Location: The Heritage Foundation's Lehrman Auditorium

As late as Election Day, headlines across the county blared that the race was “too close to call.”  Even on the verge of his historic triumph in the 1980 presidential election, political observers continued to underestimate Ronald Wilson Reagan.  In Rendezvous with Destiny, the long-awaited follow-up to his previous account of Reagan’s insurgent 1976 campaign, Craig Shirley tells the behind-the-scenes story of Reagan’s improbable run to the White House in 1980 – of how the “too close to call” election became a landslide victory over incumbent Jimmy Carter and independent candidate John Anderson.

Reagan’s victory gave rise to a new generation of conservatism, ended liberalism’s half-century reign of dominance, reversed the second-worst economic crisis in American history, and led to the demise of the mighty Soviet Union.  To recount this story, Craig Shirley gained unprecedented access to 1980 campaign files and interviewed more than 150 insiders – from Reagan’s closest advisers and family members to Jimmy Carter himself.  His years of intensive research have enabled him to relate countless untold stories and how Ronald Reagan successfully battled the headwinds of the national media, the Republican Party establishment, and even his own campaign team to become one of America’s greatest chief executives.

~  Books will be available for purchase and to be signed by the author  ~