Campaign
With the nomination of Reagan, a well-known and charismatic political outsider-actor, the Republicans seized upon Brown's sudden unpopularity evidenced by a tough battle in the Democratic primary. [8] Nixon worked tirelessly behind the scenes and Reagan trumpeted his law-and-order campaign message, going into the general election with a great deal of momentum. After pollsters discovered that the Berkeley student protests were a major priority of Republican voters, Reagan repeatedly promised to "clean up the mess at Berkeley". [9]
At first, Brown tried to smear Reagan's conservative supporters with "lame Nazi metaphors". [10] After Reagan deftly parried that tactic, Brown made a serious gaffe. [10] He ran a television commercial in which he used a rhetorical question to remind a group of elementary school children that John Wilkes Booth, another actor, had killed Abraham Lincoln. [10] Brown's crude comparison of Reagan to Booth based on their common background as actors—in the state that happens to be home to Hollywood—did not go over well with the California electorate. [10] [11] Within 48 hours, Reagan had overtaken Brown in the polls. [10]
With a lead that grew throughout September and October, Reagan won by over 990,000 votes, aided by traditionally Democratic working-class areas in Los Angeles and elsewhere. [12] Brown won in only three counties, Alameda, Plumas, and San Francisco. He narrowly won Alameda by about 2,000 votes and Plumas by about 100 votes.
