# Dems Salivated Over Reagan? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 23, 2012, 1:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dems-salivated-over-reagan/610392 "2012-01-23T13:30:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Jas09](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d07c76/32.png) [@Jas09](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jas09)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2012, 1:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dems-salivated-over-reagan/610392/1 "2012-01-23T13:30:14Z")
I heard this claim again on NPR this morning (that Democrats salivated over facing Reagan in 1980) and that they should be careful what they wish for when dreaming about facing Newt Gingrich. This raised a few questions to me: Did Democrats really salivate over Reagan or is this just myth-making? Any cites? Based on Carter’s approval ratings in Jan 1980 it must have been obvious that he was vulnerable. It’s not like Reagan was a political neophyte (former Governor, ran for POTUS in 1976). Gingrich, on the other hand, seems to have exceptional high national disapproval ratings and has never won a state-wide election or served in a high post in the executive or served in the military. Do we have numbers for Reagan approval/disapproval in Jan 1980? Or any head-to-head match-ups against Carter (the current head-to-head average has Obama up 11 or so over Newt).? ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2012, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dems-salivated-over-reagan/610392/2 "2012-01-23T13:50:14Z")
I don’t recall anyone “salivating” over Reagan’s candidacy, or thinking he would be a pushover. But Reagan was viewed as someone who had tried for the presidency…and failed. Witness this MAD Magazine fake ad from the 1960s: [http://www.madcoversite.com/mad131.html](http://www.madcoversite.com/mad131.html) (It’s parodying a Rum ad of the time). Of course, people had the same attitude towards Nixon after his 1960 defeat by Kennedy, and he came back just eight years later. ---
**Author:** ![thelabdude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/dc4da7/32.png) [@thelabdude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelabdude)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2012, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dems-salivated-over-reagan/610392/3 "2012-01-23T14:17:01Z")
I think some Democrats viewed Reagan as a looney they could demolish. What they failed to understand was ‘‘the great communicator’’. I had a brother in law that loved Kennedy and hated Nixon. When Nixon was president, my BIL said what was important about a president was to be able to give a speech rallying the people to feel good about the country. Well, when he got one that could, he hated Reagan. I don’t see any of the current crop of republicans as having the ability to over the heads of the news media and tell their story directly the people. While they are an improvement over Mclain, I don’t see any of them as understanding the problem and presenting their solution to the public. How can the early states go for the unelectable? Reagan strongly believed in American exceptionalism and rallied the people behind him. I think as we get to the general election we may have a shortage of clothespins. ---
**Author:** ![howye](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a9adbd/32.png) [@howye](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/howye)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2012, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dems-salivated-over-reagan/610392/4 "2012-01-23T14:36:45Z")
Don’t forget two things: Newt ain’t no Regan and Obama ain’t no Carter. Reagan communicated a message of hope and a brighter day, now who in this year’s race do we think has a message like that? Newt’s only message is going to be hate and despair, and the bad things that will happen if you don’t elect him. Obama is better campaigner than Carter, than Newt, than Reagan. I truly hope Newt wins the nomination. The resulting campaign is going to scare the pants off of every moderate in this country and maybe in four years we can have an opposition party that isn’t batshit crazy. ---
**Author:** ![Enlightening\_Meditation](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ecc23a/32.png) [@Enlightening\_Meditation](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enlightening_Meditation)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2012, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dems-salivated-over-reagan/610392/5 "2012-01-23T14:44:22Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > Of course, people had the same attitude towards Nixon after his 1960 defeat by Kennedy, and he came back just eight years later. And that was a common pattern in later years: GHW Bush, Dole, McCain, possibly Romney. But, no one knew that in 1980. [QUOTE=thelabdude] I think some Democrats viewed Reagan as a looney they could demolish [/QUOTE] If I recall, Carter was ahead in polls until a couple weeks before the election, when polls showed a dead heat. Then, Reagan won by a comfortable margin. I’ve heard that, prior to Reagan’s nomination, the Dems felt Howard Baker would be a tougher challenge than Reagan. “Salivated” may be an exaggeration. Gingrich has almost no chance of nomination. He’s much more of a divider than a uniter. The establishment and moderate Republicans hate him. Social conservatives are split on Gingrich; some of them eat up the red meat while others recognize him as a wildly inconsistent conservative. Newt’s speakership was marred with scandal, incendiary grandstanding, awkward leadership, and general insanity. His rhetoric plays well in South Carolina, but that won’t prevail in the majority of states. The Romney machine is formidable despite Mitt’s out-of-touch persona. [QUOTE=howye] Don’t forget two things: Newt ain’t no Regan and Obama ain’t no Carter. [/QUOTE] Precisely. Reagan appealed to all of the main factions: religious right, fiscal conservatives, and war hawks. ---
**Author:** ![John\_DiFool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_difool/32/19543_2.png) [@John\_DiFool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_DiFool)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2012, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dems-salivated-over-reagan/610392/6 "2012-01-23T14:45:27Z")
> [@howye](#): > > Don’t forget two things: Newt ain’t no Regan and Obama ain’t no Carter. [Cue image of Newt Gingrich’s head slowly turning 360 degrees…] ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2012, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dems-salivated-over-reagan/610392/7 "2012-01-23T14:48:49Z")
