This book is available for checkout at the Worth County Partnership Library, located on the south side of the school. Hours are weekdays from 1:30-5:30 and when Worth County R-III is in session.
"Tip and The Gipper" is a book by MSNBC's Chris Matthews about two formidable political antagonists -- Democratic Speaker of the House Tip O'Neill and Republican President Ronald Reagan. Now, Matthews is an institution at MSNBC, the 24 hour news network competing with CNN and FOX News. But this is also, in a sense, a book about how Chris Matthews became one of the most recognizable faces on TV news today.
Matthews was, at one point, a speechwriter for Jimmy Carter during his losing 1980 Presidential campaign against Reagan. When Carter lost by a landslide and the GOP swept into power in the Senate, Tip O'Neill went from being a formidable backroom dealer to the most recognizable face of the Democratic opposition. Chris Matthews got a job with the Speaker following Carter's defeat and rose to become Tip's right-hand man and had a front-row seat for a battle between two men who were made for each other. His experience in being a part of these titanic political battles helped him to become a giant in the news business after he left the House.
Both Ronald Reagan and Tip O'Neill had a common Irish heritage, which allowed them to form a fast friendship. But that did not stop the two men from going for each other's throats during the important political battles of the day -- nuclear arms, the Cold War, taxes, the budget, welfare, and Social Security, among others. Yet out of those battles, as Matthews notes, came some important legislation that was done for the good of the country. Reagan got historic tax cut reform that slashed the highest income tax rate to 28%. Yet Tip was able to rescue a tottering Social Security system and keep it going for a good long time to come, with the help of Reagan and Bob Dole, afterwards a candidate for President. And Tip's support was crucial to Reagan achieving a historic nuclear arms reduction treaty with the Soviet Union, whom Reagan once called the "evil empire."
As Matthews recounts, both men came from a working class background and both formed strong political beliefs based on their own personal experience. Tip grew up in Massachusetts, under the shadow of Harvard; from that experience, he learned to fight for opportunities for all people in this country, not just the select few. And he never forgot his lesson from the first time he ran for office and lost; he learned the value of one on one politics. He never lost another election. Reagan moved out west, where he became a successful actor. His beliefs were also formed from personal experience; for instance, he did not want to do more than two movies a year, because that would have propelled him into the 90% tax bracket. And Reagan became disillusioned at what he saw as the heavy-handed tactics of certain union factions while he was involved with the actors' unions.
Neither man was without their flaws. Ronald Reagan campaigned on eliminating the deficit by 1984, yet thanks to his insistence on bankrupting the Soviet Union through the nuclear arms race, he wound up running larger deficits than all his predecessors combined. But later history has shown that this reliance on deficit spending and dependence on the military industrial complex has become an addiction, with future presidents of both parties continuing the pattern of massive deficit spending and expensive weapons systems. Tip O'Neill, despite being one of the early opponents of the Vietnam War in the 1960's, still held the common belief that politics stops at the water's edge. This led, according to Matthews, to Tip acting against his better judgment in supporting Ronald Reagan's sending of troops to Lebanon. The result was a quagmire and a terrorist bombing which left over 200 of our servicemen dead in Lebanon. Luckily, Reagan knew when to cut his losses and withdraw our troops before things got worse. But later history has shown that this belief that politics stops at the water's edge leads to situations like Iraq and Afghanistan, which both resulted in the loss of thousands of our troops and long drawn-out wars lasting years.
But Matthews writes in his book that both Tip and The Gipper were men who were both frequently wrongly underestimated. The common belief during the 1980 campaign season was that Ronald Reagan would be the easiest man to beat for Jimmy Carter because his views were farther to the right than the other GOP candidates. The common belief in 1981 after Reagan was sworn in was that Tip O'Neill was about to retire and was washed out politically. Both beliefs were way out in left field as the best days of both men were still ahead of them despite both men being in their 70's. "Tip and The Gipper" takes the reader along for the ride.
Our political system is set up in such a way that no one group of people can have all the power. Like today, factions on both the right and left regularly accused Reagan and O'Neill respectively of selling them out by cutting deals with the other side. But Matthews' thesis is that this sort of dealmaking is necessary in order for our government to function even when both sides are ideologically polarized. And as "Tip and The Gipper" notes, battles over raising the debt ceiling are nothing new; one of Ronald Reagan's first challenges as President was to get a debt ceiling raise through the Democratic House.
