Ronald Reagan was quoted as saying "some call me the great communicator but if there was one thing I dreaded during my eight years in Washington it was having to follow Guy Vander Jagt to the podium.

His talent for public speaking emerged as he began preaching at the Tustin Presbyterian Church while a student at Cadillac High School.

[2] When he returned to West Michigan, Vander Jagt served as an interim pastor of the Cadillac Congregational Church for a short time, before working at the WWTV TV station as a newscaster and news director.

When it became clear that neither man would meet that threshold, Vander Jagt withdrew and threw his support behind Griffin, who was appointed to the Senate in May.

Vander Jagt was appointed to the Ways and Means Committee in 1974 where he served on the Trade and Select Revenue Measures Subcommittees.

In 1980, Vander Jagt was chosen by presidential nominee Ronald Reagan to deliver the keynote address at the Republican National Convention in Detroit.

Using momentum from the convention speech, Vander Jagt ran for House Minority Leader after John J. Rhodes of Arizona decided not to run for the post again, but lost to Bob Michel of Illinois.

In the late 1980s, Vander Jagt helped lead an effort to repeal the Twenty-second Amendment to the United States Constitution, which limits a President to serve two terms.

"Ronald Reagan is one of the greatest American Presidents of all time, and I want to keep him on the job," he explained in 1986, in a fundraising letter to raise funds for such a campaign.

For the first time since his initial run in 1966, he faced a serious primary opponent in Herman Miller executive and fellow Dutch-American Pete Hoekstra.