“It’s a rite of passage for Republican White House aspirants to invoke Reagan“, wrote CNN’s Stephen Collinson.
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As Americans consider the aftermath of the second Republican debate maybe they should take a note from one of the most beloved leaders of our time and consider the dignity of the office these candidates are running for.
That speech, made in January 1989 by an unwavering, twinkly-eyed President Reagan, is intercut with clips of three GOP candidates announcing their proposals regarding immigration, for a commercial put out by a heavyweight immigration reform group. Demonstrated fluency on foreign and economic policy.
Rand Paul: He got very little time, and the only thing he’ll be remembered for is a Trump insult about his poll numbers and looks.
“Iran they had our hostages”. But it’s an oversimplification to say Reagan succeeded purely with stalwart, timeless conservatism. Walker, like Carson, began a response with “That’s not what I said“, which is always a weak way to respond: Only Trump can pull it off. “We need someone who can actually get the job done”. He told gatherings of people, “We must be strong to the point that no country on the planet will set out lift a hand against us”. Was he a government-shrinking, undocumented immigrant-bashing, climate change-denying, abortion-curbing political granddaddy of today’s Republican presidential hopefuls?
Kept his focus on middle class voters, memorably criticizing Fiorina and Trump arguing over the business resumes, saying struggling Americans “could care less”. “It makes things simple”.
On Saturday, Jeb Bush opened his shirt at a campaign event in Florida to reveal a 1984 Reagan-Bush T-shirt. He had no qualms about pointing out the occasionally stark policy distinctions between himself and Gerald Ford in the 1976 Republican primaries, such as how each proposed to deal with the then Soviet Union. “They all co-opt Ronald Reagan but they don’t realize Ronald Regan’s strength was communication”.
Bush is not the only candidate keen to draw personal connections to the Gipper.
“I know who my grandpa is, but nobody else my age knows who Ronald Reagan is”, he said.
“It wouldn’t matter if she were on the other side politically”, Ron Reagan added. Ted Cruz, who propose ending birthright citizenship.
“It’s going to be no-holds-barred”, said Reagan biographer Craig Shirley.
For the GOP, Reagan is not just a name but an adjective connoting virtue and conservative ideological purity.
And SoCal has some emerging political street art.
“It appears there were a lot of challenges [in California] that we didn’t have”, said Matt Borges, chairman of the Ohio Republican Party, which co-hosted the Cleveland debate with Fox News. Candidates should talk not about what Obama did wrong, but what they will do to make the future better.
He’s often remembered now as affable.
Such rhetoric leads Schlapp to scoff at the idea that Reagan would perish in today’s GOP.
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He was also a larger-than-life outsider with memorable one-liners who projected authenticity and a desire to shake up Washington, a case study for Donald Trump, who in customary self-aggrandizing manner said Reagan admired him, inverting the notion of homage. “He would clean their clock”.
