I cannot think of a better way to demean the man, as strong and intelligent a conservative as he was.
I saw how Reagan worked and voted for the man and love him still. He utilized talents that NO other politician had. That does not demean him in the slightest. His life prepared him to take on the presidency which he did in another period of collapsed leadership.
But how much of his ideology was so important to the voters that they would have voted for him only because they agreed with it is not that great. American voters do not vote for ideologues. They wanted a LEADER with a VISION and that was Reagan. THAT is why they voted for RR. Not one in a hundred would have said “I understand Supply Side theory and will vote for Ronnie because of it.” Maybe one in a thousand would still be too high.
Typically the media destroys Republicans by whipping up FEAR in the voters portraying them as wild men, Rednecks, Crackers, just plain evil. It could not do that to Reagan because he was already established as almost a member of the family and highly media-saavy.
Nor was the contrast between the parties as great as today since the Democrat Party still had some patriots within it and had not yet been taken over by the Screwball Left.