|
Republicans Don't Get the Real Reagan Legacy
by John M. Curtis
(310) 204-8700
Copyright
June 1, 2014
All Rights Reserved.
Meeting a GOP summit in New Orleans, the
Republican Party took inventory of how President Ronald Regan’s success can be
duplicated in the next presidential election cycle. With former New York Senator
and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton looming on the horizon, the GOP
hopes to find the right person to get back some of that Reagan magic that once
dominated the Democratic Party.
Instead of looking for the essence of Reagan, the Party focuses on cliché
messages. “Government is too big
and spends too much,” Reagan liked to say.
“Government isn’t the answer to our problem, government is the problem,”
reflecting the horrific economic times during the Carter years where inflation
and economic stagnation dominated the U.S. economy in the late 1970s. No current GOP candidate has those
“smiling Irish eyes,” eternal optimism and winning sense of humor.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), a likely 2016 GOP presidential candidate,
insists that Reagan was “unapologetically conservative,” much like himself who,
in October 2013, shut down the government for some 17 days, tossing 800,000
federal workers into unemployment.
Cruz recalls when Reagan fired over 11,000 striking air traffic controllers
August 5, 1981, to make the point that they couldn’t sabotage the struggling
U.S. economy. “Y’all will remember
what happened in 1980,” said Cruz.
“We saw . . . millions of Americans across the country rise up and become the
Reagan Revolution.” Cruz may have
false memories since he was only 10 when Reagan was elected president. Cruz forgets that Reagan rode a
national wave of discontent against the economic missteps of former President
Jimmy Carter, whose policies brought double-digit inflation and economic
“malaise.”
Looking for the right candidate to carry Reagan’s torch, the GOP forgets
the most essential qualities of the former B-movie actor, former
president-of-Hollywood’s Screen Actors Guild, two-term California governor and
two-term president were his eternal optimism, humorous wit but, most
importantly, his class. Cruz and
the new Tea Party wing of the GOP are too busy attacking, disparaging and
ridiculing to recall Reagan classy demeanor, rarely criticizing his GOP friends
or Democratic opponents. His
positive disposition allowed him to win friends on both sides of the aisle. While he had stark policy
differences with Democrats, Reagan still won friends-and-influenced people with
his abundant charm. “Reagan
compromised on everything,” insisted former Republican National Committed
Chairman Gov. Haley Barbour, giving Cruz and the young flock of Tea Party
faithful a history lesson.
Above all else, Reagan was a conservative idealist, whose vivid metaphors
left an indelible stamp on the Republican Party.
Friendly to all, Reagan lacked the vitriol of today’s GOP politicians,
whose political warfare with Democrats balkanize the country into red and blue
states. When Cruz talks about the
Reagan Revolution, he doesn’t get the basics of Reagan’s inclusive message,
ever-reaching across the political divide to win over disgruntled Democrats and
independents. Today’s GOP finds
itself so boxed into a conservative corner they can’t, like Reagan, appeal to
unhappy Democrats and independents looking for something new. “You the American people,” said Reagan in his 1980 inaugural address. “Your hopes, your dreams, your
aspirations will be the dreams and aspirations of this administration, so help
me God,” inviting the opposition to join his crusade.
Cruz, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, Utah Sen. Mike Lee, Florida Sen. Marco
Rubio, Rep. Paul Ryan, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and others are all so
partisan they can’t attract the so-called Reagan Democrats and independents that
fueled the Reagan Revolution.
Purity is the enemy of victory,” warned Barbour, reminding the new zealous breed
of conservatives that they’ve sadly misinterpreted the man they nostalgically
put on a pedestal. Barbour urged
the young GOP faithful to re-consider Reagan’s extensive compromising on taxes,
immigration and Social Security.
Today’s GOP seem fixated on ending Obamacare and reversing many of the federal
entitlement programs so familiar to the American people. “In Texas, we define gun control
real simple: That’s hittin’ what your aim at,” said Cruz, completely ignoring Reagan’s support of gun
control knows as the Brady Bill.
Barbour’s emphasis on Reagan’s “compromising” misses the more important
part to Reagan’s charisma, not seen in today’s GOP. If the GOP has any hopes of
reclaiming the White House in 2016, the nominee will have to show Reagan’s
infectious optimism and appealing ideas, not just recycled ideas from Fox News
or syndicated right wing radio shows.
Reagan’s across-the-aisle appeal stemmed from his positive paternal need
to rescue the country from Carter’s missteps.
Cruz and the new generation of Tea Party conservatives don’t get the
political and economic context in which Reagan won a landslide victory in 1980. Romney and Ryan tried to make the
same case against an improving U.S. economy in 2012. Reagan didn’t have to blow smoke
about a deteriorating U.S. economy in 1980.
GOP’s last presidential campaign backfired when voters realized the
economy wasn’t that bad.
|
