Mike Reagan was present when his father decided to pick Bush, and he says that story is pure baloney.
That’s good to hear.
Paul Weyrich back in the mid 1990's explained on a TV show he once hosted how VP was vetted & picked. Weyrich was far more privy as to how the system worked behind the scenes than Mike Reagan.
As Weyrich explained it VP is mainly chosen upon uniting the party by getting POTUS elected and as a smooth over maneuver {Determining how many in the party will otherwise walk away} if their choice is not also on the ticket. I like Mike Reagan but he tends to be a Establishment Apologist a lot of times.
I don't believe Reagan or Poppy had much like nor for that matter much trust in each other. Poppy wasted no time dismantling the Reagan Doctorines which he rode into the Oval Office on. The end result was his loss of that office for being a GOP-E POTUS rather than continuing Reagan's course & policies.
Proof? OK here ya go. Poppy's Cabinet and advisers were GOP-E has beens from Nixon/Ford days. Their disastrous policies were much the same as the Ford administration. Those choices and disasters resurfaced again when "W" did likewise.