Gipper Debate Watch

I figure that if I'm staying up late to watch the GOP debate at the Reagan Library, I may as well leave a written record. This is the third debate the library has held, and the first of this season. In May 2007, ten contenders stood next to Airforce One and jostled for attention at the first primary debate. Two of them, Romney and Paul are back tonight for the fifth Republican debate this year. Eight are attending, but there would be more if the arbitrary rules allowed Govs. Roemer and Johnson to show their faces. Reagan is bound to be brought up alot, so a drinking game would be simply self destructive. I'm looking instead specifically for props, unfamiliar stories/facts, and bold criticism. Anyway, it's starting.

1:02 - don't recognise where they are, but it has been refurbished since I was there. If it was the pavilion, you'd see the plane.

1:04 - big yawn from blonde audience lady in anticipation of Romney on jobs.

1:07 did Romney just say it's fun to govern? Or was it private industry that's fun?

1:08 Romney brings up Gore internet canard to uproarious laughter

1:11 Cain is a 9 percenter. Probably the only economic plan I will remember at the end of this.

1:12 Huntsman gets in first Reagan reference - his China trip - and points at the plane. They are in the pavilion. And he can speak chinese.

1:14 Bachmann has a prominent flag lapel pin. I'll keep an eye out for the others.

1:16 - Ron Paul factoid comes up - he's delivered 4000+ babies. Can he deliver on the economy?!!Over regulation has ruined the US auto industry?

1:17 oh yeah, forgot about Newt. Trashes Perry's book. I CAMPAIGNED FOR REAGAN WITH JIM LAFFER. Obama should have come to the Reagan Library to learn how to create jobs, and asked Herman Cain.

1:20 Now Romneycare. I'm getting confused with the flitting about. Romeny says nothing new - what's good for Mass is not good for America. Perry: What's good for Mass is not good for Texas - nor is the Fed Gov.

1:24 Huntsman has somehting on his lapel, not sure what it is. Perry has nothing - not a patriot.

1:26 Bachmann says we need a strong leader to repeal Obamacare, can't just do it with an Executive Order. Her argument - she introduced the bill to repeal it in Congress. Good to know she has some substance.

1:27 Gingrich is feisty! Attacking the news media's attempts to divide Republicans. Big cheers. Cain attacks Romneycare. I assume that media attacks Gingrich is referring to are when they record and broadcast him saying things he now doesn't agree with.

1:30 Santorum spent his 12 years in the senate workin' on the poor. Is he running as a post-partisan conciliator? The party is in trouble when Santorum is the reasonable moderate.

1:32 Perry forgets Santorum's name? Then onto a powerful non-sequitur. Quotes JFK on welfare.

1:35 Huntsman makes a sly inplication that Bachmann et al want to "dictate" gas prices.

1:38 Ron Paul is gunning for Perry. I guess that as a consituent, he's the one on the platform most familiar with him. Now Perry is attacking Paul as a Reagan deserter! Paul comes back - I supported Ronnie in '76. But in the eighties, "the message was great, but the consequence was not all that great. Huge deficits". Would like to see this subject play out, but it's gone to adverts. I have a feeling that Perry is not going to get too far attacking Paul for criticisng Reagan from the right in the late eighties - when he himself was a Democrat.

1:44 Little promo for the Reagan Library and the Gipper himself - backing music from the Verve for some reason? Nancy with the laughing face. I'm guessing Nancy is there, but haven't spotted her. And there she is! Looking a little grumpy.

1:50 Paul really doesn't like Perry - and attacks him for the imperial manner of his leadership. It would be nice to have more discussion of the methods of executive power. Bachmann piles on. Perry hates cancer.

1:56 Perry's candidacy - and his book - seem to be leading the debate. On forced inoculation, on Homeland Security, everyone's jumping to the right of him. Only Romney's being nice - "we all love America".

2:02 - Cain has a similar button to Huntsman. What is it? Everyone else's lapels are empty.

2:05 Brian Williams keeps reminding Perry that Texas is shit. 

2:08 Surprise hispanic questioner - immigration reform was a subject dear to Reagan's heart? Perry calls Obama a liar on the safety of the border - is that allowed? Gingrich quotes directly from the Reagan diary on the amnesty bill. Big applause for English as a national language.

2:13 Bachmann gets her first question in ages. Narco-terrorists. Sovereignty. Bay of Pigs Museum. Not sure Floridian cubans are entirely representative of Hispanic-Americans.

