President Ronald Reagan’s handwritten 1980 debate notes, featuring two of the most iconic campaign slogans ever, are going up for sale today, the first time the world has seen the lines of his closing knock-out punch of President Jimmy Carter.
The Pennsylvania-based Raab Collection, a dealer in historical documents and artifacts, told Washington Secrets that it is offering the three pages of Reagan’s debate closing speech for $235,000, an incredible price, but one the dealer said is fair considering the rarity of the papers and the continued popularity and influence of the Gipper.
“This is the most important single Reagan piece that I believe has ever reached the market,” said Nathan Raab, president of the family-owned outfit.
“Reagan is among the most actively sought after 20th-century presidents, or presidents of any generation, because his legacy remains, people still care about him and what he did, and because, in a sense, the movement that he started is with us today,” said Raab.
Certainly, the two campaign themes in his closing debate notes remain extremely relevant today. Raab’s description played up the line that crushed Carter in the debate, “Are you better off today than you were four years ago?”
Elements of the phrase, used earlier in Reagan’s campaign, were in notes for the Oct. 28, 1980, debate in Cleveland and prepared by communications aide David Gergen.
They also included Reagan’s promise to “make America great again,” the slogan President Donald Trump later used to score his wins in 2016 and 2024.
The documents for sale show that Reagan took Gergen’s notes and wrote his own version on the back for his three-minute debate closing address.
“Ask selves — better off? Can you afford to buy, are unemployment lines shorter, are you more able to buy homes? Are [we] stronger as a nation [than] four years ago? Are we trusted by allies, are our diplomats overseas safer, our defenses better? Do you want to leave America as it is today to our children?” wrote Reagan, who preferred to work from notes instead of a written speech.
Reagan biographer Craig Shirley, who featured the 1980 race in his book Rendezvous with Destiny: Ronald Reagan and the Campaign That Changed America, said the two slogans elevated the campaign to historic status.
“This document by Reagan is so important because that debate altered the arc of history. The election was tied before the debate, but Reagan’s debate performance turned a loss or close win into a landslide of historic proportions, which gave him a mandate to cease the New Deal governing coalition and initiate Reagan’s own New Federalism,” said Shirley.
Raab said that the Reagan debate notes have been held by a close aide from the 1980 campaign and have not been offered for sale before. He didn’t disclose the name of that aide.
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According to Raab’s description of the Reagan notes:
“On October 28, when Reagan checked into his hotel room in Cleveland, Ohio, he brought with him his briefing book and Gergen’s three sheets of paper. He reviewed them both before going on stage. They were present on his desk in the hour after the debate. When one aide later handled the material that was on his desk to clear that space, there was his briefing book and these three sheets of paper. As no sheets of paper, aside from those required to take notes during the debate, were permitted on stage, this was the final thing he reviewed to memorize before going into the debate.”
