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Historyguy99 at the Ronald Reagan Roundtable at Chicago Boyz:

Ronald Reagan: A Personal Reflection

….My first introduction to Reagan was unrelated to politics as I would be allowed to watch the General Electric Theater, which Reagan hosted, on Sunday evenings whenever there was school holiday on Mondays. Later, in my teens, he was a familiar figure with a cowboy hat that hosted Death Valley Days. Reagan made no impact on me in those early years and it was not until November of 1968 that I was introduced to his leadership style.

After Vietnam, I was married and stationed at Fort Campbell, Ky and we were expecting our first child in April 1969. We decided to move my wife home to be near her parents and undertook a cross country drive to California. Just after sunset, three days later, we crossed over the Colorado River on I-10 and were met with two things that signaled that we were back in what at the time was the “Golden State.” First, was the roadway, brightly lit as far as one’s headlights carried, with little glass reflectors that were an invention of a Cal-Trans engineer named Botts. They had been installed after I had joined the army and California was the only state in the nation to have them. Driving in the desert that night, the first California radio station we tuned in was carrying a live interview with then Governor Ronald Reagan. As I drove along, and listened to him discuss the affairs of California and the state of the nation after changing leadership with the election Nixon a couple of weeks earlier, I was struck by the tenor of the way he presented his convictions. I was still naive about most politics and frankly had not formed any political affiliation, but listening to his positive message about individuality and the human spirit that night, left me with a very favorable impression. To reveal my ignorance about the history of Bott’s Dots, I was initially left to credit Reagan with lighting our way across the California desert that night, only to learn later, they were approved the summer before he was elected.

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Dr. Michael Kennedy at the Ronald Reagan Roundtable at Chicago Boyz:

Another personal reminiscence of Reagan

….When Jimmy Carter was elected, I was in practice. My wife and I were taking our first trip to England. I remember being ashamed that Carter was president. I thought, “Well, he can’t be too bad. After all, he has been a businessman.” He was. He made the same mistake that Obama did. He let Congress and the Democratic majority have its head in legislation. The 1974 class of Democrats in Congress was the most leftist in history. Inflation took off. I knew doctor colleagues who were buying bags of quarters and dimes for their pension plans. Others had Swiss bank accounts with gold coins (It had only become legal to own gold under Ford). The Swiss charged negative interest of about 2% on those accounts. Two other friends, both doctors, opened a crystal shop in Laguna Beach and became the largest sellers of Lalique crystal in the world. The company brought them to France to honor them. Everybody was fleeing the dollar.

The conventional wisdom said Reagan was too conservative to ever be elected. The present rhetoric about Sarah Palin is similar to that about Reagan. He certainly was better qualified than she is but it didn’t matter. He was “an amiable dunce”(Clark Clifford) or he was a madman determined on a nuclear war. The Democrats who are trying to conflate Reagan and Obama would just as soon you didn’t remember that. I watched all the debates. I was shouting at the TV the night that Ford made his gaffe about Poland which elected Carter. I was worried about Reagan and how he would do. Here is where we all learned about his charm and his ability to slough off nasty comments by opponents. His skill with repartee and humor made him president. He looked like a reliable father figure and the attacks just bounced off. The only other president in my memory who was as immune to attack was Eisenhower but that was an earlier, pre-Nixon coup era. His “Great Communicator” title is often meant by Democrats as a slur, implying that was all he was. What I mean, and I think it is true, is that without that talent, he would not have been elected, as bad as Jimmy Carter was. That attacks on Reagan have been forgotten but they were harsh and had some resonance until the debates.

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James Frayne at the Ronald Regan Roundtable at Chicago Boyz:

Reagan Roundtable: The Lessons of the Reagan ’84 Campaign by James Frayne

On 7 October 1984, just a few weeks before the November election day, President Reagan’s campaign suffered a serious setback. Having put in an unconvincing performance in the first Presidential debate against Democrat challenger Walter Mondale, serious questions were being raised about the President’s age, health, and his ability to lead America through difficult times. To some observers, he did not appear to be in full command of the details of his administration. Attention immediately turned to the second debate, on 21 October.

The initial reaction of some campaign staff was to ensure that Reagan was prepared for the next debate by force-feeding him stats on every conceivable subject. But the campaign finally worked out that this approach risked getting in the way of what voters liked best – Reagan’s character and charm. They realized the best way of getting the President to put in a winning performance was by letting him be himself – by letting Reagan be Reagan.

In You are the Message, Republican media consultant Roger Ailes (now of Fox News) talks of being brought in to help prepare Reagan for the second debate. Ailes describes seeing Reagan forced to listen to endless advice, with consultants constantly rebuking him for not remembering detail. “Every time they finished a round, somebody in the audience would raise a hand and say, ‘Mr President, the tonnage on that warhead is wrong. The date of that treaty was so-and-so'”.

Ailes told the team to cancel the mock debates and give him access to the President for a couple of hours. “‘If you give me that’, I told them, ‘he’ll win. If you don’t you’ll probably lose.’ I realized that sounded presumptuous, but actually I was gambling on Reagan and his innate gift of communication. I felt pretty sure that if I could get him back to being himself again, he’d be okay.”

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From Dr. Steven Metz at the Ronald Reagan Roundtable at Chicago Boyz:

Those who claim to be the inheritors of the Reagan revolution badly misunderstand it. It was never about specific policies but tone and style. It won out over both Democrats and Communists because it offered better ideas and-importantly-a positive vision. Reagan was much less interested in discrediting his opponents than in inspiring supporters.

Led by Newt Gingrich and taken to hysterical heights by pundits such as Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity, and Glenn Beck, Reagan’s better ideas and positive vision gave way to deep negativity. Rather than better ideas, they offer only an unending spew of attacks against Democrats and the political left.

The commentary on the Egypt crisis by those who would claim to be Reagan’s descendents is a perfect illustration. Nearly everything they say at least begins with a slam on the Democrats, especially Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama. Making the Middle East more stable and furthering American interests is almost an afterthought, tacked on after the flames directed at the Democrats….

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A post from Dan form Madison at Chicago Boyz Reagan Roundtable:

Reagan Roundtable – The Lightweight

….I was 12 when Reagan got elected and the one thing that I noticed right off the bat was that it was “cool” to be an American again. Flags started to be flown more. Reagan told us repeatedly that yes, things were hosed up, but that was OK. We were Americans and we could fix it. We could fix anything. It was OK to like God. It was good to salute our military members.

We were going to take on the Russians and win. I remember asking my dad when I was a young boy if the Russians would blow us up. He always himmed and hawed with his answers. I asked him the same thing after Reagan got elected. My dad said “no way”. “Reagan won’t mess around with them.”

When Reagan was elected, my dad was struggling with his business. He would make his payments but interest rates were so high that he was going in the hole. By the time Reagan was gone and in the aftermath, things were calmed down and his business was doing very well and is to this day. He still thanks Reagan for that. It may or may not be true, but that is what he thinks and so be it.

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