2:16 Huntsman: Reagan saw immigration as a human issue.  If Reagan were here...hopeful optimistic...American people. Paul : (Michele Bachmann's) fence might not just keep people out, but it could keep people in! Those people who are getting out with their capital in times of economic turmoil (to Mexico?). I guess that moment would have been the best time yet for Paul to bring up drug policy, but he may be tired of being singled out on the issue. Oh, I wish Gary Johnson was there.

2:22 Williams wants the frequency and velocity of the debate to increase. Great.

2:24 Bachmann says Reagan would also reject a debt deal with any tax increase, because his deal failed. It's a bold claim, Reagan always advocated - or accepted as a fact of life - compromise.

2:28 First mention of GW in a question to Perry on his views on military adventurism. He clumsily changes the subject to Obama and Keynesianism. And Osama? Trying to distinguish between philosophical and political views. Harris sticks to GW as a subject, now to Bachmann, she turns it to Obama and Iran and Israel.

2:33 Santorum: RR was committed to America being a force for good around the world. We didn't have dated exit strategies back then. Please let Ron Paul bring up Lebanon. Reagan tradition vs isolationism is how he defines the foreign policy debate - not Bush doctrine.

2:35 Huntsman back off from naming names on anti-science loony Republicans. Perry is very vague and stumbly on climate science. 

2:39 Bachmann's flag has tilted and is now vertical - not yet upside down, though.

2:45 Haven't been listening closely enough on Perry's capital punishment answer, but I assume he's dodged any implication of his wrongdoing.

And with a libertarian flurry from Ron Paul, the debate is over. Romney and Huntsman came across strongest to me, if that counts for anything. Gingrich seemed to have the most detailed grasp on Reagan; Santorum and Bachmann just blithely imposed their own positions on him; Huntsman made a lukewarm effort to evoke Reagan's character. My award goes to Ron Paul, though, for the bodl criticism I was after, even if it was inarticulate and cut short. I assume that like last time, the candidates will be back next year after being whittled down some. Maybe I will post again before then, but no promises. 

Obama reads about Reagan

Just before Christmas, the White House announced the president's reading list, which included The Role of a Lifetime by Lou Cannon - still pretty much the essential book on Reagan's presidency, though I'd probably reccomend Richard Reeves. The choice is presumably a nod to the centennial, to the spirit of bipartisan understanding, and an invitation to compare the two presidencies. Conservatives have read it as an attempt to emulate Reagan. "Mr. Obama," says son Michael, "apparently thinks that if he can learn how to play the role of a Reaganesque president, he can become as successful as my father, Ronald Reagan." Tevi Troy suggests that:

[H]e is looking to a great president for clues as to how he, too, can become a great president. Reagan’s communication skills were of course superb, but his policies had something to do with it as well, and Obama would have to take on some of Reagan’s ideology to learn the full lesson of Reagan.

If Obama wants to learn anything from Reagan, I expect, it is about how to behave around a hostile Congress (and possibly with a fractious Middle East). Both Troy and M. Reagan's comments seem part of a resurgent defence of Reagan's conservative identity, more of which later.

Incidentally, Reagan only released one reading list during his presidency, on the request of the Baltimore Sun. It included a book on Thomas Jefferson, and one which imagined a near-future outbreak of World War - that would get the bloggers tapping nowadays!

Also incidentally, last year Obama announced that he was reading Edmund Morris's The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt. After Reagan read the book, Morris was picked to be his official biographer - no such result for Morris from the Obama White House so far, though it would certainly raise an interesting stink. Morris's thoughts on the announcement here.

The Ronald Reagan Museum of the Victims of Communism

I won't catch up on everything I've missed the past couple of months, but I thought this proposal was worth a mention. David Frum, as the voice of a new moderate conservatism (or an old conservatism, divorced from Tea Party radicalism), ecapsulated his postion in his approach to the Reagan Centennial:

To date, the main attempts to honor Reagan in the nation's capital have gone askew. A government office building second in size only to the Pentagon? An airport from which Washingtonians cannot fly to California? These do not seem very appropriate monuments to a president who fought bureaucracy and yearned for home. The other ideas that sometimes circulate in Congress seem equally misplaced: Placing Reagan on the currency or building a giant statue somewhere in Washington. More than most presidents, Reagan would have wanted to be remembered for his ideas, not his image. The right commemoration would honor those.Let me suggest something: A museum in Washington dedicated to the victims of communism.

