Posted on 11/11/2010 2:19:38 PM PST by Brices Crossroads
Whenever Sarah Palin's name is mentioned in the same sentence as Ronald Reagan's, there is a screech of indignation, which generally comes from people who only glommed themselves onto Reagan AFTER he became President. These people used Reagan to advance their own careers, but now set themselves up as experts on all things Reagan and arbiters of who can, and who cannot, be fairly compared to the Gipper. [For example, you never hear such criticisms voiced by those who actually campaigned for Reagan in 1976 like Mark Levin or the "St. Paul of the Conservative Movement", Rush Limbaugh who came after Reagan, but whose fidelity to Reaganism is beyond cavil]
I am referring, of course, to the kerfuffle over "Sarah Palin's Alaska" and the scorn it has received as a "reality show" that is not Presidential, from the likes of Karl Rove, a Bushie who never supported Reagan and, to the extent he did anything, probably worked against him in 1980. Karl Rove is a charter member of the Bush dynasty, which presided over the deconstruction of the great Reagan coalition from 1988 until 2008. As Palin and the Tea Party burst onto the scene to revive and reinvigorate both conservatism and the GOP, the Bush surrogates like Rove and Michael Gerson and others have been quick to slam them both as "lacking gravitas" or "unsophisticated".
In response to the Rovian smear, Palin observed quite correctly that the same species of canard had been aimed at Ronald Reagan, who was derided as an actor who appeared in such movies as Bedtime for Bonzo, co-starring a chimp. In the 1980 campaign, this was a favorite attack against Reagan, employed by (guess who?) George Bush, who used it as a principal piece of evidence to prove that Reagan lacked the "gravitas" (another word borrowed by the serpentine Rove) to be President.
Enter Peggy Noonan, late of the Obama campaign and the lower East Side of Manhattan, to remind us all (as if we needed to be reminded) that Reagan was much more than an actor. He was a "great man", according to Noonan, and Palin is a "nincompoop". Reagan, you see, had been the president of the Screen Actors Guild and served TWO FULL TERMS as governor of California. He had built the conservative movement and had nearly defeated an incumbent President. What Noonan doesn't say is that she was nowhere to be found until well after Reagan became President. She drafted speeches for the Gipper who, I daresay, didn't really need her services. She takes abundant credit for the Challenger speech and for Pointe du Hoc, but a wordsmith like Reagan undoubtedly only needed her for very rough drafts. His columns and radio addresses were outstanding long before Noonan ever darkened his door.
But back to Reagan. What was it that commended Reagan to those of us who supported him for so long, even going back to 1968, when he made his first run for President (and came closer than many people realize to winning the 1968 nomination)? Well, it wasn't principally his time as SAG President, although many of us admired how he stood up to Communists there. This was not a difficult or unusual position to take in the 1950s. What about his two terms as Governor of California? Again, these were never really examined in any detail in his Presidential campaigns and were never really his chief selling point. (Indeed, the state budget doubled under Reagan and he signed a steeply progressive tax increase, as well as a liberal abortion law, which he bitterly regretted; His tenure as governor was basically overlooked by most conservatives and, to the extent it diverged from orthodoxy, it was blamed on his predecessor, Pat Brown, or written off to the giant idiosyncrasy that is California).
http://www.presidentprofiles.com/Kennedy-Bush/Ronald-Reagan-Governor-of-california.html
But Noonan isn't completely wrong. In 1976, Reagan did challenge the Establishment by challenging a sitting President of his own party. And he did build the modern conservative movement.
And Palin? She challenged the same Establishment in 2010. And she is RE-building the conservative movement, the original House of Reagan, so demoralized and decimated by Bush, Rove and company who now have the temerity to give her and us their advice.
I.The three Cs: Charisma, Communications and Courage
Well, then, if not his experience, what were the features that commended Reagan to conservatives as a more or less ideal candidate for President? I believe there are three salient features which Reagan possessed, and which he coincidentally shares with Sarah Palin, that made him such a formidable candidate and such a great President.
First, Reagan had charisma, which is defined as a trait found in individuals whose personalities are characterized by a powerful charm and magnetism (attractiveness). Palin has charisma as well. It is difficult to define but it is a solid gold attribute in a politician and relatively rare among the breed. In my own lifetime, I have seen it in JFK and Reagan but it has been conspicuously absent in most politicians even those who, like Nixon and the Bushes, have attained high office. Reagan and JFK could light up a room, in effect fill it, just by entering. Palin has exactly the same effect.
