The last time delegates sitting in a convention picked a candidate for President was 48 years ago. Those days are gone – now conventions mirror Broadway productions. In Milwaukee, country singers sang, rappers danced; in Chicago, Pink sang, Oprah spoke.

But back in 1976, Gerald Ford led Ronald Reagan by a handful of votes at the Republican Convention in Kansas City. The first night a brawl broke out – between New York and North Carolina delegates. Here’s a story about the brawl I tell in my memoir, The Trail of the Serpent (which will be published in September):

THE FIRST NIGHT

“There’s a powder keg waiting for a match.”

Tom Ellis nodded toward Nelson Rockefeller sitting in the New York delegation, behind a row of North Carolina farmers, rednecks.

Nancy Reagan walked into the convention; Texas delegates wearing sombreros, ponchos streamed into the aisles whooping, waving signs, conga-dancing; next Betty Ford walked into the arena, waving from her skybox—Rockefeller, setting out to outdo Texas, led Ford delegates tooting horns, parading from one side of the arena to the other. Face flushed, sweat running down his cheeks, heading back to his seat, Rockefeller marched straight past Jack Bailey a redneck with the square shoulders of a bull—leaning into the aisle Bailey waved his Reagan sign in front of Rockefeller’s nose bellowing. “How do you like them apples?”

Rockefeller stopped, leaned backwards at the waist, whipped up a beefy hand, tore the sign out of Bailey’s hands, folded it, stuck it under his arm, strode on down the aisle—eyes locked on Rockefeller’s back, lowering his head, Bailey charged; up in the CBS anchor booth Walter Cronkite said, ‘There seems to be some sort of disturbance down in the North Carolina delegation.’

Rockefeller slipped past New York Republican Chairman Richard Rosenbaum into his chair—Bailey lunged across Rosenbaum at Rockefeller roaring. “Give me back my damn sign!”

Rockefeller shoved the sign under his chair, planted both feet on top of it; Rosenbaum wrapped his arms around Bailey’s waist; the back row of our delegation rose up surging towards Rockefeller; a bigger wave of New York delegates rose up charging toward Bailey. Reagan’s Utah chairman raced across the aisle, saw the red phone to Ford’s trailer bolted to the back of the chair in front of Rosenbaum, grasped the phone cord. “Give the man his sign or I’ll rip it out.”

Rosenbaum let go of Bailey, grabbed the Utah delegate, there was a screech of metal, the Utah delegate staggered backwards waving the phone cord above his head.

Cameramen carrying huge TV cameras with battery packs strapped to their backs charged toward Bailey; more cameramen, holding cameras above their heads, filming the melee, rammed into the backs of the reporters and cameramen in front of them, wedging into a tight knot.

The world froze.

Two things happened.

The row of Secret Service agents at the back of the hall, who’d thought one place on earth Rockefeller would be safe was in a room full of Republicans, formed a wedge, charged, but they were no match for TV cameramen—the cameramen stopped the Secret Service dead in its tracks.

Rockefeller’s body rose straight up into the air—the New York delegates passed him hand-over-hand over their heads into the arms of the Secret Service—I saw Tom Ellis climbing over chairs heading straight for the brawl.

Jack Bailey, puzzled, looked around him at the havoc he’d wreaked—Tom Ellis spun him around, pointed to the chair Bailey had been sitting in. “If you get up out of that chair one more time tonight, I’ll throw you out of here myself.”

Bailey wasn’t afraid of Rockefeller or the Secret Service but it was like a nerve twitched before he could think—he took a step toward the chair then, when he did think, it struck him he’d pressed his luck far enough for one night. He sat down, folded his hands on his lap.

I started down the aisle, met Tom Ellis coming in the opposite direction—he snapped, “Where are you going?”

“To avoid the next riot.”

“How?”

“By sending an emissary to Rockefeller.”

“Who?”

“Baldy Cagle.”

The look on his face said I’d lost my mind. “Explain that.”

*****

At the start of Reagan’s campaign I’d driven deep into the Smoky Mountains into the homeland of mountain Republicans—third generation Republicans called “pachyderms.” A former Democrat, working for two other former Democrats (Jesse Helms and Tom Ellis) I drove down a mountain valley closer to Tennessee than Raleigh to find a county chairman for a third former Democrat, Ronald Reagan.

The one hamlet had one street, the street had a massive paper mill on one side, a used car lot on the other with a massive round man sitting on a bench in front of a small wooden shack with a sign nailed to the wall above his head that said: Cagle Brothers Ford. Loans.

I parked by a row of cars, walked to Baldy Cagle.

“I’d like to talk.”

He squinted back. “Business or pleasure?”

“Politics.”

He grinned. “For a minute I thought you were some damn salesman.”

Baldy had wisps of brown-gray hair combed across the top of his head—I sat down on the bench beside him.