This idea is just that, unlikely to go beyond an op-ed piece, and I only really raise it because I quite like it. It's also, though, a neat suggestion of how Reagan's memory might be wrested away from bland and blinkered partisan triumphalism in the commemoration this year. The proposal affirms Reagan's conservatism and anti-communism, but aligns him with the national and international history of the Cold War. He would be associated with the bi- and non-partisan American identity of the twentieth century, and with the experiences of a diverse, global multitude. A reflective, educational museum would also avoid the ambiguity and potential drawn-out controversy of a symbolic monument to Reagan on the Mall. Of course, some on the left would raise the question of the victims of anti-communism in Central and South America, South-East Asia and Africa, but such questions might be more constructive than bitter. The idea would also emphasise the legacy of which Reagan was perhaps most proud - his personal achievements in aiding the plights of individual political prisoners in the Soviet Union, and gaining the approbation of anti-communist dissenters worldwide.

Reagan on the Internet

It seems that during Gipperwatch's latest hiatus, the internet has responded to the vacuum with a few new Reagan-themed websites.

1) The Reagan Record

Also on Blogger, this site is dedicated to monitoring the events of the centennial, while also delving a bit back into Reagan's past. The Tenuto Family of Illinois promises to review copies of the Reagan Record, his old fan club newsletter, as well as every one of his 53 movies (conveniently amounting to one a week for a year, thereabouts). I'm not sure if this is possible (how many are available) but good luck to them! Gipperwatch will be reading, and no doubt poaching their work.

2) The Ronald Reagan Legacy Project..

..is back online! And flashier than ever. Grover Norquist's outfit, committed to naming as many things as possible after Ronald Reagan, used to blog about their efforts but lost steam a couple of years ago - I'm not the only one. In advance of the 100th birthday, the RRLP has launched a new website, complete with an interactive map displaying their progress so far. The site also offers a strategy guide for citizens and elected officials interested in furthering the mission: "Schools are an excellent opportunity to name a project after Reagan, they are being built every day."

3) Reagan to the Rescue

A gallery of Reagan's awseomness.

4) Reagan the Movie

Not Michael Rogin's psycho-biography of Reagan's film career, but a site promoting the Reagan film, discussed here before. No new news though, and seems a bit buggy.

Reagan's Face = "Sort of" Electioneering

An incident in an Illinois polling station today gave a small indication of Reagan's perseverance as a partisan icon in American politics when Mary Jo Tenuto was asked to cover up her Reagan Centennial t-shirt before she could vote. She complied, but wasn't happy: "I felt like this is an infringement on my rights. I’m putting on a T-shirt. It wasn’t endorsing a party. . . . Ronald Reagan is dead. He is not on the ballot." The shirt is certainly one of the more inocuous examples of Reagan-wear, but the extent to which Republicans, particularly in this election, have aligned themselves with his image and memory, the response is not that surprising. A Lincoln t-shirt - presumably abundant in Illinois - would probably be fine, but it will be a while before Reagan ascends above the partisan fray to a bland national iconography.

Obama '84

A new poll shows that 48% of Americans want Obama to run for a second term. In August 1982, only 36% liked the idea of Reagan running again, and 51% thought he should not. These numbers widened to 35% and 57% by February 1983. He still ran, of course, and won by a great margin.

The poll mainly shows the level of partisan division over Obama: 83% of Democrats want him to run, compared to 12% of Republicans (it was 19%-65% for Reagan, respectively). So it certainly implies an easy nomination, but also a need to win over some independents and, if it is at all possible, soften GOP opinion on him, to gain 50%+ approval.

Interestingly, though, and confusing the meaning of the poll, the only two recent presidents to have half or more Americans wanting them to run again were Carter and GHW Bush - who both failed to win reelection.

The Legacy Project in Action?

John J. Miller is recruiting readers at the National Review's Corner to help get his new local elementary school named after Ronald Reagan. Presumably, the school board will ignore suggestions coming from outside Prince William County, VA, but you have to admire the effort.

Incidentally, the county is named after Prince William (1721-1765), the Butcher of Culloden, not the current one. Perhaps the school should be named after him?