> [@howye](#): > > Reagan communicated a message of hope and a brighter day, now who in this year’s race do we think has a message like that? Newt’s only message is going to be hate and despair, and the bad things that will happen if you don’t elect him. I wouldn’t say that. Newt’s spent the last ten years talking about how we can all be billionaires if we only do _this_, _this_ and _this._ That’s a pretty hopeful message, even if it’s stupid and wrong, and he’ll probably go back to it for the general election (if he wins, which he won’t). ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2012, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dems-salivated-over-reagan/610392/8 "2012-01-23T14:54:50Z")
I have to admit, if there _was_ a Reagan equivalent among the Republicans with a positive message… yikes. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2012, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dems-salivated-over-reagan/610392/9 "2012-01-23T15:05:55Z")
Oh, I don’t know. Santorum’s message that I don’t have to use a condom when I boink my wife is pretty positive, in a way. ---
**Author:** ![Jas09](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d07c76/32.png) [@Jas09](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jas09)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2012, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dems-salivated-over-reagan/610392/10 "2012-01-23T15:14:31Z")
> [@Enlightening\_Meditation](#): > > If I recall, Carter was ahead in polls until a couple weeks before the election, when polls showed a dead heat. Then, Reagan won by a comfortable margin. Yeah, I recall hearing this. I wonder if there’s a way to dig up some numbers on it. Off to Google… > [@](#): > > I’ve heard that, prior to Reagan’s nomination, the Dems felt Howard Baker would be a tougher challenge than Reagan. “Salivated” may be an exaggeration. This is what I’m looking for. Cokie Roberts used precisely the phrase “salivated” and I’ve heard similar many many times (it’s practically a meme on right-wing boards). A quote of some Dem official or representative saying something like that would be great, but it stinks of hindsight-aided myth-making to me. Surely a president with a 39% approval rating against the former governor of California isn’t a gimmee. I do see how Baker could be seen as a more formidable opponent in a general. > [@](#): > > Gingrich has almost no chance of nomination. He’s much more of a divider than a uniter. The establishment and moderate Republicans hate him. Social conservatives are split on Gingrich; some of them eat up the red meat while others recognize him as a wildly inconsistent conservative. Newt’s speakership was marred with scandal, incendiary grandstanding, awkward leadership, and general insanity. His rhetoric plays well in South Carolina, but that won’t prevail in the majority of states. The Romney machine is formidable despite Mitt’s out-of-touch persona. I agree with all of your descriptions, and have been saying Mitt would be the nominee for months now. But if Newt can hold anything like his cross-tabs from SC he will win FL easily as well (even accounting for the demographic differences). And what is Mitt’s third firewall if that happens? Super Tuesday? Isn’t there the possibility that the GOP base really is this polarized at this point that they would nominate Gingrich just to give the finger to the media? Anyways, thanks for the responses. If anybody has a cited quote of someone wanting Carter to face Reagan or polling that indicated he would lose badly circa Jan 1980 that would be great. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2012, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dems-salivated-over-reagan/610392/11 "2012-01-23T15:28:58Z")
My recollection has always been that polling showed Carter and Reagan close til the end (quick google search you can find newspaper articles from 11/3 showing Carter and Reagan in a dead heat.) If the story is true at all, the White House conducted a final poll right before the election, instead of the typical sample size of 700 it involved 30,000 respondents. Apparently the results of the poll came in and Carter’s advisers basically went to him and said, “Sir, you’re going to lose, and you’re going to lose all over the entire country.” I’ve always heard the Carter campaign were the first ones to know he had lost and that he would lose big. ---
**Author:** ![Jas09](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d07c76/32.png) [@Jas09](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jas09)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2012, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dems-salivated-over-reagan/610392/12 "2012-01-23T15:42:10Z")
I did find one second-hand reference in one of Nate Silver’s [old posts](http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/16/what-early-presidential-polls-tell-us/): > [@](#): > > Mr. Nyhan reports that at this point in 1979, Mr. Reagan’s ratings were 38 percent favorable, against 39 percent unfavorable. However, his favorability ratings were fairly strong by mid-summer 1980, and he soundly defeated Jimmy Carter later that year. “This point” was Feb 1979 (which jibes with the other NYT cite I found that had Carter winning easily in Jan 1979). Certainly that’s nothing like the roughly -40 approve/disapprove Newt has nationally. ---
