Republicans need another Reagan
Ronald Reagan was the fortieth president of the United States. During his eight year term, he stimulated the economy with his tax cuts, cut back on domestic government spending, and put an end to the Cold War with his “peace through strength” foreign policy which saw the establishment of the Strategic Defense Initiative, which used ground and space based defense systems to protect the United States from nuclear weapons (which, in turn, ended the mutually assured destruction defense that had kept America “safe” prior to that). Not to mention, he was a fantastic actor in his earlier years. Needless to say, Reagan helped usher in a proverbial “golden age” for the Republican Party, and ended up winning 49 out of 50 states in the 1984 election (he also lost Washington D.C.).
In recent years, however, Reagan has taken on a new role as an almost Christ-like figure for the Republican Party; mainly because of the low approval numbers of President George Bush, and the recent, extremely early, beginning of the 2008 GOP Presidential Primary race. Now, by all manners of measurement, Reagan was a great President, if only for sticking to his guns and getting a ton of effective policies in place. However, with recent insecurities amongst the base Republican voters about the top tier presidential candidates, more and more the Republican potentials are striving to be seen as the “next Reagan.”
This becomes a major problem- none of them are Ronald Reagan! Reagan passed away on June 5, 2004, after a long fight with Alzheimer’s disease. This isn’t 1980; Jimmy Carter isn’t currently in the White House. NONE of the candidates can be Reagan. Ever! And unfortunately none of the candidates will shine above the rest until one of them realizes this. You can never get anywhere by trying to be like someone else. You have to be your own person. Reagan didn’t have a Republican or political icon that he was trying to be like, he had platform of political beliefs and motivations and he went for them. This is one of the major strengths of the current Democrat candidates; none of them are aspiring to be compared to anyone else. They have a set of political platforms and motivations and they are going for them and as a result, they are getting a positive response.
With 2008 up and coming, the presidential hopefuls, Democrat and Republican alike, will be gearing up their campaigns in all 50 states. Unfortunately, for the Republican candidates, primary voters will quickly realize that none of them are Reagan.
Posted by Colonnade Archives
on Oct 12 2007. Filed under Opinion.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0.
You can leave a response or trackback to this entry