How an Ordinary Conservative Author Became an Extrordinary Partisan Hack

This is me quietly climbing on the long-passed bandwagon that met Dinesh D'Souza's article in Forbes in September, "How Obama Thinks". The piece, which posited that the president's politics come not from any tradition of American liberalism, but from his father's Kenyan anti-western, anti-colonialism (a theory which the great scholar Newt Gingrich hailed as great scholarship), has since been much fisked for its sloppiness, inaccuracy and insipidness, amongst other things. D'Souza's book, The Roots of Obama's Rage, which the article foreran, has recently been reviewed in the Weekly Standard as "The Roots of Lunacy".

I am less interested in the details of D'Souza's theory than in the style of his interpretation, and how it compares to his treatment of another president. Ronald Reagan: How an Ordinary Man Became an Extraordinary Leader (1997) was D'Souza's first attempt at presidential scholarship, which I credit with being one of the first and best articulations of conservative revisionism of Reagan's presidency. Occasionally slapdash, but livley and engaging, the book sought to redress standard critical interpretations of Reagan from both left and right, elevating him as an American hero and great president who was yet an ordinary, flawed individual.

Reading the Forbes article, I was struck by the odd comparison between the author's two presidential studies. Both follow similar premises - no-one fully understands this leader's character, motives or methods, so I will provide a detached and thorough analysis that will fill in the gaps. The conlcusions are startlingly different. In Reagan's case, the mystery surrounding his presidency is the creation of his critics and their blindness to the effectiveness of his methods and sincerity of his beliefs. It is explained with a study of a character more complex, but ambtions and methods more coherent and straightforward, than have been appreciated. In short, his ordinariness is the answer. In Obama's case, a selection of policy choices and quotes present a mystery of intentions that can only be explained by revealing a secretly harboured but determined commitment to a foreign ideology. Obama must be understood as extraordinary.

D'Souza blames Reagan's critics for a wilful blindness to his successes, and for the invention of fantastic theories to explain his appeal - his confusion of Hollywood with reality, and his theatrical bedazzlement of America. He also provides some instructive comment on the judgement of presidents:

Since many of these pundits disapproved of Reagan's views from the outset, regarding his policies as wrongheaded and destructive, we cannot expect them to applaud his success in enacting his agenda. It is human nature to judge the effectiveness of a leader based on whether we approve of what he put into effect. Incredible resources have been invested by Reagan's opponents since the 1980s to descredit his record, which in a way is a tribute to his legacy.

I fear that The Roots of Obama's Rage will, for future historians, be judged similarly. And another:

A further problem in assessing greatness in leadership is that those who study the subject frequently apply biased, self-interested, or arbitrary criteria that render their evaluations incomplete or suspect.

This brings to mind the expectation, which D'Souza rearticulates, that Obama as president must conform to a standard of "exceptionalism" to lead America. D'Souza has always been a distinctly conservative voice, but where I enjoyed Illiberal Education as good polemic, and appreciated Ronald Reagan as nuanced hagiography, it does seem as if he has lost his self-reflection or mistrust of elaborate, self-serving, unifying theories.

Mourning in America

Catching up a bit here after a month or two of holidaying, slacking off and finding little to write about beyond repetetive stories about Palin and/or Obama's respective similarities to Reagan.

Deserving of a mention, though, is this ad, which appeared on American TV screens in September:



A direct reference to the definitive TV spot of Reagan's 1984 campaign, little this season has more forcefully demonstrated Republican's nostalgia for Reagan's presidency, and their willingness to use it as an argument. The ad was made by the GOP's current star creative, Fred Davis (behind "Demon Sheep" and "I am not a Witch") for the PAC, Citizens for the Republic - which explains its euology for Reagan's America. The group was founded by Reagan in 1977 to support conservatives in the 1978 elections and prepare for his 1980 run, and was revived thirty years later by a self described "hardy band of Reaganites" for similar purposes. Its chairman is Craig Shirley, a man devoted to promoting Reagan in the public imagination, while its directors are all former Reagan officials.

The ad itself names no candidates, presumably bypassing campaign finance laws, but more than that, the Citizen's apparent lack of alignment to anyone but the beloved former president, and the activity of now at least two conservative PACs bearing the Reagan brand (son Michael's being the other one), seems to highlight the lack of obvious conservative leadership as 2012 approaches. We'll see what they do after November.