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2012, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dems-salivated-over-reagan/610392/13 "2012-01-23T16:32:33Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > My recollection has always been that polling showed Carter and Reagan close til the end (quick google search you can find newspaper articles from 11/3 showing Carter and Reagan in a dead heat.) If the story is true at all, the White House conducted a final poll right before the election, instead of the typical sample size of 700 it involved 30,000 respondents. > > Apparently the results of the poll came in and Carter’s advisers basically went to him and said, “Sir, you’re going to lose, and you’re going to lose all over the entire country.” I’ve always heard the Carter campaign were the first ones to know he had lost and that he would lose big. Carter lost by almost ten points. Even a poll with a small sample size should have no problem predicting that. FWIW, wikipeida cites one poll result: > [@](#): > > Immediately after the conclusion of the primaries, a Gallup poll held that Reagan was ahead, with 58% of voters upset by Carter’s handling of the Presidency. So at least in the beginning of the campaign, Reagan was known to have a substantial lead. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2012, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dems-salivated-over-reagan/610392/14 "2012-01-23T17:11:23Z")
No, you see Reagan could win CA, which was HUGE and scary. ---
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2012, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dems-salivated-over-reagan/610392/15 "2012-01-23T17:23:32Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > No, you see Reagan could win CA, which was HUGE and scary. Why? CA was fairly reliably in the GOP’s column until the 90’s. It went for Ford over Carter, for example. ---
**Author:** ![howye](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a9adbd/32.png) [@howye](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/howye)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2012, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dems-salivated-over-reagan/610392/16 "2012-01-23T17:37:55Z")
> [@John\_DiFool](#): > > [Cue image of Newt Gingrich’s head slowly turning 360 degrees…] Well, thanks for that image. I have no excuse. I was sick and on cold medicine. So, I guess I do have excuses. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2012, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dems-salivated-over-reagan/610392/17 "2012-01-23T17:50:13Z")
> [@Simplicio](#): > > Carter lost by almost ten points. Even a poll with a small sample size should have no problem predicting that. FWIW, wikipeida cites one poll result: Right, but I’ve already said a simple google search reveals that prior to election night, Reagan and Carter were considered to be in a statistical dead heat: > [@](#): > > Reagan’s landslide challenges the pulse-taker profession > For weeks before the presidential election, the gurus of public opinion polling were nearly unanimous in their findings. In survey after survey, they agreed that the coming choice between President Jimmy Carter and Challenger Ronald Reagan was “too close to call.” A few points at most, they said, separated the two major contenders. > But when the votes were counted, the former California Governor had defeated Carter by a margin of 51% to 41% in the popular vote—a rout for a U.S. presidential race. In the electoral college, the… > Read more: [http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,924541,00.html#ixzz1kIxYxhX7](http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,924541,00.html#ixzz1kIxYxhX7) (You have to pay to access Time’s archives to read more than this.) Further, this _wasn’t that long ago_ I actually lived through that election and **I** remember it being a statistical dead heat. This isn’t like an argument about Truman v. Dewey, I can’t be the only doper that remembers the election of 1980. ---
**Author:** ![Linden\_Arden](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/53a042/32.png) [@Linden\_Arden](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Linden_Arden)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2012, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dems-salivated-over-reagan/610392/18 "2012-01-23T17:51:09Z")
Reagan was the first GOP beneficiary of the Moral Majority. Before Reagan, Christian fundamentalists did not vote as a block and many Southern Democrats were in that camp. Like him or not, Jerry Falwell was very effective as a community organizer. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2012, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dems-salivated-over-reagan/610392/19 "2012-01-23T17:52:59Z")
[Here](http://www.amstat.org/sections/SRMS/proceedings/papers/1981_011.pdf) (PDF) is a lengthy article about the polling in the 1980 election, that should fully inform anyone who is curious about the matter. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2012, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dems-salivated-over-reagan/610392/20 "2012-01-23T18:49:22Z")
I was of voting age during the 1980 race and I don’t remember Dems “salivating” over Reagan being Carter’s opponent. Too many things were going wrong during the Carter Presidency for any Republican to be viewed as a pushover.\* I think there was a certain sense that Reagan was something of a lightweight, being an ex-B movie actor with a mixed record as California governor. The comparisons between Newt and Reagan strike me as off base, mostly because Reagan was viewed by a lot of people as being a congenial and likable sort, and Newt is anything but. \*it would be well for Democrats to have the same sense of caution this time around. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dems-salivated-over-reagan/610392.md?page=2)