"But let us leave the convention with a look at Reagan.... Listening to him, it was hard to believe he was fifty-seven, two years older than Nixon, for he had a boy's face, no gray in his head-he was reputed to dye his hair-and his make-up (about which one could hear many a whisper) was too excellent, if applied, to be detected.
"Still, unlike Nixon, Reagan was altogether at ease with the Press. They had been good to him, they would be good again—he had the confidence of the elected governor of a big state, precisely what Nixon had always lacked; besides, Reagan had long ago incorporated the confidence of an actor who knows he is popular with interviewers, In fact, he had a public manner which was so natural that his discrepancies appeared only slightly surrealistic: at the age of fifty-seven, he had the presence of a man of thirty, the deferential enthusiasm, the bright but dependably unoriginal mind, of a sales manager promoted for his ability over men older than himself. He also had the neatness, and slim economy of move, of a man not massive enough to be President.... He was somehow too light, a lightweight six feet one inch tall—whatever could he do but stick-and-move? Well, he could try to make Generals happy in order to show how heavy he really might be, which gave no heart to consideration of his politics. Besides, darkening shades of the surreal, he had a second personality which was younger than the first, very young, boyish, maybe thirteen or four teen, freckles, cowlick, I-tripped-on-my-sneaker-Iace aw shucks variety of confusion."
—Norman Mailer's impressions of the future of the Republican party, at the 1968 convention, quoted in Miami and the Siege of Chicago
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