Reagan the Movie

The Hollywood Reporter has broken news of a new Reagan biopic in the works. This seems to be an insurgent project, lead by Mark Joseph, apparently new to Hollywood, and his built-for-purpose production company, Rawhide Pictures. Joseph saw a gap in the market following the failure of CBS' The Reagans:

Only in Hollywood could you make an insulting, condescending movie about a much-loved historical figure, hire an actor who loathes the man, watch it flop and then somehow conclude that Americans don't want to see a movie about him. I watched Americans line up and wait for 10 hours for the simple privilege of passing by his closed casket. They love this man.

The tone of the film is predictable, considering that Joseph wants it based on Paul Kengor's two books, God and Ronald Reagan and The Crusader. These are highly admiring, and engaging, portraits of Reagan, together presenting his life as a determined battle against Communism, grounded on a certain, guiding faith. In each there is a sense of destiny to Reagan's unequivocal Cold War victory, both in Kengor's narrative and in the emphasis on Reagan's own belief in the divinely ordained purpose to his life.

It is significant that the script, written by Jonas McCord, begins with Reagan's assassination attempt, flashing back and forth through his life from that anchoring event. Kengor emphasises in both books Reagan's spiritual understanding of his survival - "I now know that whatever days I have left belong to Him" - and aligns it with his assault on and victory over Communism. "His sense of divine purpose", shared by religous figures he spoke with after the shooting, "now reinforced and amplified his Cold War purpose". Kengor offers important biographical analysis, echoing and expanding on other biographers' observations, but throughout his work there is an implicit invitation to share Reagan's beliefs. There is a narrative inevitablity, a fondness for moments of poignancy and portent, and above all, a conviction in the righteousness of Reagan's life and achievements. These characteristics could translate well to film. If Reagan, the movie, is made in these terms, it could well be a Christian parable of America in the 20th Century, an assertion of destiny, exceptionalism and faith. And could thus be a very successful film, and an interesting one to 2012 audiences.

My hopes, anyway, of a movie based on Dutch, appear to have been dashed.

Reagan and the Libertarians

In 1975, Governor Ronald Reagan gave an interview with Reason magazine, in which he discussed his relationship with libertarianism, and his beliefs about the role of government:

If you analyze it I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism...Now, I can’t say that I will agree with all the things that the present group who call themselves Libertarians in the sense of a party say, because I think that like in any political movement there are shades, and there are libertarians who are almost over at the point of wanting no government at all or anarchy. I believe there are legitimate government functions. There is a legitimate need in an orderly society for some government to maintain freedom or we will have tyranny by individuals.

Reason approached Reagan for his recent espousal of conservative libertarianism, and it appears that Reagan was interested in reaching out to this idiosyncratic and youthful branch of the right wing - potentially part of the coalition that would bring him the 1976 GOP nomination. The interviewer brought him round to the subject of the Libertarian Party and third parties in general:

Well, third parties have been notoriously unsuccessful; they usually wind up dividing the very people that should be united. And then we elect the wrong kind–the side we’re out to defeat wins...I’d like to see the Libertarian Party...maybe come to this remnant of the Republican Party which is basically conservative in its thinking...and be able to say to them, OK we’re not saying to you give up what you’re doing, but, can’t we find a common meeting ground in order at least to defeat first of all those who are doing what they’re doing to us (and this present Congress is an example)?

If Reagan had any success in courting libertarians in 1975/6, it did not win him the nomination. Interestingly, in 1980, the Libertarian Party's Ed Clark, running as a peace candidate, received the greatest proportion of votes the party has ever won in a presidential election. Though he is the president closest to libertarian philosophy in modern times, his limited approach and commitment to social conservatism separated him from its diehard adherents.

This week, the Libertarian Party is looking back on the Reagan Presidency and considering its mythic relavence in the contemporary movement. LNC Director Wes Benedict asked party members in his "Monday Message", "How to Handle Ronald Reagan?":

As the 2010 election approaches, a lot of Republican politicians are trying to posture as government-cutters, and they often hold up Ronald Reagan as an example. But although Reagan often talked about supporting smaller government, most Libertarians know that in practice he did exactly the opposite...Some polls show Reagan is reasonably well-respected these days. I think the positive reactions are often based on misconceptions, and that brings up an interesting point: how should Libertarians deal with the Ronald Reagan myth?

The current results of the attached poll show that of 1,926 voters:

• 9% say Don't bring it up, to avoid offending his fans.
• 7% say It's not a myth. Reagan really did shrink government.
• 64% say Libertarians should point out that Reagan grew government.
• 4% say Blame government growth in the 1980s on everyone except Reagan.