Second, Reagan had a unique ability to articulate conservative principles in a way that ordinary Americans understood and to inspire and energize voters. Reagan's speech in 1964 in support of Goldwater was more significant to his future success as a candidate for President, and as President, than anything he did in his eight years as Governor. His contributions to the lexicon ("evil empire" and "we win; they lose") are the stuff of legends. Palin shares this ability with the Gipper, and her ability to drive the debate by brilliantly articulating what is at stake, be it the death panels in ObamaCare or the threat to our currency posed by printing money willy nilly, the so-called "quantitative easing"or QE 2.
What about the third, perhaps the most important, of the three traits, courage? Let's take a little walk down memory lane.
II. Reagan and Palin: 1976 and 2010
Courage is perhaps the rarest of character traits for politicians. But it is the single attribute which binds Reagan and Palin most closely. And the two major elections which immediately preceded their White House runs (assuming I am correct that she runs in 2012) are proof positive that when it comes to political courage, Ronald Reagan and Sarah Palin are in a class by themselves.
In 1976, Ronald Reagan challenged the Establishment. Although he failed to secure the nomination for President in 1976, he laid the groundwork for his successful run in 1980. For his trouble, Reagan was blamed for Ford's loss to Jimmy Carter, and he earned the enmity of the Establishment which tried mightily to defeat him in 1980 and only grudgingly tolerated him while he was President.
In 2010, Sarah Palin challenged the Establishment, endorsing numerous Tea Party candidates, many of whom were successful, but some of whom were not. Like Reagan, she struck a blow at the DC establishment, but she did not vanquish it totally. It will try to exact a measure of revenge by blaming Palin for losses in the Senate while failing to credit her for the numerous successes not just in the Senate but in the House and in the Governorships (where she was 7 for 8). As Reagan laid the groundwork for his Presidential run in the unsuccessful 1976 bid, she has laid the groundwork for a 2012 run with a much more successful, although not complete, smashing of the Establishment in the 2010 midterms.
Both Reagan and Palin knew they would be savaged for their actions in 1976 and 2010, respectively. Yet both had the courage to do it because they knew it was both the right thing to do, and because they took the long view. Without 1976, there would have been no 1980 landslide. And without the great victories in the 2010 midterms, and their success in moving not just the country but the Republican caucus to the right, there could be no successful Palin run for the Presidency in 2012.
III. Experience versus the Three Cs.
The keys to Reagan's near miss against Ford in 1976 as well as to his landslide victories and to his great legislative and international successes were his charisma, communications skills and, most especially, his courage. His successes had far less to do with his tenure as Governor. I suspect he sensed this early on, since he tried to wrest the presidential nomination away from Richard Nixon in the spring of 1968 and at the Convention in Miami Beach after barely a year as Governor. Even after only 18 months as governor, I imagine Reagan realized that eight years of bickering with Jess Unruh and the California Assembly had its limits as far as experience was concerned. Ronald Reagan was at best a fairly good governor of California (which is, perhaps the best one can expect of any governor of California) but he was a spectacularly successful President of the United States.
Palin's own tenure as governor is far briefer than Reagan's, but it was marked by many accomplishments that eluded the Gipper during his much longer tenure in Sacramento, including a reduction in state spending, slashing earmarks, reforming energy policy and forcing the big oil companies to drill on state leased land and rebating the royalties to the Alaska taxpayers. After the 2008 election, she tried to return to her duties as governor, but Obama's henchmen were waiting in Alaska to execute a preemptive strike on her 2012 presidential ambitions with a flurry of bogus ethics complaints. Instead, she preemptively struck THEM, resigning as Governor and going national, wreaking havoc on Obama's agenda and dealing both the Democrats and their GOP Establishment confreres a body blow in the 2010 midterms. File Obama's Alaska "bogus ethics complaint" strategy under the header: "Hoisted by your own petard."
As successful as Palin was as Governor, her tenure in Juneau is not the principal reason she is the frontrunner for the GOP nomination for President, any more than Reagan's tenure in Sacramento was the principal reason he garnered support. Like Reagan, she has the ability to lead and to inspire, to add to the GOP coalition so decimated by the Roves and the Bushes for the last 20 years. Like Reagan, she is the bete noir of the Establishment, which will employ all means fair and unfair, to take her out. And like Reagan, she has the courage to take on the Establishment, regardless of the costs, and to beat them.
