How well-liked was Reagan?

[Love Rhombus]

I ask this out of a sense of curiosity, not having experienced those years myself. What I've absorbed over the years was that he was liked personally, and things that might have raised a stink otherwise were sort of ignored. Can you give me a "snapshot" of how he was depicted and thought of, and the reality? I was going to ask if he was a "good" President, but that seemed too GD.

[BoringDad]

Originally Posted by Sam Hell

I ask this out of a sense of curiosity, not having experienced those years myself. What I've absorbed over the years was that he was liked personally, and things that might have raised a stink otherwise were sort of ignored. Can you give me a "snapshot" of how he was depicted and thought of, and the reality? I was going to ask if he was a "good" President, but that seemed too GD.

I assume you mean Reagan. Your view of Reagan was colored by your political persuasion. He was a hero to my conservative Grandpa. I thought he began us down the road to widening the class division in America. And that he was a clueless arrogant... add pitworthy comments here. The whole illegal arms dealing and wars in central america... just not good for America.

Of course, now he looks pretty good when you compare him to George W.

[samclem]

This one is not likely long for GQ, so let's go to Great Debates.

Moved. samclem GQ moderator

[John Mace]

Ronald Reagan.

I lived thru those years, and although he had his detractors on the left, he was generally well thought of by most Americans, and respected by most politicians on either side of the aisle. Things weren't nearly as nasty in those days, those

His approval rating took a hit during the Iran Contra scandal, but he left office with a 64% approval rating. In his re-election effort in '84, he won 49 of 50 state (he only lost Mondale's home state), and won the popular vote by 60%.

[Diogenes the Cynic]

The media was very protective of Reagan and glossed over his role in Iran-Contra, That helped him to retain his ok approval ratings despite his rank incompetence and his scandal-ridden administration.

From what I remember, people tended to give Reagan a pass for the corruption in his administration because they perceived him as being out of the loop- a pleasant but senile old man who had little awareness of what was actually going on around him. People simply did not expect him to know the difference beween truth and fantasy so he was not held accountable for lying about things like arms for hostages or claiming that trees cause air pollution. He was the nice but addled grampa prattling nonsense. People liked him but didn't take him seriously.

[Sailboat]

Interesting that you should spell it Regan. Regan is the classic Irish spelling, and Ronald Regan changed the way he spelled his last name from Regan to Reagan to seem less ethnically Irish -- not for politics, I think, but when he was an actor.

During his later political career, Irish-Americans generally embraced him despite this decision to downplay his Irish heritage.

Sailboat

[Diogenes the Cynic]

Regan was also the name of the possessed girl in The Exorcist.

[BrainGlutton]

Originally Posted by Sailboat

Interesting that you should spell it Regan. Regan is the classic Irish spelling, and Ronald Regan changed the way he spelled his last name from Regan to Reagan to seem less ethnically Irish -- not for politics, I think, but when he was an actor.

To add to the confusion, there was also a Donald Regan who served in Reagan's administration, as Treasury Secretary during his first term and WH Chief of Staff during his second. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Regan

[BrainGlutton]

Originally Posted by Diogenes the Cynic

Regan was also the name of the possessed girl in The Exorcist.

Arrgghh! Arrgghh! Damn you, Brezhnev! Your mother sucks cock on Wall Street!

[MaxTheVool]

One comment I have on Reagan's legacy is that since him, it's become increasingly accepted that the president might just be a kind of figurehead, with the real decisions being made behind the scenes. Whatever you might say about Carter, I think it's generally accepted that he was the driving intellectual idea man in his administration.

Now we're in a state where it surprises us when our president actually reads and understands the policy questions, and can extemporaneously answer difficult questions about a wide range of topics, foreign and domestic. The fact that being well educated and intelligent and eloquent and literate are now, to a certain extent, DRAWBACKS for a presidential candidate can be traced to Reagan's legacy.