Libertarianism is again a vocal, influential wing of the populist conservative movement. There is, however, an unwillingness to embrace its foremost icon for the sake of coalition - to elevate a unifying myth over debate and poitical principle.

Repositories of Greatness

In the closing pages to her memoir/hagiography When Character Was King, Peggy Noonan expressed the importance of the tale of Ronald Reagan. It had to be told so that America's children would learn it, internalise it, and carry it forward to America's future:

He'd like knowing that when the long war is over our kids will have learned something unforgettable that each generation must relearn, and make new again, as it lives on through history...The little bodies of children are the repositories of the greatness of a future age. And they must be encouraged, must eat from the tales of those who've gone before, and brandished their swords, and slayed dragons.

Noonan will be glad to know that some of those little bodies now form the National Youth Leadership Committee of the Reagan Centennial. These representatives of "America's next generation of leaders" include celebrities, athletes, beauty queens, students and servicemen and are chaired by a Jonas Brother and an American Idol winner.

Deformed Republicanism

A few days ago, I suggested that former members of the Reagan administration were dull and partisan in their public comments. This cannot be said of David Stockman, Reagan's first director of the Office of Managment and Budget, who on Saturday appeared in the New York Times declaiming the "Four Deformations of the Apocaypse".

Stockman, though in many ways a committed ideologue, has never been reliably on message. Early on in Reagan's presidency, he risked his job by talking frankly to the Atlantic about the politically chaotic and murky process of budget cutting, downplaying the administration's legislatvie victories:

"I don't believe too much in the momentum theory any more," he said. "I believe in institutional inertia. Two months of response can't beat fifteen years of political infrastructure. I'm talking about K Street and all of the interest groups in this town, the community of interest groups. We sort of stunned it, but it just went underground for the winter. It will be back ... Can we win? A lot of it depends on events and luck. If we got some bad luck, a flareup in the Middle East, a scandal, it could all fall apart."

Stockman resigned in 1985, frustrated with entrenched political interests and exploding deficits, and declaring the failure of the Reagan Revolution. In his NYT column, which likely outlines the premises of his upcoming book on the financial crisis, Stockman reviews the past forty years of American economic history and castigates the Republican Party for the betrayal of principle in its "recycled Keynesianism" and its submission to the "primordial forces" of the "welfare state and the warfare state". The GOP takes the blame for four destructive changes: removing the gold standard, unleashing defecits, expanding the financial sector, and hollowing out the American economy. Their current political committment to retaining the Bush tax cuts is but a symptom of their irresponsibility and irrelevance. I doubt Stockman weilds much influence in the party any more, but any professed conservative hoping make office and make impact should probably pay attention to his ideas, and certainly make a study of his career.

"If you think I can play Ronald Reagan, you must be French"

I am looking forward to seeing Farewell, a French espionage movie about a KGB mole and the stories surrounding him. Eighties Cold War thrillers are always a winner for me, but I am chiefly excited for its rare inclusion of Ronald Reagan as a character, and more so for the fact that Fred Ward will be playing him. If Ward brings to the film everything he brought to Tremors, it may be the best representation of Reagan ever (though there is little competition). An interview with the director is here, and the trailer is below:

Reagan vs. Harvey Milk

A Dallas Voice blogger responds to California's creation of Ronald Reagan Day by looking for comparisons between Reagan and Harvey Milk, who also has a day in the state (May 22).

Both Milk and Reagan lived in California, but neither was born there. Reagan was from Illinois. Milk was from New York. Both began their political careers in California and both were targeted by gunmen. Reagan, of course, recovered. Obviously, the similarities end there.

Fortunately, this is not true - both Milk and Reagan were instrumental in defeating Proposition 6 in California in 1978, which would have persecuted homosexual teachers. Milk provided the organisation and leadership, while Reagan offered his influence over Californian conservatives. David Mixner, a leading activist on the No campaign, explained:

Despite all our good work, everyone involved had taken the Proposition from 75% in favor of firing homosexual school teachers down to only 55%. We were having a helluva a time gaining that last 6%. We knew we needed something big to push us over the top and we needed it soon since we were in the last weeks of the campaign. There is no doubt in my mind that the man who put us over the top was California Governor Ronald Reagan. His opposition to Proposition 6 killed it for sure.

Mixner describes Reagan's involvement with the issue and his libertarian opposition here.