Oh, one more thing. Lyn Nofziger once said of Reagan, "He was the most competitive [person] I ever saw." (although Nofziger used another, more colorful word in place of "person", undoubtedly for emphasis). When Palin remarked last week that, if she runs, she will be "in it to win it", I thought of Nofziger's remark. Yet one more similarity between the Gipper and Sarah Barracuda.
Ping!
Excellent views. We have those with PDS right here on FR, with the “no experience”, etc. lame excuses because their favorite is somewhere far in the rear-view mirror of the Palin Express.
Interesting points RE Kurt Grove.
What IS his political history from 1978-1980, I wonder?
I liked your post so much that I saved a copy.... thanks.
Oh joy, another Palin is the Gipper vanity.
Feel free to compare her to Reagan AFTER she does something on the level that he did. The man turned a country around that had suffered under LBJ, Nixon and Carter, broke the Soviets and contributed to the liberty of several hundred million people.
I think it’s time we stop obsessing over comparisons to Reagan. Surely, he’s the president who came closest to governing like an actual conservative. But there’s an entire generation of adults that never knew him as anything other than a guy from history. The litmus test (is he/she Reagan enough?) doesn’t mean very much to them.
I think that cast of clowns is now regretting the day they ever employed that strategy.
“serpentine Rove”
Karl is built more like a toad. ;_)
Dear Lord....did you write this? You label it as a vanity but it’s the best piece of writing, and truest, that I’ve read all year.
Tell me true, you wrote this?
Well I gotta comment.
First, every word of this missive is true, astute, insightful. I just finished Palin’s book and as I shut the book cover I looked to the heavens and thought....this woman is genuine. There really are people who love their country, are decent, are, as you so accurately state, charismatic.
Charisma is an almost human, even sexual, characteristic. For when all is said and done and the dust settles, human beings are animals that are meant to live in “flocks”-societies if you will. And like the flocks in the animal kingdom, we need leaders. Charisma is that certain something that we instinctively recognize in those who would lead us.
Which is not to say that there isn’t a false charisma, perhaps in one who would preach “hope and change” but then, I’d argue, only the truly foolish and wishful thinkers fell for that.
The Blue Blood Ruling Class GOP has not one ounce of charisma. But they have a function, given the right time and place. Take Karl Rove, dag, now there’s a charismatic fellow that will hypnotize you before you know what happened. He is a leader, of sorts, a leader of the mundane, the boring, those that run the nuts and bolts when not much is going on in the world. Problem here is over time they too became comfortable in their power. Bigger problem is that they are of no use when a threat is upon.
The rest of the world, the Arab poohbahs, the George Soros’, those that want to beat their wives at night and make them wear a burqua during the day, have the money to purchase false leaders, pretend that there’s a charisma that will bring hope and change.
The Blue Blood Ruling Class GOP cannot effectively dispel this danger to our existance as we know it. they are too boring, staid, lacking courage, comfortable with the perks of power. Their time was upon, danger came, time for them to go.
Of course they fight to keep their spots, they like the better offices, the chairmanships a majority brings. So they recruit those who will vote with the other side, tell them to smile, pat them on the back and send them out to a wary electorate, telling that same electorate that this is good for you, haven’t we been running things all these years while you watched reality TV? For a while we buy into it.
We know this, instinctively. It’s like herding cats, getting the great unwashed out here in the fruited plains, to rise up and roar against the boring and comfortable. But we know it when we fill it, we know what we need comes the right time and it’s time to tell Karl Rove to step aside.
It’s time to have a Sarah Palin step up as is needed.
Well argued and well written!
Not to diminish or oversimplify the three characteristics that Reagan and Palin have in common, but I think it can also be said that they are both of the “Common Class”, not the ruling class. Common folks, whether in small town Illinois or on the North Slope of Alaska, live their beliefs and don’t need a teleprompter to remind them of how to speak them. Their foundation - faith, family, and American values - is what gives them their charisma, courage, and ability to articulate conservative principles. It all comes from “who they are”.
And this is why they scare the Left so badly. People like Reagan and Palin are what they appear to be, and the usual kryptonite-like attacks cannot deter or break them.
“Reagan and JFK could light up a room, in effect fill it, just by entering. Palin has exactly the same effect.” I have hesard, from someone who knew kennedy—well enough to be on easy speaking terms —that one of Jack Kennedy’s charms was that he DIDN”T try to dominate a room, but was surprisingly shy.
I didn’t read it after the first sentence. Why all the vanities to convince people of what they already should know?
Well done, BC.
WOW! THis is a keeper!
That’s what cultists do, I reckon.
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