep consideration and thought.”
Political interest in him was precipitated largely by a recorded half-hour television talk he made as California co-chairman of Barry Goldwater’s Presidential campaign.

Broadcast throughout the country, his speech was a brisk denunciation of the welfare state and Communist appeasement. 
His performance reportedly netted about $500,000 in campaign contributions and elicited a continuing stream of political fan mail and speaking invitations.

For most of his life, Reagan was a Democrat. In the Presidential campaign of 1960, he was a Democrat-for-Nixon activist in California. In 1962, he turned Republican.

With gubernatorial competition about 14 months away, Republican organization sources note many obstacles to Reagan’s emergence as a contender. He has no great record of party service and concedes he has little organized support.

Moreover, the Goldwater wing’s influence in California party affairs seems headed for diminution.

For the time being, Reagan is contenting himself with reiterating “the speech” two or three times a week while losing ground to a mounting pile of invitations.



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© 2024 by Joe Rubenstein

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