Administration Resurfacing

A couple of Reagan administration veterans have got their points across recently. Edwin Meese was in Michigan, confirming that he is on the correct side of the party line - Tea Party good, Obama bad. Meanwhile, Richard Perle has appeared in Foreign Policy with an angry rebuttal to Peter Beinart's analysis of Reagan's dovish qualities. What could have been simple correction of Beinart's understanding of Reagan's arms control strategy becomes a confusing ramble where Perle insists on defining everything in terms of the conservative/liberal divide:

Beinart is not alone in confusing a tough, deliberate application of American power to achieve American ends with the bellicose reckless abandon that he seems to think is the essence of a "conservative" foreign policy. Indeed, it is a common liberal conceit (which Beinart swallows whole) that conservatives, like Reagan, are always spoiling for a fight, eager to launch wars and send American troops in harm's way.

It is reasonable to point out that there is a mythology on the left which sees Reagan as a reckless, bloodthirsty, nuclear cowboy, but thoughtless not to also concede the supportive myth of Reagan as a relentless warrior - particularly in response to an article which portrays Reagan as neither. Still, Beinart's arguments and many like them seem designed to undermine conservatives by denying them their central icon, so it is hardly surprising that defensive conservatives take the bait.

It is, perhaps, a consequence of Reagan's continuing symbolic presence in American politics that his former officials remain so dull and partisan.

"A few isolated groups in the backwater of American life"

The NAACP has this week proposed a resolution which will condemn the Tea Party for its tolerance of racism within its ranks.

At the risk of this blog turning into Gipper-and Palin-watch*, I was interested in the former Alaskan governor's Facebook riposte which, yet again, evokes Ronald Reagan:

President Reagan called America’s past racism “a legacy of evil” against which we have seen the long struggle of minority citizens for equal rights. He condemned any sort of racism, as all good and decent people do today. He also called it a “point of pride for all Americans” that as a nation, we have successfully struggled to overcome this evil. Reagan rightly declared that “there is no room for racism, anti-Semitism, or other forms of ethnic and racial hatred in this country,” and he warned that we must never go back to the racism of our past.

This opened a straightforward denial and evasion of the issue which the NAACP provocatively addressed, reinforced by an avowal of personal colourblindness - which, like Reagan, she expressed as founded in her family experience.

Palin found in Reagan's 1983 speech to the National Association of Evangelicals, known most for its "evil empire" line, his declaration of a post-racist America. She might have also noted his horror at "the resurgence of some hate groups preaching bigotry and prejudice" and his call for the audience to "use the mighty voice of your pulpits and the powerful standing of your churches to denounce and isolate these hate groups in our midst". Still, she is generally accurate in her representation of Reagan's belief in America's triumph over its racial division. This was a self-deception, albeit one that was practical and politically useful - allowing Reagan to incorporate the Civil Rights Act he opposed into a narrative of American exceptionalism, and ignore the southern strategy which he employed.

More appropriately, Palin might have quoted Reagan's speech in 1981 to the NAACP's annual convention:

A few isolated groups in the backwater of American life still hold perverted notions of what America is all about. Recently in some places in the nation there's been a disturbing reoccurrence of bigotry and violence. If I may, from the platform of this organization, known for its tolerance, I would like to address a few remarks to those groups who still adhere to senseless racism and religious prejudice, to those individuals who persist in such hateful behavior.If I were speaking to them instead of to you, I would say to them, "You are the ones who are out of step with our society. You are the ones who willfully violate the meaning of the dream that is America. And this country, because of what it stands for, will not stand for your conduct."

The speech went on to acknowledge continued African-American economic inequality, but emphasised that the answer lay in tying the NAACP's goals to achieving general economic independence and ending reliance on federal intervention. In light of, amongst other issues, Reagan's opposition to the renewal of the Voting Rights Act, the speech met a chilly response - and Reagan never returned. Later in his presidency, the chair of the NAACP , William F. Gibson, would call the administration "anti-black, anti-woman, anti-minority and anti-civil rights", and Reagan personally as "reactionary and racist".

Reagan's attacks on racism extended only as far as the extremist fringe, never to those he counted as his political base or allies. Palin echoes his political evasion. Still, the NAACP's resolution suggests a tendency to view any conservative movement as a resurgence of massive resistance, and to attack it, vigourously, politically and symbollically - evading any possibility of aligning African-American advancement with conservative aims, or effectively isolating truly racially-motivated activists.