“I work with Jesse Helms. I want to talk to you about Reagan.”

In one way it didn’t matter to Baldy whether Ronald Reagan or Gerald Ford was president—ideological bones were not part of his chemistry. He’d grown up in a mountain county where Republicans had feuded with Democrats, like two clans, for generations so he wanted a Republican elected but he wasn’t a side-winding pachyderm either—the mossback mountain Republicans loved Governor Jim Holshouser but Baldy Cagle had no use for him.

Baldy chose the candidates he supported based on their character, only his definition of character was peculiar too: Seeing political alliances as partnerships he chose his partners based on competence and, beyond competence, he expected honesty. Not total honesty. That was too much to ask of any man. But a degree of honesty.

Governor Holshouser failed Baldy’s character test and Baldy had doubts about Jesse but he was curious about Tom Ellis—he stood up, stretched, raising his arms above his head.

“What’s on your mind?”

I stared up at the word Loans on the red and white sign.

“I drove up here to talk you into being Reagan’s county chairman but you and I both know I can’t talk you into anything so why don’t you just tell me: Am I wasting my time or is there a point in us having lunch?”

“Come on.”

I climbed into his car, he drove to his house; the moment he lumbered through the door his face lit up—he sang out: “Marie.”

Wearing an apron Marie Cagle came out of the kitchen, leaned down, kissed his jowled cheek; she’d once been a beautiful dark-haired woman and was still a striking woman—wiping her hands on the apron she told Baldy to go into the kitchen but he just stood there beaming at her.

Baldy had his share of eccentricities: Over the next ten years he’d call me at two or three o’clock in the morning, wheeze, “What did Arthur’s poll say?”

Polls were an enigma to Baldy but he’d figured out Tom Ellis and I put a lot of stock in them; as the Circus won elections in the ’70s and ’80s he came to trust them too. One night, curious, before telling him about the latest poll, I asked: “Why do you want to know?”

“I bet five thousand dollars Jesse would whip Jim Hunt this election.”

But Baldy only had one true passion—his love for Marie was as humble and pure as any man’s love of a woman I’ve seen. He was short, round, eccentric; she towered over him, loving him back—drinking, gambling, insomnia, and all—with frightening fierceness.

A decade later, Marie came home from the doctor, told Baldy she had cancer—he kept his grief to himself as she battled cancer for a year then for no reason anyone understood the cancer went into remission. Six months later Baldy dropped dead sitting in a chair in front of her in their living room.

The day they buried him I stood in a cemetery on a hillside beneath a church surrounded by green grass, wind whistling off the tops of the mountains bitter cold; listening to the preacher’s eulogy I watched Marie standing beside Baldy’s grave face ashen, silent tears running down her cheeks.

As I left I stopped at the gate of the churchyard beside Baldy’s son.

“After all Marie’s been through—I never dreamed it would be Baldy.”

Russ Cagle, rail thin, squinting in the sunlight, watched his mother climb into a car. “It’s a blessing in disguise—momma’s cancer’s come back.” He nodded toward Baldy’s grave. “He could never have lived without her.”

*****

I worked my way through a mob of delegates to Baldy, sitting on the back row of our delegation in front of Rockefeller’s empty chair.

“I reckon one riot’s enough. See if you can make a truce between us and these New York folks.”

Rockefeller returned to the convention floor, surrounded by a phalanx of Secret Service agents, sat down in his chair—Jack Bailey’s sign was still folded beneath it—beside New York Senator Jacob Javits.

Turning in his chair Baldy started talking to Rockefeller, pointed to his back pocket where he carried a tiny 22-caliber pistol behind his wallet—I thought, As soon as those Secret Service agents find out he’s sitting a foot from Rockefeller with a loaded pistol we’re going to have a lot bigger problem than a riot.

Leaning closer to Rockefeller, Baldy pointed to his pocket again. “Want to see it?”

Rockefeller laid his hand on Baldy’s arm. “We’d best keep that to ourselves.”

For the rest of the night every time a speaker praised Reagan, Baldy, turning in his seat, poked Senator Jacob Javits in the stomach with his finger. “How’d you like that?”

After the convention adjourned, I met Baldy leaving the hall, carrying Jack Bailey’s sign tucked under his arm.

“What are you going to do with that?”

He pointed to the signature scrawled across the sign.

“Ole Rockefeller autographed it. I’m going to take it home to Marie—she’ll frame it and hang it on the wall.”

I stared at the gang of delegates following him.

“Where are you all heading?”

He told me, tramped away.

Tom Ellis stopped beside me. “Well, how did the great peacemaker make out?”

“Pretty well.” I pointed at the delegates following Baldy. “Rockefeller just invited them all up to his hotel suite for a party.”

The next night the fireworks started.