The best summary, I think, is that he was the Teflon President. He got (and gets) all the credit in the world for his personality and general "leadership", while skipping out on the blame for all the bad things that happened on his watch. Whether his presidency actually did more good than bad is certainly debatable, but the ridiculous adulation which he receives is just preposterously unreasonable.

[BrainGlutton]

Originally Posted by MaxTheVool

One comment I have on Reagan's legacy is that since him, it's become increasingly accepted that the president might just be a kind of figurehead, with the real decisions being made behind the scenes. Whatever you might say about Carter, I think it's generally accepted that he was the driving intellectual idea man in his administration.

And I think most people believe(d) the same, rightly or wrongly, about Bush I and Clinton -- that they ran and led their own administrations. (In fact, a friend of mine is absolutely convinced that Bush I is the real acting president now and Bush II merely his puppet.) But you're right, Reagan did set a dangerous or at least depressing precedent.

[jayjay]

Yep, Reagan WAS the original Teflon President. Nothing stuck. And not like it is today with Bush II, where the White House and its unofficially affiliated organs have to spin like endorphin-addicted hamsters on crack to keep him from drowning under a pile of his own crap, but actual shiny-surface, can't see a speck of dust, squeaky clean with no real effort whatsoever Teflon.

[What Exit?]

Reagan was well liked overall. He had many corrupt appointees but so did every other 2 term president. He was unfortunately basically senile for the last 2 years in office. His wife was not well liked. Nancy approval rating was probably in the low 40's.

The military loved Reagan. He rebuilt the military; he was a strong hawk and reestablished our dominance around the world. He built the Navy to the largest & most powerful peacetime fleet ever. He won the unwinnable Cold War. For this I forgive him much.

He had terrible domestic policies but the economy was strong while he was President and this helped his approval rating. People stopped fearing nuclear war as inevitable and this helped his approval rating.

He had good and bad sides. In many ways his popularity was like Clinton’s. Many loved him and many hated.
He was much better than either Bush or Carter.

Iran-Contra was bad but small potatoes compare to an illegal war in Iraq over invisible pink WMDs or the Kennedy/Johnson/Nixon debacle of Vietnam. I think it was more serious that Lewiskygate, but less than WaterGate.



Disclaimer: He was my CIC as I was in Navy 1985-1989.

[Plan B]

I was a Libertarian all eight of his years. I thought he was a fool and a jerk at the time. But a lot of people I respect have a lot of respect for him so I softened my view a bit recently.

[John Mace]

Originally Posted by jrfranchi

He had terrible domestic policies but the economy was strong while he was President and this helped his approval rating.

He should get as much credit for his domestic policies being the CAUSE of the strong economy as Clinton gets for his. I'm no fan of the idea that Presidents create good economies, but if you believe in the Clinton years of prosperity, you should also believe in the Reagan years.

As for his "terrible domestic policies", that depends on your idea of what good/bad domestic policies are. And if they were indeed terrible, why did he win such a landslide re-election in '84? Some people obviously thought they were good.

[Diogenes the Cynic]

Reagan had double digit unemployment and quadrupled the national debt. He overspent on the military and on his asinine Star Wars magical missile shield. Trickle down economics was a miserable failure. His economy sucked.

[What Exit?]

Originally Posted by John Mace

He should get as much credit for his domestic policies being the CAUSE of the strong economy as Clinton gets for his. I'm no fan of the idea that Presidents create good economies, but if you believe in the Clinton years of prosperity, you should also believe in the Reagan years.

As for his "terrible domestic policies", that depends on your idea of what good/bad domestic policies are. And if they were indeed terrible, why did he win such a landslide re-election in '84? Some people obviously thought they were good.

