Over and over again, we hear candidates invoking the name of Ronald Reagan, we hear Reagan quotes being trotted out, we hear discussion of which Republicans are most like Ronald Reagan.
I have to point out that Ronald Regan himself isn’t running. It also occurs to me that a good many active and interested followers of politics don’t even have any experience with President Reagan. I was 7 years old when he was first elected in 1980. Considering that college students are often active and involved, it might be worth discussing who and what Ronald Reagan was and means.
First of all, any candidate who spends his time running around trying to prove that he’s Ronald Reagan proves, in fact, that he is not the new Reagan. Ronald Reagan didn’t run around trying to be Barry Goldwater, Dwight Eisenhower, Abraham Lincoln, or Thomas Jefferson. He looked to his own beliefs and acted on them. His political views weren’t based on his desire to borrow someone else’s credibility. He earned his own.
Rudy Giuliani has made some of the most flagrant attempts to cast himself as the Reagan heir. This is particularly laughable in light of what I’m going to say below about morality.
Mitt Romney likes quoting Reagan, and hoping that everyone else thinks that if it can say “quack,” it must be a duck. His attempt to equate Reagan’s conversion from pro-choice to pro-life is woefully contrived. For one thing, Reagan never came out and spoke in defense of abortion — his signature of the 1967 Therapeutic Abortion Act is hardly a profound pro-choice position. According to Carol Hogan of the California Catholic Conference (hardly a pro-choice organization):
In 1967, the California Legislature enacted The Therapeutic Abortion Act, Health and Safety Code (sections 25950-25958), and Governor Reagan signed it. It was “sold” as a compassionate law that would be used to deal with the “hard cases.” This statute allowed the termination of pregnancy by a physician, in an accredited hospital, when there was a specific finding that there was a substantial risk that its continuation would “gravely impair the physical or mental health of the mother,” or when the pregnancy resulted from rape or incest. However, the law did provide that no termination of pregnancy could be approved after the 20th week of pregnancy.
The ACLU, on the other hand, which is pro-choice, has little good to say about the law:
the Therapeutic Abortion Act now is archaic, confusing, and unconstitutional. A lawyer researching the Health and Safety Code today would read that abortion is legal only if a hospital committee determines that the pregnancy will gravely impair a woman’s physical or mental health or a District Attorney concludes that the pregnancy probably resulted from rape or incest. Health and Safety Code Sections 123405, 123407
Reagan himself said that he would not have signed the bill had he had more experience as governor.
There is no cover here for Romney. He labeled himself as pro-choice. Reagan never did.
http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/05/04/gop.debate/index.html
http://www.boston.com/news/politics/politicalintelligence/2006/12/romney_invokes.html
Of course, there’s talk about Fred Thompson as being the Reagan guy, with the totally-irrelevant blather about being an actor — as if what made “the Gipper” a great President was having acted in “Tugboat Annie Sails Again.”
I guess I’m surprised that I haven’t heard anything about the “Law and Order” similarity …
The problem with all of these candidates who are trying to look like Ronald Reagan is that they’re trying. He never did.
He had his beliefs, and he acted on them. His optimism wasn’t something that he thought up because it would be a good counter-agent to the malaise of the Carter years — it was something he conveyed because he felt it.
Reagan didn’t just hate Communism. He hated Communism because he genuinely believed that we all — everywhere — have a right to be free, and Communism takes that away. He hated Communism because it threatened the United States. And he hated Communism because it oppressed faith in God.
This is, ultimately, the problem with every candidate who tries to look Reagan-esque. It can’t be done, except by those who don’t try. His Presidency can’t be boiled down to a couple slogans or character traits, it has to be a complete package. His political views were based on his morality, his faith, and his beliefs about the human condition.
He didn’t go for theatrics. He spoke plainly. He fired a campaign advisor for trying to get him to espouse a position he didn’t hold as his own.
Ronald Reagan stands out among American political figures not for slogans, not for character traits, not for stunts, and not for red-white-and-blue jelly beans. He stands out as a true believer in what he meant and what he did. He had a vision of hope and faith, and he acted on it. He might not have been right all the time, but he was sincere.
Looking for Reagan? Don’t look for someone to be quoting Reagan, then. Look for someone who says what he means and means what he says.
