Dana Rohrabacher: “I first met Ronald Reagan when I was still in my teens. I had been active in his first campaign for Governor. During the…”

“I first met Ronald Reagan when I was still in my teens. I had been active in his first campaign for Governor. During the primary season we had been very active, and we found out that the heads of the campaign were going to eliminate Youth for Reagan during the general election and have us all work with the adult organization. I felt very disturbed about that. We had worked so hard; I had hundreds of kids out passing out leaflets for him. So I decided to go see him myself. I hiked up to his home at Pacific Palisades at 3 o'clock in the morning and camped out on his lawn in a sleeping bag. About 7 o'clock in the morning, Nancy stuck her head out the door and says, 'Who are you?' I had a little sign that said 'Ronald Reagan, please speak to me.' Nancy says, 'You know, my husband, if he comes out to talk to you, I know that he is going to spend 5 or 10 minutes with you. He will be late for the rest of the day; he won't be able to have his breakfast. If you will go to the campaign headquarters, I will get you a meeting with the top person in the campaign. I have to protect my husband, you see.' I said, well, how can you argue with that? So I started walking down that long driveway in Pacific Palisades dragging that sleeping bag. Behind me I heard these footsteps, and there was Ronald Reagan. His shirt was half off, he had the shaving cream on his face. He was going, 'Wait a minute, wait a minute.'”