*I have discovered another site which has taken on this role enthusiastically.

Palin at Simi Valley?

An Alaskan blogger is reporting the possibility that Sarah Palin is planning to announce her candidacy for president on Reagan's centennial at the Reagan Library. This is the second rumour concerning Palin's announcement and its likely appropriation of Reagan's memory, though now with a new location.

The Reagan Library has become a traditional stopping point for Republican presidential campaigns. George W. Bush, John McCain and Stephen Forbes all visited in the run-up to the 2000 election, and in 2008, the opening and closing primary debates were held there. No candidates have announced there yet, and I personally find it unlikely that the library would allow such an appearance of endorsement - let alone on February 6th, when it may be unwilling to share the limelight. Moreover, this brings to mind another incident, when Palin's people had to deny that she was making her first gubernatorial appearance in Simi Valley last year.

Centering Reagan

The efforts to distance Reagan from contemporary conservatism continue. Cenk Uygur argues clumsily on MSNBC that Obama is more conservative than Reagan was, while Andrew Romano in Newsweek makes a more substantial case for Reagan's moderation, asking "What Would Reagan Really Do?". These are little more than retreads of arguments that have been popping up the past year or two, but it is interesting that the reaction to conservative mythography still has momentum. The question is, when will liberals start believing their own counter-propaganda and start celebrating Reagan as a symbol of moderation, unity and continuity?

18th.

The Siena College Research Institute has released the results of its fifth presidential ranking survey, placing Reagan 18th. The results, collated from the participation of 238 scholars, can be found in pdf here, and some analysis here.

Craig Shirley is hopping mad that Reagan scored so middling, but more so that he ranks below Obama, who came 15th. I'd agree that Obama is a weird presence on the list, and tha his ranking is distorted by the glamour and intensity of contemporary politics, and probably by the progressive bias within academia. I'd also say that the choice of Craig Shirley, a public relations man and former Reagan employee, as a contributor emphasises this. Sensitive to the liberal leanings of historians, or at least the accusation of liberal bias, Siena may have sought the insipid political "balance" found on cable news shows. If I were to rank Shirley on some list, incidentally, he'd gain points for imaginative language - "Reagan put the neck of Soviet communism under the heel of his cowboy boot and crushed the life out of it" - but lose points for forgetting Reagan's important, career-transitioning autobiography, Where's the Rest of Me?, in his effort to portray Obama's memoirs as narcissistic self promotion.

Nevertheless, I also agree that Reagan should be higher. Looking at the breakdown, it shows that he scored highly in leadership and communication abilities, including his relationship with Congress. Brilliantly, and somewhat ambiguously, he is also ranked the third luckiest president. He is let down by his judicial and executive appointments, which may be a bit harsh, but the tendency towards the ideologically correct over the morally and legally scrupulous was certainly damning. He also scores very low, 34th, on "background", explained as "family, education and experience". Quite how you rank a presidential family, I don't know, and Reagan's education seems to me pretty average. He was, though, an immensely experienced presidential candidate - a two term Californian governor and union leader, a corporate insider and cultural elite.

His position is also let down by an unreasonably average score on "imagination". Did political hacks like LBJ, JFK, Clinton - and Obama - really have stronger imaginations than Reagan? The man was trained in Hollywood, for gooodness' sake. On "integrity", he comes a below average 26th, which on balance I think is fair. He had considerable personal integrity, but this was undermined by a lack of self-awareness, and it was not a quality which defined his often illusory, deceptive presidency. Finally, Reagan's lowest score is on "intelligence", where he comes 36th, 7th from bottom. Reagan's intelligence is often underestimated, so this seems unfair, but it is, after all, an illustrious list with many bright people on it.

As Shirley points out, on the polls which measure the public's ranking of presidents, Reagan has recently put in some very high appearances. I don't think this demonstrates the worthlessness and out-of-touch elitism of this list, though, but it suggests to me a category which is not included in the survey, and which might improve Reagan's score. There should be room for measuring a president's "resonance" or "remembrance" or even just "legacy". Presidents can still lead and wield symbolic power long after they are gone, and it is then that they become iconic and "great". Lincoln and Washington were successful and extraordinary executives, for example, but their greatness lies in their continued imprint on American politics and identity. An acknowledgement of Reagan's lasting power, whatever his political or personal mediocrities, should elevate him to a more suitable position in the top dozen presidents.