When my wife and I went to visit former Sen. Paul Laxalt, R.-Nev., at his McLean, Virginia home on July 29, we had an experience we would never forget.
After we spoke to him, his wife, Carol, graciously hosted us and showed photos ranging from both the former senator and his Basque sheepherder-father with a baby sheep known as a “bummer” to numerous shots with his friend Ronald Reagan.
Ten days later, at age 96, Laxalt died Monday after a long illness.
Perhaps best known as Reagan’s closest political friend, the onetime lieutenant governor and governor of the Silver State, U.S. Senator and Republican National Chairman was a genuine gentleman from an era when friendship transcended partisanship.
A conservative in the mold of Reagan and Barry Goldwater, Laxalt nonetheless had warm friendships with such notable liberal Democrats as Sen. Mike Mansfield of Montana, Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota, and his onetime opponent and eventual successor Harry Reid of Nevada.
The oldest of six children of Basque immigrant parents Dominique and Theresa Laxalt, Paul was raised in Northern Nevada. There, he helped his father herd his thousands of sheep and worked for “Momma” at a hotel she started.
A star basketball and tennis player in high school, Paul went on to graduate from Santa Clara University in California, saw action in World War II with the U.S. Army, and later earned a law degree from the University of Denver. After a few years in private practice, the young Laxalt was elected district attorney of Ormsby County.
In 1962, Laxalt’s life would change dramatically when Rex Bell, the onetime cowboy actor in films and now lieutenant governor, asked to come to dinner at his home. The Laxalts “weren’t accustomed to having celebrities in our social circle,” he recalled, but he was even more surprised when Bell said he was running for governor and wanted Paul to be his lieutenant governor running mate.
On July 4, Bell died suddenly. His replacement on the GOP ticket lost to Democratic Gov. Grant Sawyer, but Republican Laxalt won the lieutenant governorship. Four years later, he unseated Sawyer and, at 44, was governor of the Silver State.
“Not bad for a Basque sheepherder’s kid,” he liked to say of his term as governor, in which he presided over a thriving economy, a balanced budget, and streamlined regulation of the state’s gaming industry.
It was at this time Gov. Laxalt was getting late-night calls from the newest and most mysterious resident of Las Vegas: Howard Hughes, the reclusive billionaire who refused to meet with the governor because (Laxalt later related) “I look like a g****** cadaver.” Without Hughes, the gaming industry, according to Laxalt, "could have easily suffered a severe recession” and without him, Nevada might not have had a community college system or a medical school.
After four years out of office, Laxalt in 1974 sought his state’s open U.S. Senate seat. 1974 was the so-called “Watergate Year,” in which the scandal that brought down Richard Nixon helped give Democrats their biggest numbers in Congress in modern times.
But Paul Laxalt prevailed, eking out a win by 624 votes over Democratic Lieutenant Governor Harry Reid and becoming the only Republican anywhere that year to win a Democratic Senate seat.
Whether the issue was stopping the transfer of the Panama Canal or pursuing across-the-board tax cuts, Sen. Laxalt was usually a player in the conservative agenda of the 1970’s. But it was his friendship with Reagan, the President who put much of the conservative agenda into action, for which he is considered most consequential.
The two Westerners had known each other since they campaigned for their hero Barry Goldwater for President in 1964. Reagan and Laxalt became governors the same year and frequently saw each other for golf games or horseback riding. When Reagan launched his first, almost-successful bid for the Republican presidential nomination in 1976, Laxalt was his national campaign chairman and placed his name in nomination at the national convention.
Throughout Reagan’s presidency, as senator and later general chairman of the Republican National Committee, Laxalt advised his friend on policies dealing with land ownership in the West as well as key appointments. The “First Friend” also helped convince the Philippines’ strongman President Ferdinand Marcos to relinquish power amid an uprising in 1986 and thus avoid needless bloodshed.
“Our bond was politics and our jobs,” Laxalt later wrote of Reagan, “We’d rarely discuss family, recognizing this subject could be a minefield. In later years, he did ask about my wife Carol.”
After leaving politics in 1986 because “I had had enough of it,” Laxalt formed his own lobbying firm to give clients “the sort of help I gave Ron Reagan when he was President.”
Paul Laxalt was devoted to wife Carol, his seven children, 14 grandchildren, and four-great grandchildren. He kept in touch with his wide circle of friends, ranging from old colleague Bob Dole (who called every year on Laxalt’s birthday to remind him “I’m always a year younger!”) to former Senate staffers such as Hal Furman, who had gone on to serve in the Reagan administration and launch his own lobbying firm.
Furman spoke for many Tuesday evening when he tweeted: “America lost a great patriot and I lost a dear friend and mentor in Paul Laxalt.”
John Gizzi is chief political columnist and White House correspondent for Newsmax. For more of his reports, Go Here Now.
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