It could get really interesting.
Debra Opri on Ronald Reagan from her website
Ronald Reagan: A Tribute
June 2004
by Debra Opri - Attorney and Legal Analyst
Ronald Reagan. He was to my generation, what Franklin Roosevelt was to my parents. He was a father figure... a leader.... to many, a savior.
Like the rest of my generation, Ronald Reagan had been known as a one time movie actor and two term governor of California. At the time of the 1980 presidential election, I was a New Jersey girl attending New York University. I was young, and I was, in a word, a virgin to politics. When I first voted for him, I remember standing in line with my parents and my siblings in that small New Jersey suburb voting hall. I remember hearing my father state that we would all vote for Reagan as he was the best man for the job. I remember telling my father that this was, after all, a democracy, and I would vote for who I wanted. He looked at me and smiled and he spoke those words that would stay with me forever: "That's right, Debra, and he is the man we all want." I'll end the story by stating that I ended up voting for Ronald Reagan. He was the man I wanted. However young, this I knew for sure. Four years later, I voted for President Reagan again.
When Reagan left us after his second term, it was as if a grandfather had passed. A world of security assured by that of an older generation had left me. I admit, that while I yearned for the youthfulness of what Clinton would later offer, I mourned the loss of that older generation‚ unquestioned sense of security. I would never feel it again. And as we enter the election of 2004, I must admit, I yearn for it still. A lost dream. A desire for that City on the Hill.......a city I remember but which we have all lost sight of since 9-11.
Today, one week after Ronald Reagan has left us for good, and more than 15 years since he left public office, I remember those days of secureness in our country and in our dreams. They were days when we believed the days ahead would be good ones. Days that would be better for all of us.
I do not mourn the loss of Ronald Reagan today. I do, however, celebrate his life, and what he brought to this country and to me. I mourn for his wife.......his dear Nancy....and I yearn for her peace and for the day when she and all of us will find ourselves wrapped in the glow and comfort of Ronald Reagan's goodness and love for this country.
I was moved to write this column one week after his burial, with the thought that should I still feel as strongly as I did when I first viewed his coffin up to the last moment when Nancy kissed him goodbye in Simi Valley, I would feel confident that the strength of my emotions would equal the sincerity of my conviction that the man I had lost sight of for the past 15 years since he had left office, was a great man who had, indeed, affected my life.......and the lives of so many millions of others......in a good way.
Today, I mourn the loss of someone to believe in. I believed in Ronald Reagan and the convictions he held. I mourn the loss of his generation as the beacon of the light to that City on the Hill, President Reagan spoke so often about. I dream of a day when we will happen upon another like him. For this I have great hope. For this I look to tomorrow.
May God bless the memory of Ronald Reagan and all that he stood for.