Geez; I liked him as a president, do I have to be completely glowing in my review. Why don't you pick on someone who hated him?
My main complaints were the escalating deficits and James Watts as Secretary of the Interior.
I even liked his VP, go figure. I thought having a professional trusted VP was a good idea. I liked the fact the George Bush got good reviews for his years as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency.
Reagan and Clinton were both good cheerleaders for the economy, they said the Economy was good and that in itself, seemed to promote consumer confidence. W said the economy was terrible and consumer faith was shaken. In that regard the presidents do seem to have an effect on the economy. I know it is far more complicated, but the do have an impact.

[What Exit?]

John Mace: You would be better off debating DTC, he is much stronger in his views than I and very much the opposite your views.

[RickJay]

Originally Posted by Diogenes the Cynic

Reagan had double digit unemployment and quadrupled the national debt. He overspent on the military and on his asinine Star Wars magical missile shield. Trickle down economics was a miserable failure. His economy sucked.

Of course, the double digit unemployment happened during the first two years of his term; by the end of his time in office unemployment had dropped considerably. You can't possibly pin unemployment problems on Reagan; that is one indicator that improved, by a lot, during his watch.

[furt]

His personal approval ratings were always very high, even among voters who disagreed with his policies, probably because his sunny optimism was a welcome change from 70s pessimism. He projected warmth, confidence and a sense of humor, and most of the nation respected that.

However, there were plenty of people then saying the sorts of harshly critical things some are saying here. He was viciously hated by many on the hard left; and he had a very adversarial relationship with Democrats in Congress. It was not as bad as things are with W, in part because he was so popular with the voters, in part because his cheerful personality simply made him a hard person to demonize.

His relationship with the press as well was largely adversarial, but they too were somewhat disarmed by his popularity with the voters and by his personal charm. Assertions that they were protective of Reagan are frankly absurd; the reality was that he earned the nickname of the "Teflon President" precisely because the Press tried on many occasions to make various allegations or criticisms "stick" to Reagan, but that in the eyes of the people, they never did.

[Paul in Qatar]

The thing is in those days, the GOP was telling people to have a good time. Get rich, buy a yacht (the Democrats were taxing them) do what you like. We'll get out of your way.

Now the Republicans are a bunch of scolds.

Ron came across as a nice old man who did not want to interfere too much in our lives. The Libertarian Wing of of the Party was in ascendence, the Religious Headjob Wing in eclipse. Now the revers is true; George et. al. want to tell us how to live our lives.

Besides unlike all the presidents since, RR could and did make fun of himself. Can you imagine Bill Clinton making a joke like that?

[zeeny]

Originally Posted by MaxTheVool

One comment I have on Reagan's legacy is that since him, it's become increasingly accepted that the president might just be a kind of figurehead, with the real decisions being made behind the scenes. Whatever you might say about Carter, I think it's generally accepted that he was the driving intellectual idea man in his administration.

Now we're in a state where it surprises us when our president actually reads and understands the policy questions, and can extemporaneously answer difficult questions about a wide range of topics, foreign and domestic. The fact that being well educated and intelligent and eloquent and literate are now, to a certain extent, DRAWBACKS for a presidential candidate can be traced to Reagan's legacy.

I had the idea that this was in great part due to the Nixon-Watergate scandal - a backlash of cynicism leading to lowered expectations of the President. But I'm not old enough to perceive that change (if there was one) first-hand.

Is that true, or did it begin earlier in US history?

[zeeny]

More pertinent to the thread: I disagreed with Reagan's policies, but I didn't dislike him as much as I disliked the attitude of his more rabid supporters at the time.

I have since read that conservatives felt left out prior to the Reagan years, but as one coming of age during his presidency, it felt like my views were the ones being short-changed and disparaged.

Once it was apparent that Reagan was ill, I softened even more. The only change since then were my views on Nancy, his wife. At the time, I saw her as a rightful object of ridicule, but now I have nothing but compassion for her - even though I'm sure I still wouldn't agree with her on most issues. But IMO, for her, it wasn't political at all - she simply loved him and was loyal to him regardless of personal cost to her own political image.

