User:Rjensen/Reagan-Gov 2020

Reagan's efficiency as governor depended on his three support groups. His high visibility Hollywood supporters included Bob Hope, Jack Benny, Dinah Shore, George Burns, James Cagney, John Wayne and Jimmy Stewart, as well as producers Jack Warner, Walt Disney and Taft B. Schreiber of MCA. Finally California businessman and financiers who funded his campaign included A.C., “Cy” Rubel, Holmes Tuttle, Henry Salvatori,, Alfred S. Bloomingdale, Leonard Firestone, and Justin Dart. His campaign was managed by the well-known firm of Spencer and Roberts. The governor's key staffers included Philip Battaglia, Lyn Nofziger, Thomas C. Reed, William P. Clark Jr., Edwin Meese, and personal lawyer William French Smith.

When his advisers discovered that chief of staff Battaglia Was an active homosexual partnering with junior staff, nine went to Reagan as a group and demanded Battaglia be fired. Reagan was at ease with the gay community in Hollywood, and was not homophobic; he was too trusting and hands off to notice what was going on. The California electorate was less tolerant and certainly the n ational Electorate was homophobic. That had been demonstrated in October 1964 when President Lyndon Johnson had no choice but to fire his top aide, Walter Jenkins, after he was arrested for soliciting in the men's room at the YMCA. Reagan chose Clark to replace Battaglia, and the story lost momentum.