It is a great shame that we were denied Reagan's (rational) thoughts on what transpired after his presidency. I often wonder what his real feelings were, at the time, and in retrospect - should he have had the luxury of expounding on them.

He did seem to have a well-developed sense of humor, and that is saying a lot for a President. I haven't seen it since - a small but perhaps significant point.

[Mesquite-oh]

I found Ronald Reagan both fascinating and annoying at the same time (though not necessarily his fault). As my college entrance essay, I wrote about the challenges of his second term.

I definitely saw him as a cheerleader rather than a gutsy decision maker. I perceived him as being "out of the loop" most of the time. I believed that other people in the administration would make the decisions and he would come out and seem so happy about it in a grandpa kinda way. He made people feel good about things. His optimism and his “pull yourself up by the bootstraps” attitude was infectious

However, I also perceived him as being the grasshopper happily playing the fiddle, not worrying about tomorrow. The administration (or was it the culture) seemed to be telling everyone to spend all you got and acquire as much stuff as you can- debt be damned! Buy that big house and that expensive car- the dreary and tense 70's are over- don't worry be happy! I was also concerned that there was not enough trickling down to the people that I knew.

I can't recall any Democrat with any kind of charisma or star power at the time. Reagan was head and shoulders above everyone, he couldn't be challenged by anyone on the national stage.

He labeled the Soviets the "Evil Empire." Hating something in common brings people together. I was a democrat and I despised the Soviet Union. I felt so close to Ol' Ron.

What annoyed me was how people mindlessly fawned over him like he was some kind of savior. Compare it to the way that some people currently fawn over Oprah and everything she does and says. I shared a house with a couple of College republicans at the time, they were so enamored with him, it was difficult to engage them in any kind of serious conversations without them getting all love struck. He could do no wrong in a lot of conservative’s eyes.

[John Mace]

Originally Posted by Diogenes the Cynic

Reagan had double digit unemployment and quadrupled the national debt.

The unemployment rate for Reagan's term was:

81: 7.6
82: 9.7
83: 9.6
84: 7.5
85: 7.2
86: 7.0
87: 6.2
88: 5.5

The '82 recession was engineered to break the back of inflation (actually, stagflation) from the Ford/Carter years. I'll leave it to the reader to determine if unemployment was a plus or a minus for Reagan. Your plopping out of one data point is laughable in it's obvious partisan spin. No context, no analysis, just pick the absolute single worst possible data point, and hope no one looks behind the curtain. The folks at FoxNews are blushing...

He overspent on the military and on his asinine Star Wars magical missile shield.

How much, exactly, was spent on SDI?

Trickle down economics was a miserable failure. His economy sucked.

I'll post actual data instead of opinion. Is that OK?

Real economic growth averaged 3.2% per year during Reagan's terms.

The economic upturn beginning in 1982 was the longest peacetime expansion of the economy since WWII.

Interest rates went from 10.4% in 1980 to 4.2% in 1988.

Yeah, that economy sure sucked.

[Leviosaurus]

He had this father figure attitude that appealed to a lot of people. Many of the rest of us found it to be particularly grating. I think that had a lot to do with the "Love him or hate him" divide.

In 1984 my high school held a mock election where we all voteds for Mondale or Reagan. I remember one of the posters the Reagan support group put up in the main hallway simply read "Uncle Ronny" in letters two feet high. That says a lot right there about the way he was percieved.

He had a terrific understanding of the way the public recieved and processed information, no doubt gleaned from years in show business, and he used it like a surgeon to craft his image. The incident that stands out most in my mind was actually a minor event, but typical of how Reagan operated. He pushed an economic package through congress which included cuts to a huge number of social programs, but the cuts were buried under tons of obsfucating paperwork, and it took a bunch of economists to explain it. The day it was voted on, the White House released a bunch of video footage of some rocket tests from the Star Wars program. Impressive looking stuff, too, although it was meaningless in terms of actual news.

Remember that most everyone got their news from the major network news broadcasts. What do you suppose their lead story was that night? You guessed it, meaningless rocket footage. I remember CBS played the same footage twice because it looked so cool. Dan Rather said something to the effect of "They aren't allowed to tell us what the results of these tests mean, just that they are very significant."

After the rocket test circus act was over, the newscasts turned to the economic package, and the story consisted of five minutes of economists droning on in monotone about the significance of the cuts contained therein. The next morning, everybody remembered the rocket footage and nobody remembered the economist's report. Through skillful manipulation, Reagan had effectively killed any national dialog about his economic package.

I don't mean to relate this story as a criticism, just an observation of how the guy operated. He was entertaining! He called the USSR the "Evil Empire" and he made everyone feel like he was the only one who could save us from them. He made the Democrats, with their complaints about his economic policies, look dull, annoying, and they appeared to be focused on the wrong priorities. He was like a magician, making you look in the direction he wanted you to, while ignoring what he wanted you to ignore. That's why they called him "The Great Communicator". If you agreed with his policies, you admired this and thought he was a genius. If you didn't like his policies and recognized what he was doing, you thought he was the devil incarnate. Either way he was quite a guy.

[Paul in Qatar]

Exactly! "Heck of a guy."

I read Kitty Kelly's book on Nancy. No matter what KK said (and how she said it) I grew more impressed with Ron. Hell of a come-back story if nothing else.

I would compare him to LBJ. Love him or hate him, he was larger than life.

[BoringDad]

Originally Posted by John Mace

Real economic growth averaged 3.2% per year during Reagan's terms.

The economic upturn beginning in 1982 was the longest peacetime expansion of the economy since WWII.

Interest rates went from 10.4% in 1980 to 4.2% in 1988.

Yeah, that economy sure sucked.

Yeah, for a lot of us it sure did. Heavy unemployment for half a decade followed by uneven growth that accellerated the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. The key quote in the cite is " The Gini index for households indicates that there has been growing income inequality over the past quarter-century. Inequality grew slowly in the 1970's and rapidly during the early 1980's."

Trickle down was a painful lesson in what did not work for a large portion of America. In the 80's teenagers where I lived couldn't get part time jobs because they were all taken by the grown men trying to support a family. The overall economic numbers can certainly grow even if the growth is slanted towards the high end of the scale.

[Shodan]

Originally Posted by BoringDad

Yeah, for a lot of us it sure did. Heavy unemployment for half a decade followed by uneven growth that accellerated the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer.

I think John Mace has already dealt with the "heavy unemployment" nonsense. The "poor getting poorer" is also wrong.

Originally Posted by BoringDad

The overall economic numbers can certainly grow even if the growth is slanted towards the high end of the scale.

They can also grow if unemployment and poverty decrease.

The Reagan years are when I learned that some people will always spin numbers against whoever they don't like. If there is major job growth, that is terrible because they are entry-level jobs and therefore low paying. If the job growth occurs in high-paying sectors, that is worse because poor people don't have the qualifications to get those jobs. General economic growth is bad because it leads to income inequality. Etc.

Not that it only comes from one side of the aisle, but still....

Regards,
Shodan

[Sal Ammoniac]

Reagan was a particularly polarizing figure, as I remember. My sense was that your like or dislike for him was almost entirely driven by your ideology. I also seem to remember that people generally had had enough of him by the time his second term ended. I think he gets a bit of a retrospective gloss because of his battle with Alzheimer's, and because people have a tendency to look back fondly at years when they were younger.

[What Exit?]

Originally Posted by Sal Ammoniac

Reagan was a particularly polarizing figure, as I remember. My sense was that your like or dislike for him was almost entirely driven by your ideology. I also seem to remember that people generally had had enough of him by the time his second term ended. I think he gets a bit of a retrospective gloss because of his battle with Alzheimer's, and because people have a tendency to look back fondly at years when they were younger.

No matter what, far more people liked Reagan than either Bush, Carter or Nixon.
His popularity was generally higher than Clinton's.
I can't speak to Johnson and JFK was granted near Sainthood after his assassination, so it is hard to get a good perspective on him.
As JFK is generally considered the first TV President, that is probably far enough back.
Wasn’t Johnson very disliked? I think that was why he bowed out of the 1968 election.

[John Mace]

Originally Posted by Sal Ammoniac

I also seem to remember that people generally had had enough of him by the time his second term ended.

You're memory is wrong, and that's why it's better to stick to the facts. As per my first post in this thread (#4), his approval rating was 64% when he left office. It's highly unlikely that Bush Sr would ever have been elected if people generally disapproved of Reagan. People generally had had enough of Bush by the time he stood for re-election, and he got booted.

[John Mace]

Originally Posted by jrfranchi

Wasn’t Johnson very disliked? I think that was why he bowed out of the 1968 election.

I don't know if he was "disliked", but the war in Vietnam was his undoing. He was a very good politician, and was used to getting what he wanted, Texas style. He knew the Senate in and out.

[plnnr]

Originally Posted by John Mace

And if they were indeed terrible, why did he win such a landslide re-election in '84? Some people obviously thought they were good.

Because the machinery of getting elected and the machinery of running a country are two entirely different things.

[Love Rhombus]

JFK was all Camelot during his term, but later the bad stuff leaked out, like the drugs and the women and the Mafia ties. Re(a)gan was apparently similarly lionized, then and now. Clinton never was, the bad stuff was out as soon as it happened. Interesting.

[What Exit?]

Originally Posted by plnnr

Because the machinery of getting elected and the machinery of running a country are two entirely different things.

This OP was not on whether Reagan was a good President, just

How well-liked was Reagan?

(I'm glad someone fixed the title)

He was well liked by a larger percentage than any recent President.

Why he was good or bad is really a different thread.
Why you liked/disliked him is your opinion and please express your reasons here.
You seem to be starting a new debate with your post above.

[What Exit?]

Originally Posted by Sam Hell

JFK was all Camelot during his term, but later the bad stuff leaked out, like the drugs and the women and the Mafia ties. Re(a)gan was apparently similarly lionized, then and now. Clinton never was, the bad stuff was out as soon as it happened. Interesting.

In my readings, I got the impression that many were not overjoyed with JFK and he did win by the smallest margin until the 2000 election.
It seemed like his detractors clammed up for many years after his assassination out of respect for the office.
Wasn’t part of the Texas appearance to shore up his own popularity?

[plnnr]

[quote=jrfranchi]This OP was not on whether Reagan was a good President, just (I'm glad someone fixed the title)

My post was in response to John Mace's comment about him winning landslide elections. I'll be the first to admit that he was very well liked by alot of people - that made him easily electable. Warren G. Harding was well-liked as well - he was an affable, good looking guy that was completely in over his head as President (by his own admission).

[XT]

During his term Reagan was VERY well liked by a pretty diverse group of folks. Oh, there were a few nay sayers (such as those in this thread) who couldn't stand the man and would do or say anything, accurate or not, against him. But over all it was surprising (too me) the diversity of the people who had good things to say of him at the time (this has since changed somewhat as a lot of 'liberals' have attempted through various means to discredit him...'asleep at the switch', 'puppet', and 'had Alzheimer's while in office and knew not what he did' being some of the current crop served up).

Whats really interesting to me is how the various partisans have a hard time understanding each other...though they act exactly the same in their responses. The 'left' can't see why Reagan was so revered, especially by those on the right but actually by a lot of folks from all walks of life, despite his many flaws. The 'right' can't see why Clinton was so revered, especially by those on the left, but also, again, buy a lot of folks from all walks of life, and again despite his many flaws. Both sides go to sometimes ridiculous lengths to discredit the others president while leaping through lots of hoops to support theirs. Its actually kind of funny to me to watch the contortions.

-XT

[John Mace]

Originally Posted by plnnr

My post was in response to John Mace's comment about him winning landslide elections. I'll be the first to admit that he was very well liked by alot of people - that made him easily electable. Warren G. Harding was well-liked as well - he was an affable, good looking guy that was completely in over his head as President (by his own admission).

Reagan was well liked. Harding was well liked and incompitent. Therefore, Reagan was incompetent. Yeah, we get what you're trying to imply. Problem is, there's a little logical fallacy that gets in the way of that implication.

Reagan being "in over his head" has been debunked over and over. The portrayal of him just being some aged actor pretending to be president makes a nice story, but it simply isn't true. Take the time to read the book of his letters that was published a few years ago, and you'll see that he was a student of government and politics for decades with well thought-out, intelligent postions on important issues.

[plnnr]

Originally Posted by John Mace

Reagan was well liked. Harding was well liked and incompitent. Therefore, Reagan was incompetent. Yeah, we get what you're trying to imply. Problem is, there's a little logical fallacy that gets in the way of that implication.

Reagan being "in over his head" has been debunked over and over. The portrayal of him just being some aged actor pretending to be president makes a nice story, but it simply isn't true. Take the time to read the book of his letters that was published a few years ago, and you'll see that he was a student of government and politics for decades with well thought-out, intelligent postions on important issues.

I've implied nothing of the kind. What I've pointed out that being liked doesn't always translate in to good government.

[XT]

Originally Posted by plnnr

I've implied nothing of the kind. What I've pointed out that being liked doesn't always translate in to good government.

The converse also being true of course...

-XT

[Steve MB]

Originally Posted by John Mace

It's highly unlikely that Bush Sr would ever have been elected if people generally disapproved of Reagan.

I'm not sure how significant that is -- a real bush could have beated Dukakis.

[What Exit?]

Originally Posted by Steve MB

I'm not sure how significant that is -- a real bush could have beated Dukakis.

You might have a point, you know the Dem's need a new rule. No more candidates from Mass.
Dukakis & Kerry what a combo.

I still can't understand how they didn't support Dean more, he could've beat Bush or a bush.

[Paul in Qatar]

It is good to have a new though put in your head now and again.

"Clinton was the Liberal Reagan." That is a new idea for me. Both we flawed but for some reason inspired a huge amount of reverence among their core, and others in society.

I never thought of that comparison before.

[John Mace]

Originally Posted by plnnr

I've implied nothing of the kind.

If you say so...

What I've pointed out that being liked doesn't always translate in to good government.

Not in and of iteself, but it's an important data point. And "good government" is subjective. However, if you have evidence that people voted for Reagan despite his political leanings, let's see it.

[Sal Ammoniac]

Originally Posted by John Mace

You're memory is wrong, and that's why it's better to stick to the facts. As per my first post in this thread (#4), his approval rating was 64% when he left office. It's highly unlikely that Bush Sr would ever have been elected if people generally disapproved of Reagan. People generally had had enough of Bush by the time he stood for re-election, and he got booted.

As you say, it's all about the unreliability of memory. I stand corrected.

[kanicbird]

Just look at his funeral, people waited (IIRC at least) 6hrs to see him. Besides the Pope was there anyone who compaired?

[Liberal]

The US is unique among democracies in that its chief executive is both head of government and head of state. In my opinion, Reagan was a dismal head of government, bloating its size and scope beyond the dreams of avarice. But he was a smashing head of state, rivaling any ever known. He singlehandedly lifted America's morale off the floor, dusted it off, put on the top shelf, and gave it a good new shine.

[MovieMogul]

Originally Posted by Paul in Saudi

Besides unlike all the presidents since, RR could and did make fun of himself. Can you imagine Bill Clinton making a joke like that?

I don't have to imagine it.